Targeting in Complex Emergencies - Darfur Case Study

The Darfur conflict is now in its sixth year, and has drawn in a complex web of local, national, and transnational interests, which play out in different types of inter-connected conflict throughout the region. From the start of the conflict in 2003, protection threats and restricted access have been major challenges to the humanitarian community. Since then the level of insecurity, the numbers affected, and degree of humanitarian access have evolved and changed.

The study concludes that there is very little household targeting of food aid at the local level. The accepted basis of entitlement of food assistance in Darfur is based on group status (IDP, host/resident, rural), not need (food insecurity).

The IDP claim or “right to food” is closely interwoven with the claim for protection more broadly and, as such, this claim which is directed at WFP is closely intertwined with other politicized claims which lie at the heart of the IDP’s own narrative or IDP identity. While the categorization of beneficiaries as IDP, resident, etc., is a pragmatic and practical response to the problem of targeting, the risk is that it continues to reinforce a politicized claim for food aid. As long as food aid entitlements are so closely linked with wider and more highly politicized claims, there remains very limited potential for community-based targeting in this complex setting.