Responding to Emergencies and Fostering Development: The Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid

by Claire Pirotte (Editor), Bernard Husson (Editor), Francois Grunewald (Editor)

Overview

Civil wars, genocides, natural disasters and other emergencies multiplied in the 1990s, and not just in the South, but in the Balkans and the former Soviet bloc. This book is about how to respond to the fundamental difficulties thrown up by these humanitarian crises. It brings together thinkers from many of the leading emergency relief and development agencies as they try to learn from their own experiences and develop a shared understanding of how to act more effectively in future. What kind of aid, in particular, should be brought in when the situation on the ground mixes up emergency relief with the longer-term process of development?

One response, of course, is to get the specialist agencies of both kinds to work more closely together. But this approach, although necessary, is not enough. The situations encountered in the field demand a new understanding of what such crises actually are. Repeated emergency interventions and the suspension of long-term development projects have become so frequent that they compel us to look again at the whole conception of international aid. Prolonged periods of instability and crisis have often become part of the development process. It may be necessary, therefore, to end the increasingly artificial distinction between disaster relief and development aid.

This book includes many different voices and embodies an open-ended debate about the whole diverse process of international aid. The experiences and lessons it contains are critically relevant to all those playing a part in, or wishing to understand, the practice and dilemmas of humanitarian aid today. They include those running solidarity groups, NGO field staff, national aid agencies, political leaders and public servants.
Civil wars, genocides, natural disasters and other emergencies multiplied in the 1990s in the South, and in the Balkans and the former Soviet bloc. This book examines how to respond to the difficulties thrown up by these humanitarian crises, and what kind of aid should be brought in.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781856497558
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/27/1999
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.47(d)

About the Author

Claire Pirotte is a medical doctor who used to work internationally for Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Bernard Husson is with CIEDEL (the International Centre for the Study of Local Development).

Francois Grunewald is Chair of Urgence, Rehabilitations, Developpement (URD), a small think-tank co-founded several years ago with Claire Pirotte and Bernard Husson.

Table of Contents

	Acronyms and Abbreviations	viii
	List of Contributors	x
	Members of the Urgence-Rehabilitation-Developpement (URD) Group	xi
	Preface	xii
	Foreword	xiii
	Introduction: In a Troubled World, We Must Remain Alert	1
Part I	Towards a New Analysis of Crisis	9
1	Observations on Crises	11
2	Development Is Not Peace	14
3	The Pattern of Conflicts since 1945	15
4	Development in the Face of Crisis	18
5	The Crisis of International Aid	19
6	Who Determines the Objectives?	21
7	A Better Understanding of the Economic Impact of War	23
8	Humanitarian Aid Cannot Be Reduced to 'Trucking'	26
9	The Humanitarian Impasse	27
10	Keeping Sight of Our Intentions	30
Part II	Combining Skills	35
11	Rehabilitation in North Mali: Variations and Constants since the 1970s	39
12	Remaining Operational during Crises	42
13	Rehabilitation in Cambodia: Uncertain Beginnings	50
14	Bokeo: When the Schedule Becomes a Constraint	54
15	From Emergency Budgets to Development Funding: the Assessment of a Difficult Transition in Mozambique	57
16	And What if the Problem Were on Our Side?	58
17	Complex Reconstruction in Bosnia	60
18	Political Constraints	62
19	Constraints, Strategies and Policies	64
Part III	Towards a New Conception of Outside Intervention in Crsis Situations	67
III.i69
20	Renewing the Modalities of Intervention in Crisis Situations	69
21	Strengthening Survival Strategies, the Key to Intervention	73
III.ii76
22	The Necessity and Specificity of Follow-up Monitoring during a Crisis	76
23	Follow-up Monitoring	78
III.iii	Partnership: an Operational Attitude and a Philosophy	80
24	The Choice of Partners: the Naive and the Ideologists Need not Apply	80
25	A Project Based on Partnership in an Emergency Situation: Eastern Kasai, Zaire	82
26	Partnership and Cholera	91
27	Finding the Right Partner: the Same Problem for Northern and Southern NGOs	93
28	The ICRC and the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies: a Very Special Relationship	95
III.iv	Strengthening the Actors, or Helping Them to Strengthen Themselves	97
29	Social Differentiation between Men and Women in Humanitarian Interventions	97
30	The Specific Problems of Unaccompanied Women in Displaced Persons' or Refugee Camps	101
31	Finding the Last Anti-personnel Mine: an Emergency for Long-term Development	102
III.v104
32	Using the Money in Crisis Situations	104
33	Emergency Aid for Income Generation	109
34	Economic Solutions: a Difficult Concept for Some Emergency Operators	110
Part IV	Open Debates	113
35	On Trends and Their Effects	114
IV.i115
36	Different Aspects of Crisis Prevention	115
37	Better Utilisation of Early Warning Systems	119
38	Burundi: When Material Aid Is not Enough	120
IV.ii	Ethics and Deontology	122
39	Humanitarian Assistance Is a Right	122
40	Assistance and Protection: Implementing International Humanitarian Law	124
41	Neutrality and Impartiality: Fundamental Rights	127
42	Neutrality and Impartiality	129
43	The Rwandan Crisis: Impartiality, Reconciliation and Justice	132
44	Dealing with Inconsistencies	134
IV.iii	Relations of NGOs with Public Authorities and Guerrilla Movements during Transition Phases	137
45	Relations with Public Authorities in Afghanistan	137
46	Peru: Working in Areas Controlled by the Shining Path	143
47	Contributing to the Management of a Transition Period between Conflicts and Prospects of Decentralisation in North Mali	144
48	Building New Dynamics: the Example of North Mali	147
IV.iv150
49	Relations between Humanitarians and the Military	150
50	What Role for the Military in Rehabilitation?	154
	Epilogue	158
	Appendices
1	An Analysis of Food Situations in a Crisis Context: East Kasai, Zaire	160
2	The European Union and Support for Rehabilitation	164
3	A History of the Partnership between the ICRC and the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies	169
4	The Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement	171
5	Emergency Food Aid	173
	Bibliography	175
	Index	178

Editorial Reviews

"The intention and many of the truisms in this book are to be welcomed alongside the brevity and pragmatism of many of its contributions." --Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management

From the Publisher

Explores how aid agencies have adapted their response to humanitarian crises when faced with chronic political emergencies such as civil war and genocide. The 50 papers are divided into five sections that address the political nature of humanitarian action in war time, how to ensure the legitimacy and accountability of aid interventions in conflict-affected countries, the strain placed on the concepts of neutrality and impartiality in responding to complex political emergencies, how to adapt to the chronic nature of complex political emergencies, and the role of aid as an instrument for conflict management. Originally published in France in 1997. Distributed by St. Martin's Press. Paper edition (unseen), $25.00. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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