Brace yourself. I’m about to make a claim: This just might be the most valuable *free* book I’ve ever promoted. This backgrounder was originally prepared by the Humanitarian Practice Network of the Overseas Development Institute. This latter group is said by some to be Britain’s leading independent think-tank on international development and humanitarian issues. Believe it or not, they’ve released their 323-page “Operational Security Management In Violent Environments” as a PDF on the web. It reviews best practices in scores of issue-areas, including risk assessment, security strategy development, hibernation and evacuation, incident reporting, and much, much, much, much more. I’m telling you: In nearly 16 years of Brigada, I can’t remember anything so valuable being so free. No wonder this is a Christmas issue. (If you’ve never made a special donation to Brigada, just distribute this PDF to everyone on your management team, then ask them what you should have paid for it if you would have just known you should have bought it — then send that gift to Brigada. We’d have no trouble ending in the black for 2010. :-) I’m kidding. Kind of. :-) ) But honest, this is a great resource. Completely free. Oh… the link, you say:
http://www.odihpn.org/documents%2FGPR_8_revised2.pdf
(Brigada would like to personally thank our great friends, Kelly and Michèle O’Donnell, for writing us about this manual. We’re extremely grateful. Learn more about the O’Donnells’ work at
http://www.membercareassociates.org/ )
Now — how do we get this into the hands of the planners, decision-makers, and implementation specialists? That’s the next question.
We are impressed with the content of this manual as well as the diversity of people involved in the process of the latest revision. We attended the London launch (via live webinar) and then the Geneva launch in person (Kelly). One of the emphases was the importance of security managemnet for national/local staff (usually the most vulnerable) in addition to international staff. As an example see the short video clip by Humanitarian Policy (a bit graphic) http://www.humanitarianpolicy.org/
Another important item was getting this manual into the hands, ethos, and practice of orgnaizations. A few suggestions: include the manual/topic in Review and Planning Meetings; set up a special session to disucss the topic; and send the link for the manual to colleagues and those in leadership, encouarging them to read and set up a forum to discuss it–for example, chapter one which overivews “Key Concepts and Principles of Security Managment.” We see security management as an ethical responsibility to help protect the lives of mission/aid workers who are willing to lay down their lives for others.