Humanitarian action and military intervention: temptations and possibilities

Although the war in Liberia in July 2003 claimed hundreds of lives, the international community was reluctant to intervene. In this article, the author debates the question: does international military intervention equal protection of populations? The role of humanitarian organisations in military intervention is considered. Aid organisations cannot call for deployment of a protection force without renouncing their autonomy or appealing to references outside their own practices. Such organisations provide victims with vital assistance and contribute to ensuring that their fate becomes a stake in political debate by exposing the violence that engulfs them, without substituting their own voices for those of the victims. The political content of humanitarian action is also outlined and military intervention in the context of genocide is discussed. The author concludes that the latter is one of the rare situations in which humanitarian actors can consider calling for an armed intervention without renouncing their own logic.     

The mental health of expatriate and Kosovar Albanian humanitarian aid workers

The mental health consequences of exposure to traumatic events and the risk factors for psychological morbidity among expatriate and Kosovar Albanian humanitarian aid workers have not been well studied. In June 2000, we used standardised screening tools to survey 285 (69.5%) of 410 expatriate aid workers and 325 (75.8%) of 429 Kosovar Albanian aid workers from 22 humanitarian organizations that were implementing health programmes in Kosovo. The mean number of trauma events experienced by expatriates was 2.8 (standard deviation: 2.7) and by Kosovar staff 3.2 (standard deviation: 2.8). Although only 1.1% of expatriate and 6.2% of Kosovar aid workers reported symptoms consistent with the diagnosis for post-traumatic stress disorder, 17.2% and 16.9%, respectively, reported symptoms satisfying the definition of depression. Regression analysis demonstrated that the number of trauma events experienced was significantly associated with depression for the two sets of workers. Organisational support services may be an important mediating factor and should be targeted at both groups.     

Supporting breastfeeding in emergencies: protecting women's reproductive rights and maternal and infant health

Women have the right to support that enables them to breastfeed. Supporting breastfeeding in emergencies is important because artificial feeding places mothers and children at risk. In emergencies, artificial feeding is dangerous to the infant, difficult and requires substantial resources. In contrast, breastfeeding guards infant health. It is also protective against postpartum haemorrhage, maternal depletion, maternal anaemia and closely spaced births and should therefore concern not only nutritionists, but also those involved in reproductive health. However, it is common for women's ability to breastfeed to be undermined in emergencies by the indiscriminate distribution of breast-milk substitutes and the absence of breastfeeding support. Controlling the distribution of breast-milk substitutes, providing supportive environments, and appropriate medical and practical assistance to breastfeeding women safeguards the health and well-being of mothers and babies. Greater collaboration between the nutrition and reproductive health sectors is required to promote best practice in protecting breastfeeding women and their children in emergencies.     

The development of aid agency policy on the use of imported biscuits in emergency relief

During 1985 more than 5,000 tonnes of biscuits consisting of twenty-eight different brands were sent to Ethiopia and Sudan for emergency relief feeding. They were freely available to recognized agencies operating feeding programmes. Biscuits were popular with programme supervisors as few resources (fuel, staff and personnel) were required for their preparation and distribution. They were also popular with beneficiaries.
Different aspects of biscuits were examined and characteristics considered important included: nutritional composition, acceptability to beneficiaries, packaging, the biscuit dimensions, shelf-life and accompanying information (nutritional composition, ingredients and guidelines for use).
The results of a field study indicated that biscuits have a limited, but useful, role to play in the early stages of emergency relief. Based on the study, guidelines for both donors and users, on the use of food aid biscuits were developed, which emphasize their joint responsibility in minimizing the misuse of biscuits.     

Sustainable Development and the Role of the Financial World

The incapacity to finance sustainable development through philanthropic official assistance turned the Johannesburg Summit to business world and the financial industry. Pioneering financial institutions – including development banks and private banks – have developed a wide range of innovations that can support sustainable development. This article highlights a few innovative products and markets and focuses on the progress made by financial players on the level of standards, metrics and guidelines to improve sustainability management systems, reporting and accounting practices and the multi-stakeholder dynamic. The role of the socially responsible investing (SRI) community has been underexposed by the Summit. Through its voice and market success, SRI has moved from a green market niche to the mainstream, however not becoming mainstream. The invaluable levering effect of SRI has just been discovered by authorities and market regulators and is becoming instrumental. In order to show the business case of Corporate Social Responsibility and to prove the financial viability of the People, Planet, Prosperity investing approach, the SRI community should critically reflect on its own quality assurance systems, sound disclosure and verification practices.     

Two solitudes: post‐tsunami and post‐conflict Aceh

In August 2005, after the devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean Basin, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the cessation of hostilities was signed by Aceh's longstanding adversaries—the Government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). The tsunami was a major catalyst for ‘disaster diplomacy’—international political pressure, which, this paper argues, was an important ingredient in creating conditions for the MoU, although the situation within Aceh also shaped the peace process. Based on interviews conducted in 2006 and 2007 with government officials, GAM representatives and fighters, and non‐governmental organization staff in Aceh, this paper finds that assistance for tsunami survivors far exceeds that available for conflict survivors and ex‐combatants. The formation of these two solitudes—the tsunami‐affected and the conflict‐affected—compounds challenges for sustaining peace in Aceh. This research points to an enduring lack of livelihoods for former fighters and conflict victims that may threaten a sustainable peace.     

Apples, Pears and Porridge: The Origins and Impact of the Search for 'Coherence' between Humanitarian and Political Responses to Chronic Political Emergencies

During the 1990s a consensus emerged within the international humanitarian system that there was a need to enhance the 'coherence' between humanitarian and political responses to complex political emergencies. Closer integration between aid and political responses was seen to be necessary in order to address the root causes of conflict-induced crises, and to ensure that aid did not exacerbate political tensions. This paper explores the theory and practice of coherence over the past decade. It argues that, by sleight of hand, the coherence agenda has been reinterpreted such that humanitarian action has become the primary form of political action, rather than merely a substitute for it. The coherence agenda has been driven by geopolitical events, domestic policy considerations in donor countries and the more parochial concerns of aid policy, and is reflected in a number of substantive changes in the humanitarian architecture. Many of the tenets of this 'new humanitarianism' have been embraced by the majority of relief agencies, and thus legitimised it. The paper concludes that political humanitarianism, as opposed to active engagement by political and military actors, is flawed ethically and technically. It will provide neither an effective palliative for the ill effects of war, nor address its causes.     

Hunger, poverty and food aid in Sub-Saharan Africa: Retrospect and potential

Frustrations and failures will continue to mount if we do not immediately summon the courage to revise the ways we think and take action-as well as maintaining essential services to support life and health … Saving hundreds of thousands … who are at risk of dying from malnutrition or infection is an immediate imperative. But it must be only one stage in the progress toward other activities, and one element in the truly comprehensive approach… The main intent of this paper is to explore aspects of the nature and evolution of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa with special reference to food and hunger and their interaction with macro-economic policy. An attempt is made to outline the overall context within which food aid needs to be used in order to have a greater developmental impact. Following an Introductory Section I, Section II provides a sketch map of how recession and lagging food production - with cyclical weather crises superimposed - affect the human condition of poor people. Section III reviews die interaction between "standard" IMF stabilization and World Bank structural adjustment strategies and poverty/hunger. Improvements in the design of stabilization and adjustment programmes, and of the inter-relationship with them of emergency programmes, can be identified. A number turn on the broadened and more innovative or catalytic use of food aid. Section IV reviews aspects of facing a continuing series of emergencies and of designing life support programmes to facilitate rehabilitation of the households directly affected as well as of the national economies. From this base it explores a series of elements in achieving renewed development. The concluding Section seeks to explore the strengths, limitations and potentials of food aid in the context set by the previous sections. The standard criticisms of food aid appear to be overstated and/or to relate to particular modalities or approaches rather than to anything intrinsic. A number of criteria for improving the effectiveness of food aid - especially in respect to rehabilitation, recovery and renewed development - are set out.     

What happens to the state in conflict?: political analysis as a tool for planning humanitarian assistance

It is now part of received wisdom that humanitarian assistance in conflict and post-conflict situations may be ineffective or even counterproductive in the absence of an informed understanding of the broader political context in which so-called 'complex political emergencies' (CPEs) occur. Though recognising that specific cases have to be understood in their own terms, this article offers a framework for incorporating political analysis in policy design. It is based on a programme of research on a number of countries in Africa and Asia over the last four years. It argues that the starting-point should be an analysis of crises of authority within contemporary nation-states which convert conflict (a feature of all political systems) into violent conflict; of how such conflict may in turn generate more problems for, or even destroy, the state; of the deep-rooted political, institutional and developmental legacies of political violence; and of the difficulties that complicate the restoration of legitimate and effective systems of governance after the 'termination' of conflict. It then lists a series of questions which such an analysis would need to ask--less in order to provide a comprehensive check-list than to uncover underlying political processes and links. It is hoped these may be used not only to understand the political dynamics of emergencies, but also to identify what kinds of policy action should and should not be given priority by practitioners.     

Modeling perceived collision risk in port water navigation

An increase in the likelihood of navigational collisions in port waters has put focus on the collision avoidance process in port traffic safety. The most widely used on-board collision-avoidance system is the automatic radar plotting aid which is a passive warning system that triggers an alert based on the pilot’s pre-defined indicators of distance and time proximities at the closest point of approaches in encounters with nearby vessels. To better help pilot in decision making in close quarter situations, collision risk should be considered as a continuous monotonic function of the proximities and risk perception should be considered probabilistically. This paper derives an ordered probit regression model to study perceived collision risks. To illustrate the procedure, the risks perceived by Singapore port pilots were obtained to calibrate the regression model. The results demonstrate that a framework based on the probabilistic risk assessment model can be used to give a better understanding of collision risk and to define a more appropriate level of evasive actions.