Introduction
The purpose of this research project is to depict how humanitarian action provided in situations of war have contributed to hindering peace building process. A case study of Sierra Leone from the beginning of the civil war has been used to depict the dark side of humanitarianism. The introduction provides for the research problem, the aim and research objectives, the research question and sub-questions underpinning the study, previous academic research on the topic, justification of the research, the study set-up and limitations, and finally, ethical considerations.
Research problem
According to Perrin (1998), the increase of crises in different countries around the globe has led to the proliferation in the required scale of humanitarian aid to meet the needs of the individuals affected such as shelter, food, medical care, and water. Humanitarian organizations can either support local services that are part of the same work or meet the needs directly. Armed conflict has a direct impact on the people and the society systems. An example of how prolonged conflicts in a country can affect the people and future generations is the war in Sierra Leone. The civil war in Sierra Leone lasted for a decade ending in January 2002 after a successful military intervention from Britain. Nonetheless, conflict still exists while some characteristics of the viciousness and brutality during the war are vivid in the bodies and mind of many Sierra Leoneans (Jang 2015). For example, the trail of Charles Taylor at the ICC (International Criminal Court), the former Liberian president is an indication of the scars that people have years after the war was declared to have ended. Taylor was found guilty of abetting and aiding the war crimes committed in Sierra Leone and during the proceedings, one victim whose forearms had been amputated told the BBC that the Liberian former president deserved 100 years in prison (BBC, 2012). Rebels from the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) consistently invaded border towns which left the country devastated and brutalised. Before the end of the war, various peace agreements were signed only not to achieve the desired objectives. For instance, Lomé Peace Agreement was signed in 1999 but renewed fighting was experienced (Freeman, 2008). While the international community has praised humanitarian action in Sierra Leone to have been successful in leading to peace building, there has been need to have a closer look at the challenges the country continue experiencing threatening the fragile peace (Freeman, 2008). Notwithstanding, the United Nations sent the largest ever peacekeeping mission to Sierra Leone in addition to reconstruction efforts and external aid by the United States, UN, and United Kingdom, the causes of the conflict remain unresolved. The efforts to reconstruct the country have failed to address some of the contributing factors to the conflict including endemic corruption, weak institutions, and youth marginalisation.
Post conflict Sierra Leone has received incredible amounts from different humanitarian organisations from around the world. Some of the leading agencies in the country during and after the war included UNDP, UNHCR, UK DFID (Department for International Development), and UNASMIL (United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone). These and other agencies collaborated to develop four goals of reconstruction, rehabilitation, repatriation, and reintegration. According to Baker and May (2004), the process of reconstruction cost the UK government an approximately 100 million pounds annually while the UN spent 16.4 billion dollars annually. Moreover, the United States spent resources in the reintegration process. These efforts were critical in bringing peace in the short-term considering schools and clinics were built in addition to restructuring of the military and police. However, the billions of monies spent in rebuilding the nation have been unable to address the challenges creating disillusionment among the people of Sierra Leone who were optimistic humanitarian efforts from the international community would resolve their issues. Bryer (2003) reports of the inconsistency between the various military forces in the country during the war and the humanitarian agencies depicting how the latter contributed to the problems the people were experiencing. According to Bryer (2003), the country that has experienced the worst humanitarian disaster is DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and attributes this to the provision of fake information by NGOs to cover up the real situation on the ground.
Humanitarian actions or assistance is supposed to revolutionize the cost of war against humans through provision of relief to the populations deemed vulnerable. Nonetheless, the introduction of resources in zones experiencing conflicts might influence ensuing violence patterns exposing the recipients intended to new risks. In the case of Sierra Leone, the peace building process in the country has been fragile and it has largely been contributed by the presence of many humanitarian agencies during the post-conflict restructuring of the state. While reconstruction in the country has succeeded in various ways, many of the causes that initiated the conflict such as injustice and unemployment are still prevalent. Importantly therefore, it is critical to examine the dark side of humanitarianism by using Sierra Leone as a case study of how humanitarian actions provided from the beginning of the civil war hindered the country’s peace building process.
Aim
The aim of the research report is depicting how humanitarian law is more of harm than good in areas that are under conflict or are peace rebuilding from a long period of wars. The study seeks to demonstrate through Sierra Leone as a case study that humanitarian actions cannot be relied on to bring long-term peace in areas or countries that have faced civil wars. Moreover, the study aims to explain or show how humanitarian actions are a recipe for dependency from richer countries that often provides aid during and after war crisis in many third world countries.
Research objective
The objective of the research is determine what ails humanitarian assistance when deployed in areas faced with conflict for purposes of ensuring better policies and guidelines are designed to achieve efficiency during the peace-building process. Sierra Leone is just one nation among many where humanitarian support has been unable to positively contribute towards achieving non-fragile peace.
Research question
The general question of the research is; does humanitarian action provided during situation of wars or conflicts hinder the process of peace building?
Set of sub-questions underpinning research
The sub-questions underpinning the study are:
• Did humanitarian action provided in Sierra Leone from the beginning of the Civil War hinder the process of peace building?
• Did provision of humanitarian aid become an incentive for Violence in Sierra Leone?
• Did humanitarian agencies help in solving the cause of the Civil War in Sierra Leone?

Previous academic research on the topic
When there is an occurrence of Civil War, foreign donors are widely known to attempt to help the vulnerable persons in areas that are highly affected by contributing via the humanitarian aid. Typically, the aid provides the basic needs of human being and in recent years, the volume of aids have increased. For instance, GHA (2013) determined that OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) member states commitments for humanitarian aid doubled between 2000 and 2010 from $7 billion to $13.8 billion yearly (Wood and Sullivan, 2015). Humanitarian aid plays an active role in areas that are under conflicts. After the end of the Cold War, organisations that offer aid are regular in intrastate conflicts that are armed where many are engaged in providing vital services while at the same time offering security to persons who have been internally displaced including other civilians affected by the violence as concluded by Duffield (1997). The increased penetration in zones that are under conflict puts the workers of the humanitarian agencies together with the communities they provide service at risk. As a result, the trend that has prompted aid and donor organisations to reconsider how their activities could unintentionally or intentionally influenced armed groups behaviours as well as how they might achieve a balance between achievement of humanitarian goals and security in the conflicted areas (Terry, 2011). Additionally deployment of humanitarian assistance in conflicted zones is a counterinsurgency strategy where providing public goods is intended to boost the legitimacy of a regime, help in building the capacity of the state, as well as achieve a reduction in the popularity of support offered by some rebels. Nevertheless, despite many Western militaries being in support of the aid, the strategy has attracted cynicism and scepticism among activists and practitioners. For example, the International Crisis Group (ICG) and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) argue that there is need for an unequivocal decoupling of the aid provided from operations associated with counterinsurgency. The argument is because the strategy blurs the link between the security forces and the providers of aid, no goals are achieved, and it exposes local civilians and aid workers to unnecessary risk (Williams, 2011). According to the findings of some recent studies, the inflow of humanitarian aid leads to the development of negative externalities such as perpetuation of the conflict, and violence against the locals (Narang 2014).
Despite the large volumes of humanitarian aid that is allocated and disbursed to areas under conflict, the influence it has- and in particular, the ability to produce negative externalities has been given little attention by scholars and researchers (Wood and Sullivan, 2015). While studies conducted during the 1990s and early 2000s examined how agencies delivered aid in the areas under conflict with an aim of highlighting the capability of unintentional adverse consequences (Lischer 2005; Baitenmann 1990; Cooley and Ron 2002), some of the recent quantitative researches have extensively been optimistic about the ability of humanitarian actions to reduce the risk of conflict. A limitation common among these studies is that the researchers mainly investigated the role the aid provided played in the prevention of an outbreak of civil violence in large-scale instead of examining how it impacts violence in states such as Sierra Leone which have already been involved in the conflict wars. According to (Berman, Shapiro and Felter 2011), a study in Iraq seeking to determine how aid projects suppressed rebel violence in the country concluded that it was possible to offer support to the state and promote local security but under some clear guidelines and conditions. Nonetheless, some results from recently conducted studies have suggested that humanitarian actions can produce some unintended consequences such as prolonging or worsening civil conflicts and at times being part of conflict diffusion (Narang 2014). Additionally, Böhnke and Zürcher (2013) in their survey experiment in Afghanistan concluded that there was little effort offered for the vital mechanisms undergirding the success anticipated from the development and humanitarian aid projects in regions considered to have fragile peace. Similarly, related literature depicts that there is a stout link between spread of conflict and, instability, and terrorism and the increase in concentrations of people who are internally displaced (Choi and Salehyan 2013; Milton, Spencer and Findley 2013).
During conflicts and wars, rebels are often the weak party and are under constant pressure to acquire resources. Humanitarian aid sites concentrate much of the valuable resources in certain areas known to the rebels. Consequently, the sites become vulnerable targets from the militia seeking to replenish depleted resources (Johnson 2011). According to Wood (2014), predation is a strategy that is common among rebels when seeking to acquire resources by engaging in strategic violence and looting to compensate for the constraint in resources. According to Fast (2009), acquisition of resources such as vehicles, medical supplies, and money among other items from the humanitarian agencies allows the rebels to survive and expand their campaign against a government. For instance, Lischer (2005) reports that rebel faction’s looted medical supply, food, communication gadgets and some vehicles from humanitarian agencies operating in Monrovia during the Civil War in Liberia – in totality expropriating $20 million worth of assistance. Terry (2011) states that conflicts are likely o escalate when humanitarian agencies develop a positive relationship with the state. As a result, civilians are placed at risk of experiencing more violence when aid is used as a method to expand the control of government in a given area. Kennedy (2008) has explained the dark side of humanitarian actions in-depth in his book that is based on true experiences of international humanitarianism. Based on the evidence that Kennedy (2008) has gathered in different regions, he concludes that there is need for initiating reforms to the policies that guide humanitarian actions in zones that are facing conflicts. Finally, in his book the “Lords of Poverty,” Hancock (1992) describes workers employed by multinational relief organisations such as UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, and the European Development Fund of the European Economic Community among others as “greedy and dangerous” in addition to being “incompetent and inadequate.” The view of Hancock (1992) is that these individuals have been part of organisations that have sometimes facilitated or condoned the most grievous and consistent abuses of human rights occurring in different countries across the world. Stanford (2015) argues that the continued aid provided to countries facing conflicts have contributed to the unending problem of dependency.
Justification of research
Conducting the research examining the dark side of humanitarianism in areas facing conflicts is important for a number of reasons. First, the research topic area has not been examined fully and through this study, some of the challenges that contribute to unintentional hindering of peace building can be recognised. Recognition of such issues will be critical to developing good international policies and guidelines for humanitarian agencies to adhere. The role of humanitarian aid is to help vulnerable population and at the same time provide assistance to rebuilding a country faced by Civil War. Through the findings of the present study, humanitarian stakeholders will gain insight into how the Sierra Leone situation was handled and how more could have been done to increase support to building peace that is more rigid. Thus, doing the study helps to increase the discussion on the need to bring reforms to how international humanitarian agencies conduct their affairs during conflicts. Additionally, in relation to academia, the study will contribute to the present literature on the topic. Moreover, future researchers can seek to explore further the study findings.
Research set-up
In the research to be conducted, the secondary method has been selected for data gathering and analysis. The justification of using secondary approach to data collection is because of the inability to utilise primary methods because of the geographical location of Sierra Leone. Secondly, the case study approach was selected as the research design which coincides with the fact that the study focuses only on a single country where humanitarian assistance has hindered the process of peace building. Consequently, fieldwork is not applicable in the present study. Literature research is based on secondary sources such as journal articles, past studies on the topic, books, and relevant articles from the internet. The findings of the study will be based on information from secondary data sources whose validity and reliability can be guaranteed. Assessment of reliability and validity of secondary sources involves ensuring that the authors are qualified and show no bias. Moreover, the reputability of the publishing company matters.
The research will be organised into five chapters that include introduction chapter, literature review chapter, methodology chapter, findings and discussion, and finally conclusion and recommendations for various stakeholders.
The limitations of your research set-up
One of the factors limiting the research set-up provided is the methodology. A secondary research method limits the type of data collected. Unoriginal data and information will be relied upon to present the findings. Sometimes it is difficult to assess the validity and reliability of the secondary sources of data. Finally, the set-up is limited by the timelines provided by the University.
Ethical considerations
Considering that the researcher will not utilise primary methods of data collection no major ethical consideration are associated with the secondary method. The most critical aspect when using secondary sources for data collection is to ensure that the researcher acknowledges through citation any information used from previous authors. Acknowledging the use of other persons content in academia is important to avoid plagiarism which is regarded as an offence. Thus, citations will be present when presenting the findings and a reference list containing the name of the authors, data of publication, title of the article, and the publishing institution will be provided at the end of the research project.

References
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