BACKGROUND Famine early warning systems clearly identified the risk of famine in South Central Somalia in 2010-2011 but timely action to prevent the onset of famine was not taken. The result was large scale mortality, morbidity, and population displacement. DISCUSSION The main factor that turned a drought-related food crisis into a famine was the war that afflicted southern Somalia and the ta...

The politics of life and death is explored from the perspective of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans frontières [MSF]), an activist nongovernmental organization explicitly founded to respond to health crises on a global scale. Following the work of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, I underline key intersections between MSF’s operations that express concern for human life in the midst of...

Protracted conflict and violence in Burma have been conducive to the growth of the opium industry, Burma's single financial success in recent years of economic crisis and authoritarian rule. This in turn has fed violence and subsequent humanitarian crisis. This paper argues that the underlying political economy of the conflict has been overlooked, while conflict itself has been treated as a per...

Bakir (2004) Natural Preparedness, planning, response, recovery Proposed national mitigation strategies for earthquake risk reduction in Turkey from legislative, economic, and technical aspects. The strategies were targeted to different time frames of 1-10 years. Bui et al. (2000) Natural, man-made Pre-crisis, crisis, post-crisis Proposed a framework for designing a Global Information Network (...

Antonio Donini, “Humanitarian Agenda 0 5: Principles, Power, and Perceptions. Afghanistan Case Study,” Feinstein International Center, Tufts University, available at http://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/display/FIC/Humanitarian+Agenda+2015 --Afghanistan+Country+Study. The Feinstein International Center develops and promotes operational and policy responses to protect and strengthen the lives a...

Given the growing scale and complexity of responses to humanitarian crises, it is important to develop a stronger evidence base for health interventions in such contexts. Humanitarian crises present unique challenges to rigorous and effective research, but there are substantial opportunities for scientific advance. Studies need to focus where the translation of evidence from noncrisis scenarios...

The coordination problem of relief items’ distribution operations is essential in humanitarian relief chains. If the coordination is proper, it will improve the response phase to the crisis. In order to improve the coordination in humanitarian relief chains, distribution and warehousing operations of relief items were outsourced to the third-party logistics. In this paper, the procurement-distr...

INTRODUCTION Expatriate healthcare professionals frequently participate in international relief operations that are initiated in response to disasters due to natural hazards or humanitarian emergencies in low resource settings. This practice environment is significantly different from the healthcare delivery environment in the home countries of expatriate healthcare professionals. Human rights,...

BACKGROUND Neonatal deaths account for over 40% of all deaths in children younger than five years of age and neonatal mortality rates are highest in areas affected by humanitarian emergencies. Of the ten countries with the highest neonatal mortality rates globally, six are currently or recently affected by a humanitarian emergency. Yet, little is known about newborn care in crisis settings. Und...