Protecting transport of nongovernmental organizations engaged on hazardous duties

Liberia, Somalia and Afghanistan are among those countries where car theft has meant not only a loss of property but a security risk to staff. Learning that one of the enticements to theft of NGO property in these setting has been the knowledge that NGOs will not retaliate through vendetta, IRC has limited the risk by renting vehicles from the local community instead of purchasing new vehicles. An indirect benefit of this approach is that more funds go into the local economy, assuaging an issue which often embitters local communities. This acceptance strategy focusing on a local community may be of limited use when travelling between distant locations. In these situations, protection strategies such as sound vehicle protocols governing routes taken, times of travel, communications in route, use of convoys, etc, become much more important. Deterrence strategies also play a role; in Afghanistan, IRC coordinated with several other NGOs to suspend assistance to a particular district until the community returned several stolen vehicles.