Abstract
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, humanitarian emergency assistance has become a complex, dangerous and contested profession. Since the mid-1990s, emergency relief organizations have been criticized for being ineffective in providing sustainable help to those in need. Relief aid has proved insufficient to address the structural causes of armed conflict or bring about sustainable change for the people it was intended to help. This criticism is especially relevant in the light of relief organizations’ inadequate performance in measuring the wider and longer-term impact of their actions.
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Notes
Mark Duffield, ‘Humanitarian Conditionality: Origins, Consequences and Implications of the Pursuit of Development in Conflict’, in: Geoff Loane and Tanja Schümer (eds), The Wider Impact of Humanitarian Assistance. The Case of Sudan and the Implications for European Union Policy, Aktuelle Materialien zur Internationalen Politik 60,6 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1999), 97–130, 100.
Michael Clarke and Steve Smith (eds), Foreign Policy Implementation (Winchester Mass.: Allen & Unwin, 1985), 173.
Hugo Slim, ‘A Call to Alms: Humanitarian Action and the Art of War’, Humanitarian Dialogue Opinion (Geneva: The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, 2004), 1–18, 4.
For a discussion of the negative side effects of humanitarian emergency assistance, see: Mary B. Anderson, Do No Harm. How Aid Can Support Peace — or War (Boulder, London: Lynne Rienner, 1999)
Geoff Loane and Celine Moyroud, Tracing Unintended Consequences of Humanitarian Assistance: The Case of Sudan. Field Study and Recommendations for the European Community Humanitarian Office. Aktuelle Materialien zur Internationalen Politik 60/9 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2000).
David Bryer and Edmund Cairns, ‘For Better? For Worse? Humanitarian Aid in Conflict’, Development in Practice 7, 4 (1997), 363–74, 363.
Mikael Barfod, ‘Humanitarian Aid and Conditionality: ECHO’s Experience and Prospects Under the Common Foreign and Security Policy’, in Nicholas Leader and Joanna Macrae (eds), ‘Terms of Engagement: Conditions and Conditionality in Humanitarian Action’, Report of a Conference Organized by the Overseas Development Institute and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva, 3–4 May 2000, HPG Report 6 (London: Overseas Development Institute, 2000), 37–43, 38.
See: Peter Uvin, The Influence of Aid in Situations of Violent Conflict: A Synthesis and a Commentary on the Lessons Learned from Case Studies on the Limits and Scope for the Use of Development Assistance Incentives and Disincentives for Influencing Conflict Situations, ‘Informal Task Force on Conflict, Peace and Development Co-operation’ (Paris: Development Assistance Committee, September 1999), 9
Austen Davis, ‘Thoughts on Conditions and Conditionalities’, in: Nicholas Leader and Joanna Macrae (eds), ‘Terms of Engagement: Conditions and Conditionality in Humanitarian Action’, Report of a conference organized by the Overseas Development Institute and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva, 3–4 May 2000, HPG Report 6 (London: Overseas Development Institute, 2000), 27–32.
International Development Committee, Fifth Special Report, Government Response to the Fifth Report from the Committee, House of Commons, Session 1998 (London: DFID, 1999)
International Development Committee, Sixth Report, Conflict Prevention and Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Vol. I, Report and Proceedings of the Committee, The House of Commons, 20 July 1999, Session 1998/99 (London: DFID, 1999).
See for example: Mark Walkup, Policy and Behavior in Humanitarian Organizations: The Institutional Origins of Operational Dysfunction, PhD Dissertation, University of Florida (1997); Richard W. Waterman and Kenneth J. Meier, ‘Principal — Agent Models: An Expansion?’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 8, 2 (April 1998), 173–203
Tony Waters, Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan: The Limitations of Humanitarian Relief Operations (Boulder/Col. and Oxford: Westview, 2001).
Morton H. Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics & Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1974), 313.
Refer to Mark Walkup, Policy and Behavior in Humanitarian Organizations. Also see: Irving L. Janis, Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1972).
Alexander Cooley and James Ron, ‘The NGO Scramble: Organizational Insecurity and the Political Economy of Transnational Action’, International Security 27, 1 (Summer 2002), 5–39, 13.
See: Ian Smillie, ‘Relief and Development: The Struggle for Synergy’, Occasional Paper 33 (Providence: Humanitarianism and War Project, 2000), 35–51.
See: Alexander Cooley and James Ron, ‘The NGO Scramble’, 1 (Summer 2002), 5–39, 15
See: Joanna Macrae et al., ‘Uncertain Power: The Changing Role of Official Donors in Humanitarian Action’, HPG Report 12 (London: Overseas Development Institute, December 2002), 20.
Overseas Development Institute, ‘The Changing Role’, 2. Also see: Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security (London and New York: Zed Books, 2001), 258f.
Joanna Spear, Carter and Arms Sales. Implementing the Carter Administration’s Arms Transfer Restraint Policy (Houndmills, London and New York: Macmillan Press and St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 11.
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© 2008 Tanja Schümer
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Schümer, T. (2008). The Politics of New Humanitarianism. In: New Humanitarianism. Palgrave Studies in Development. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230583245_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230583245_1
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