Download or read book Doing Bad by Doing Good written by Christopher J Coyne and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An economics-focused analysis of why humanitarian relief efforts fail and how they can be remedied. In 2010, Haiti was ravaged by a brutal earthquake that affected the lives of millions. The call to assist those in need was heard around the globe. Yet two years later humanitarian efforts led by governments and NGOs have largely failed. Resources are not reaching the needy due to bureaucratic red tape, and many assets have been squandered. How can efforts intended to help the suffering fail so badly? In this timely and provocative book, Christopher J. Coyne uses the economic way of thinking to explain why this and other humanitarian efforts that intend to do good end up doing nothing or causing harm. In addition to Haiti, Coyne considers a wide range of interventions. He explains why the US government was ineffective following Hurricane Katrina, why the international humanitarian push to remove Muammar Gaddafi in Libya may very well end up causing more problems than prosperity, and why decades of efforts to respond to crises and foster development around the world have resulted in repeated failures. In place of the dominant approach to state-led humanitarian action, this book offers a bold alternative, focused on establishing an environment of economic freedom. If we are willing to experiment with aid—asking questions about how to foster development as a process of societal discovery, or how else we might engage the private sector, for instance—we increase the range of alternatives to help people and empower them to improve their communities. Anyone concerned with and dedicated to alleviating human suffering in the short term or for the long haul, from policymakers and activists to scholars, will find this book to be an insightful and provocative reframing of humanitarian action. Praise for Doing Bad by Doing Good “Coyne is to be congratulated for a book that strongly calls into question the conventional wisdom that we must look first to government to accomplish humanitarian ends.” —George Leef, Regulation Magazine “Coyne attempts to explain why conventional approaches to humanitarian aid and longer-term economic development have failed miserably . . . . Recommended.” —M. Q. Dao, Choice “Coyne offers a classic neo-liberal economic analysis to explain why the humanitarian project in its current state is doomed.” —Zoe Cormack, Times Literary Supplement

Download or read book International Humanitarian Action written by Hans-Joachim Heintze and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-04 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook examines a wide range of humanitarian action issues in five parts, presented by specialists from different academic fields. The respective parts reflect the five core modules of the International NOHA Joint Master’s Programme “International Humanitarian Action”: a) World Politics, b) International Law, c) Public Health, d) Anthropology, and e) Management. The book serves as a common basis for teaching at all NOHA universities and aims at imparting the basic knowledge and skills needed to excel in a complex interdisciplinary and international learning context. It provides in-depth information on key international humanitarian principles and values, professional codes of conduct, and the commitment to their implementation in practice. The book will thus be useful for all students of the NOHA Joint Master’s Programme and participants of any courses with a similar content, but also for academics and practitioners affiliated with entities such as international organisations and NGOs. It may also serve as an introduction to anyone with an interest in understanding the numerous and inter-linked facets of humanitarian action.

Download or read book Condemned to Repeat written by Fiona Terry and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanitarian groups have failed, Fiona Terry believes, to face up to the core paradox of their activity: humanitarian action aims to alleviate suffering, but by inadvertently sustaining conflict it potentially prolongs suffering. In Condemned to Repeat?, Terry examines the side-effects of intervention by aid organizations and points out the need to acknowledge the political consequences of the choice to give aid. The author makes the controversial claim that aid agencies act as though the initial decision to supply aid satisfies any need for ethical discussion and are often blind to the moral quandaries of aid. Terry focuses on four historically relevant cases: Rwandan camps in Zaire, Afghan camps in Pakistan, Salvadoran and Nicaraguan camps in Honduras, and Cambodian camps in Thailand. Terry was the head of the French section of Medecins sans frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) when it withdrew from the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire because aid intended for refugees actually strengthened those responsible for perpetrating genocide. This book contains documents from the former Rwandan army and government that were found in the refugee camps after they were attacked in late 1996. This material illustrates how combatants manipulate humanitarian action to their benefit. Condemned to Repeat? makes clear that the paradox of aid demands immediate attention by organizations and governments around the world. The author stresses that, if international agencies are to meet the needs of populations in crisis, their organizational behavior must adjust to the wider political and socioeconomic contexts in which aid occurs.

Download or read book Humanitarian Action and Ethics written by Ayesha Ahmad and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2018-06-15 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From natural disaster areas to conflict zones, humanitarian workers today find themselves operating in diverse and difficult environments. While humanitarian work has always presented unique ethical challenges, such efforts are now further complicated by the impact of globalization, the escalating refugee crisis, and mounting criticisms of established humanitarian practice. Featuring contributions from humanitarian practitioners, health professionals, and social and political scientists, this book explores the question of ethics in modern humanitarian work, drawing on the lived experience of humanitarian workers themselves. Its essential case studies cover humanitarian work in countries ranging from Haiti and South Sudan to Syria and Iraq, and address issues such as gender based violence, migration, and the growing phenomenon of ‘volunteer tourism’. Together, these contributions offer new perspectives on humanitarian ethics, as well as insight into how such ethical considerations might inform more effective approaches to humanitarian work.

Download or read book Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action written by Robin Andersen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-14 with total page 649 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this moment of unprecedented humanitarian crises, the representations of global disasters are increasingly common media themes around the world. The Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action explores the interconnections between media, old and new, and the humanitarian challenges that have come to define the twenty-first century. Contributors, including media professionals and experts in humanitarian affairs, grapple with what kinds of media language, discourse, terms, and campaigns can offer enough context and background knowledge to nurture informed global citizens. Case studies of media practices, content analysis and evaluation of media coverage, and representations of humanitarian emergencies and affairs offer further insight into the ways in which strategic communications are designed and implemented in field of humanitarian action.

Download or read book Humanitarian Ethics written by Hugo Slim and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-09 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanitarians are required to be impartial, independent, professionally competent and focused only on preventing and alleviating human suffering. It can be hard living up to these principles when others do not share them, while persuading political and military authorities and non-state actors to let an agency assist on the ground requires savvy ethical skills. Getting first to a conflict or natural catastrophe is only the beginning, as aid workers are usually and immediately presented with practical and moral questions about what to do next. For example, when does working closely with a warring party or an immoral regime move from practical cooperation to complicity in human rights violations? Should one operate in camps for displaced people and refugees if they are effectively places of internment? Do humanitarian agencies inadvertently encourage ethnic cleansing by always being ready to 'mop-up' the consequences of scorched earth warfare? This book has been written to help humanitarians assess and respond to these and other ethical dilemmas.

Download or read book Forensic Science and Humanitarian Action written by Roberto C. Parra and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-01-22 with total page 1486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Widens traditional concepts of forensic science to include humanitarian, social, and cultural aspects Using the preservation of the dignity of the deceased as its foundation, Forensic Science and Humanitarian Action: Interacting with the Dead and the Living is a unique examination of the applications of humanitarian forensic science. Spanning two comprehensive volumes, the text is sufficiently detailed for forensic practitioners, yet accessible enough for non-specialists, and discusses both the latest technologies and real-world interactions. Arranged into five sections, this book addresses the ‘management of the dead’ across five major areas in humanitarian forensic science. Volume One presents the first three of these areas: History, Theory, Practice, and Legal Foundation; Basic Forensic Information to Trace Missing Persons; and Stable Isotopes Forensics. Topics covered include: Protection of The Missing and the Dead Under International Law Social, Cultural and Religious Factors in Humanitarian Forensic Science Posthumous Dignity and the Importance in Returning Remains of the Deceased The New Disappeared – Migration and Forensic Science Stable Isotope Analysis in Forensic Anthropology Volume Two covers two further areas of interest: DNA Analysis and the Forensic Identification Process. It concludes with a comprehensive set of case studies focused on identifying the deceased, and finding missing persons from around the globe, including: Forensic Human Identification from an Australian Perspective Skeletal Remains and Identification Processing at the FBI Migrant Deaths along the Texas/Mexico Border Humanitarian Work in Cyprus by The Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) Volcán De Fuego Eruption – Natural Disaster Response from Guatemala Drawing upon a wide range of contributions from respected academics working in the field, Forensic Science and Humanitarian Action is a unique reference for forensic practitioners, communities of humanitarian workers, human rights defenders, and government and non-governmental officials.

Download or read book Aligning Geopolitics Humanitarian Action and Geography in Times of Conflict written by Gerry O'Reilly and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-01-25 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook offers valuable insights into the nexus between geography, geopolitics, and humanitarian action. It elucidates concepts regarding conflict and power, as well as the role of the state and the international community in mitigating and preventing violence and war. Here the material and non-material, existential or imagined reasons for conflict are deconstructed, ranging from land and resource grabs to Utopian ideals that can degenerate into dystopias, as with Daesh’s caliphate in Syria and Iraq. In turn, the issues discussed range from the local to wider national and global levels, as do their resolution mechanisms. Due to insecurities, the impacts of globalization, divisive nationalistic and isolationist reactions emerging in some democracies including the USA, the UK’s Brexit stress, and the ominous rise of populist parties across continental Europe (from France and the Netherlands to the Visegrád Group, the Balkans, and Greece), citizen fatigue has become increasingly evident, reflected in ever-growing socio-political malaise and violence. As the impact of any humanitarian disaster is proportional to the level of development of the area affected, concepts and categories of humanitarian action are explored, along with development issues at their core, especially in the Global South. Broadly speaking, humanitarian disasters fall into the categories of natural, human-made, technological, or complex; here, however, the focus is on human-made crises. Attempts at greater regulation, national and international organization and multilateralism to prevent violent conflicts, as well as enhanced responses to humanitarian emergencies, need to be supported now more than ever before. This textbook will appeal to graduate and upper undergraduate students and practitioners in the fields of geography, geopolitics, humanitarian action and geographies of conflict and war. In addition to the main content, it includes exercises, questions and sections for autonomous student learning.

Download or read book An Imperfect Offering written by James Orbinski and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is a series of stories in which I ask, again and again, 'how to be in relation to the suffering of others.' It is a personal narrative about the political journey I have taken over the last twenty years as a humanitarian doctor, as a citizen, and as a man. This is a story about a way of seeing that requires humility, so that one can recognize the sameness of self in the other. It is about the mutuality that can exist between us, if we so choose. I have come to see humanitarianism not as separate from politics, but in relation to it, and as a challenge to political choices that too often kill or allow others to be killed. Speaking is the first political act. It is the first act of liberty, and it always implicitly involves another. In speaking, one inherently recognizes that 'I am and I am not alone.' In this space lies our humanity." Having seen things we hope never to see, confronted suffering, dispassion, and evil we hope never to encounter, and faced deep personal torment, James Orbinski still believes in "the good we can be if we so choose." His chosen medium is stories from his own experience-a form of testimony from the front lines-embodied in which are warnings, hope, and lessons in how we can inject humanitarian activity into our lives. Being political, he has discovered, is not only reserved for politicians; admitting imperfection is essential to compassion. The crystal clarity of Orbinski's voice is matched by the urgency of his message; at a time of great political and moral uncertainty, An Imperfect Offering is invaluable reading for anyone who feels he/she can make a difference.

Download or read book Reflections On Humanitarian Action written by Humanitarian Studies Unit and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2001-04-20 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical account of the politics of aid-giving.

Download or read book The Charity of Nations written by Ian Smillie and published by Kumarian Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First world governments disburse considerably more humanitarian assistance than NGOs, yet increasingly what is claimed to be charity has more than a tinge of self-interest & commercial enterprise about it. This book highlights the ambiguities & confusion& argues for reform to the humanitarian structure.

Download or read book The Humanitarian Challenge written by Pat Gibbons and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-03-16 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book includes contributions from academics, practitioners and policy-makers connected with the Network on Humanitarian Action (NOHA), an international association of universities that is committed to interdisciplinary education and research on humanitarian action. Celebrating the twentieth anniversary of NOHA, this book highlights some of the most pressing issues and challenges facing humanitarian action and explores potential solutions. Drawing on theory and practice, and spanning a broad range of subject matter, the book explores the origin of key concepts such as human security, reconciliation and resilience and questions their effectiveness in the pursuit of humanitarian ends. It also charts current developments in the humanitarian system, in particular in its legal and financial frameworks. Issues relating to humanitarian stakeholders, such as the role of the media and the protection of humanitarian workers, are also addressed. The contributions are influenced by a range of disciplines, including anthropology, political science, legal studies and communications.

Download or read book Milestones in Humanitarian Action written by Kevin M. Cahill and published by International Humanitarian Aff. This book was released on 2017 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a celebratory history, marking 25 years since the founding of the Center for International Humanitarian Cooperation (CIHC); the completion of 50 of our premier training course; the highly intensive, month-long International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance (IDHA); the offering of dozens of other specialized courses; the publication of books, conference proceedings, and Occasional Papers, many translated into other languages and used in academic centers all over the world; the development of a Master of Arts in International Humanitarian Action (MIHA); the creation of an undergraduate major in Humanitarian Studies, one of only four such programs offered in any university anywhere; and the establishment of an independent Institute of Humanitarian Affairs (IIHA) at Fordham University in New York. These are but some of the milestones we commemorate here, so that future generations entering the evolving profession of humanitarian assistance might appreciate the challenges faced by earlier pilgrims on a journey that embraced the spiritual as well as the practical elements of this noble, multidimensional discipline.

Download or read book Dilemmas Challenges and Ethics of Humanitarian Action written by Caroline Abu-Sada and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2012 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the perception issues and ethical dilemmas faced by humanitarian organizations.

Download or read book Chasing Chaos written by Jessica Alexander and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jessica Alexander arrived in Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide as an idealistic intern, eager to contribute to the work of the international humanitarian aid community. But the world that she encountered in the field was dramatically different than anything she could have imagined. It was messy, chaotic, and difficult—but she was hooked. In this honest and irreverent memoir, she introduces readers to the realities of life as an aid worker. We watch as she manages a 24,000-person camp in Darfur, collects evidence for the Charles Taylor trial in Sierra Leone, and contributes to the massive aid effort to clean up a shattered Haiti. But we also see the alcohol-fueled parties and fleeting romances, the burnouts and self-doubt, and the struggle to do good in places that have long endured suffering. Tracing her personal journey from wide-eyed and naïve newcomer to hardened cynic and, ultimately, to hopeful but critical realist, Alexander transports readers to some of the most troubled locations around the world and shows us not only the seemingly impossible challenges, but also the moments of resilience and recovery.

Download or read book Humanitarian Economics written by Gilles Carbonnier and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-03 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the booming humanitarian sector faces daunting challenges, humanitarian economics emerges as a new field of study and practice--one that encompasses the economics and political economy of war, disaster, terrorism and humanitarianism. Carbonnier's book is the first to present humanitarian economics to a wide readership, defining its parameters, explaining its utility and convincing us why it matters. Among the issues he discusses are: how are emotions and altruism incorporated within a rational-choice framework? How do the economics of war and terrorism inform humanitarians' negotiations with combatants, and shed light on the role of aid in conflict? What do catastrophe bonds and risk-linked securities hold for disaster response? As more actors enter the humanitarian marketplace (including private firms), Carbonnier's revealing portrayal is especially timely, as is his critique of the transformative power of crises.

Download or read book Development Humanitarian Aid and Social Welfare written by Cornelia C. Walther and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-04-27 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how human behavior is shaped by our aspirations, emotions, thoughts and sensations, and conversely, how the experiences that result from our behavior impact ourselves, others and the planet. Based on an analysis of the constant interplay between these four layers, it offers practical solutions to systematically induce sustainable social change dynamics. It shows why change, in addition to economic and political transformation at the macro level, begins with mind-shifts at the micro level. Hereby it establishes the missing link between investments in personal empowerment and collective welfare. A novel theoretical paradigm is the foundation of this book, which is anchored in the perspective of an ongoing ‘body-mind-heart-soul connection.’ Based on the premise that an equitable society is to the benefit of everyone, it is argued that efforts made for others have benefits at three levels – for the individual who acts, the one who has been acted for and for society.