2 June 1994 Called to a Career in International Relief

Famine, disease, civil war and starving children are no mere television images for Lincoln University alumnus David Shearer of Auckland. Since 1987 and graduation with a masters degree from Lincoln's Centre for Resource Management, the ugly face of international tragedy has been a constant career companion.

David works for the Save the Children Fund and postings have taken him to some of the neediest parts of the world - strife-torn Sri Lanka, shattered by Tamil separatists and guerrilla conflict; Iraq and the plight of the Kurdish homeland-seekers; Somalia and the anarchic aftermath of civil war.

There have been life-changing experiences in all of these places for David and now he's back in New Zealand, from his London base, sifting through the lessons learnt, analysing the approaches taken, the results obtained, and preparing a set of observations and recommendations to help guide Save the Children Fund in its future action.

The value of David's work and the contribution he made in Somalia in particular, was recognised by the Queen in the 1992 British Honours List with the award of an MBE.

David's involvement with Save the Children Fund's international relief work began in Sri Lanka with a posting initially as Deputy Director then as its Relief Co-ordinator.

"Internal troubles had created a rebel-held region in the north of the country, but as a neutral agency we went back and forth over the frontline and had offices in both areas," he says.

"We would motor down roads past one set of sandbags and then on into the opposing group's sandbagged area. Occasionally our journeys were accompanied by the sound of gunfire, so we would have flags flying and a light flashing to signal who we were.

"Sri Lanka taught me about the impact of politics on aid programmes. Both sides needed us and there were always attempts to manipulate us, so we had to have a degree of political 'savvy' in order to preserve our neutrality and get on with the work we were there to do."

From Sri Lanka David was posted to post-Gulf War Iraq where the Kurdish crisis was in full flare. As Field Director for the fund his job was to organise a relief programme.

"Unlike Sri Lanka, Iraq had the eyes of the world on it. There was a huge amount of media interest in the fate of the Kurds and all the armed forces from the United Nations were still in the region. To carry out our relief work we therefore had to deal with a whole range of antagonists, protagonists, observers, commentators and agents of all sorts of organisations.

"If I learnt about politics in Sri Lanka, I discovered the intricacies of diplomacy in Iraq."

In October 1991 David was posted to Somalia as Field Director, basically in charge of Save the Children Fund's programme for the whole country.

"Somalia at that stage was in a state of complete anarchy  - no government, no banks, no post offices, no government departments, no police ... all foreigners had been evacuated, so we were operating very much alone and in an organisational vacuum.

"We were trying to re-start the primary health care service. Children are by far the most vulnerable group in any crisis situation such as in Somalia. They are the ones that die first.

"A month after I started in Somalia a full scale war erupted in Mogadishu and we had up to 400 casualties a day in the city's hospitals."

David says that although he and his workers were seen as neutral "you can't predict where a shell will land and we were living in one of the main target areas."

At that stage the United Nations was not present in Somalia - it was regarded as too dangerous - in fact David and his team were trying to prove it wasn't and eventually the United Nations did become involved.

"When the war finished there was a major problem as a result of the food producing areas having collapsed. No one could get sufficient food in and a major famine followed.

"In August 1992 we were feeding up to 30,000 children and at the same time lobbying for greater international assistance and criticising the United Nations for failing to play a more active role."

From experiencing life in a crisis without the UN, David's next career move was a job with the world body itself. He joined as an adviser in Geneva to the newly formed Department of Humanitarian Affairs which co-ordinates the UN's humanitarian response in emergencies.

He left that position at the end of 1993 and returned to the Save the Children Fund. Since then he has been to Tanzania and Burundi assessing refugee situations and to the Sudan evaluating an on-going aid programme.

While cynicism about aid operations and the value of international relief is often expressed in comfortable first world circles, David speaks with the authority of one who has been and seen the frontline impact of international assistance.

"Relief assistance clearly saves lives and enables people to build for the future," he says, "but to be more than a band aid it must work in tandem with international political will.

"As a New Zealander I feel we have an enormous number of advantages and privileges through being brought up in this country. For example, the educational opportunities open to us. But we don't live in isolation, we're part of a world community, so we do have an international responsibility to help those trapped in the extremes of change."

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.