The Joint Operating Principles (JOPs) – How can they help prevent the weaponisation of aid?

Humanitarian aid is being used as a weapon of war by both main parties to the conflict in Sudan, much as it has been for decades during Sudan’s previous wars. Armed actors control and deny access for military purposes; profit from taxes, rents, leases and fees; and manipulate, steal and loot humanitarian resources – enabling them to benefit from aid’s presence and use aid resources to support their political and military objectives. The Joint Operating Principles (JOPs) are an under-utilised tool for managing these challenges and enabling collective approaches among aid actors to prevent and mitigate the risks of aid inadvertently fuelling ongoing violence.

Principles over compliance

Some loss and manipulation of aid is inevitable when delivering humanitarian assistance in a war zone, and cannot be prevented through compliance measures focused on risk reduction. The costs of draconian compliance regimes can be steep: financially, of course, but also potentially in terms of reduced speed of delivery, risk appetite, flexibility and ability to adapt to complex and changing contexts. Compliance efforts also risk becoming check-box exercises with no teeth and little connection to how the aid sector actually interacts with the war. Risk reduction approaches that focus on punitive, compliance-oriented measures also tend to discourage open discussion of the ways in which aid can be, or is, used by armed actors for military purposes. Zero tolerance for aid misuse often leads not to a reduction of misuse, but to a reduction in the reporting of misuse.

By contrast, approaches that focus on building awareness of and commitment to principles decentralise ownership of aid’s goals and ethics across all levels of the aid system. They encourage open debate about what aid’s values look like in practice and create more opportunities for questioning, problem-solving and collective action. They also enable more and better conversations between aid actors on the ground, the communities they support, and the leaders with whom they negotiate, improving the quality of the quick decisions that field staff make daily at the sharp end of the aid delivery process.

Systems analysts note that changes to principles are among the most effective, but most difficult, ways to promote real shifts to complex systems. In Sudan, the principles that would enable us to better manage conflict actors’ efforts to weaponise or benefit from aid are often pitted against systemic pressures to deliver, spend, and maintain access. Greater investment and commitment to principles is needed to help balance these pressures and reduce unintended contributions to the conflict.

What role can the Joint Operating Principles play?

The Joint Operating Principles (JOPs) were quickly compiled after war broke out in 2023, seeking to identify principles, red lines and ground rules for the aid sector’s engagement in Sudan. As in other complex crises, these principles were introduced by the humanitarian community to address a range of needs – including security, operational, communications, and programmatic – promoting collective approaches to managing internal as well as external challenges to aid’s ethics and values.

The JOPs, however, have not been given sufficient financial resources or political will to play this ambitious set of roles. And there is no evidence that the principles are helping the aid response achieve one of its most important critical conditions: ensuring that aid does not drive or prolong the conflict. This is partly a problem of data, as there is no coherent analysis of where the aid sector is following its principles, where it is not, and why. But better data only gets us so far. We also need to ensure that the principles themselves are fit for purpose, debated and understood by all aid stakeholders (including Sudanese communities), and that they adequately prepare aid actors and organisations to navigate the contexts and the challenges they face.

How can the JOPs be more effective in preventing the weaponisation of aid?

A number of investments and commitments are needed for the JOPs to play a meaningful role in helping aid actors understand the potential for aid to fuel conflict and collectively act to prevent it. We must:

Consult widely within the aid sector, with local responders and Sudanese communities to ensure that the JOPs are focused on the most important issues to stop aid from feeding the war. Intensive consultations should help to inform the JOP’s content and structure, while building consensus and buy-in on how they can be most effective. Lessons from Sudan’s past, including the Ground Rules of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) and the principles of the Nuba Mountains Programme for Advancing Conflict Transformation (NMPACT) are also instructive.

Build a culture of principles within the aid sector. This requires statements from leadership from different levels and areas within the aid and diplomatic sectors, the creation of safe spaces for discussion and debate, the inclusion of principles in staff inductions and performance metrics, and project-level measures of success that value adherence to principles as a key programmatic and organisational deliverable.

Fund and act on independent analysis of where we are succeeding – and where we are failing – in upholding our principles. This may mean an independent mechanism to continually assess information and reporting on aid’s ability to follow its principles. Such an approach should not focus on punitive measures (which will only discourage reporting), but on facilitating collective discussion of obstacles and problem-solving.

Mandate collaboration between aid, diplomacy and academia. Aid is under intense pressure to deliver programming and has long made (and continues to make) compromises with parties to the conflict in order to keep projects running. Spaces for principled critique and constructive problem-solving from a wider range of voices are needed to help manage the dilemmas that emerge when delivery comes at the expense of neutrality or other principles.

Develop communication strategies for aid agencies, communities and other stakeholders. This should go beyond dissemination to include a process for interacting with Sudanese communities, a curriculum of principles, and public debate on what they mean in Sudan today. It could include examples of how principles have been acted on, and where challenges remain. Different tools could be developed to communicate with parties to the conflict, civil society, local media and communities, with some developed at the national level and others at sub-national levels.

Prioritise accountability to Sudan’s communities over accountability to the parties to the conflict. As long as aid explicitly or implicitly recognises parties to the conflict as legitimate authorities with sole rights to control aid, it will be used as a weapon of war. We must find ways to value local voices and leadership in shaping aid’s approaches and strategies, without forcing them to adopt the logic and language of the aid hierarchy or abandon their existing accountability structures to their communities. Technology may offer new opportunities to do so, helping to bypass traditional gatekeepers and democratise participation in discussions around aid strategies and approaches.

There is growing interest and commitment from different parts of the aid system in Sudan to think more creatively and holistically about the role that principles can play in enabling an aid response that doesn’t feed conflict, but feeds peace. Making progress will require political will, good analysis, resources, time and leadership. These can be expensive and difficult, but they are essential if the aid response is to live up to its values and ensure that its longer-term impact lays the foundations for peace rather than more war.