This article looks at the tension between principles and politics in the response to the Afghan crisis, and more specifically at the extent to which humanitarian agencies have been able to protect themselves and their activities from overt instrumentalization by those pursuing partisan political agendas. After a short historical introduction, it focuses on the tensions around the issue of ‘cohe...

OBJECTIVE To explore the characteristics, motivations, ideologies, experience and perspectives of experienced medical humanitarian workers. DESIGN We applied a qualitative descriptive approach and conducted in-depth semistructured interviews, containing open-ended questions with directing probes, with 44 experienced international medical aid workers from a wide range of humanitarian organisat...

Is the ability of humanitarian Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to effectively improve the health and welfare of aid recipients affected by the source of the organization’s funding? This paper examines the effectiveness of humanitarian NGOs as a function of their funding sources, with a particular focus on civil conflict. I argue that NGOs whose revenue depends on private individual contri...

Timely and accurate processing of crisis information and effective communication have been documented as critical elements of disaster relief operations. Despite the lessons learned from previous crises, preparing information for humanitarian assistance and ineffective information sharing remain a recurring and almost impossible task for relief agencies. The purpose of this paper is to propose ...

As human civilization faces new and challenging humanitarian crises, the entrance of EPs into the realm of HA is needed and timely. As noted by Jennifer Leaning [35], an EP at Harvard University, "Medical and public health personnel who respond to these crises enter a domain of perilous complexity. Road maps do not exist, but the possibility of good favors the prepared mind." Thus, with proper ...

Humanitarian access is a crucial element of humanitarian action in situations armed conflict since it impossible to provide direct assistance without it. The right victims fundamental allows aid organizations make an independent assessment needs, ensure the effectiveness their activities and monitor fair distribution such aid. However, gaining maintaining population difficult for organizations....