It has been exactly ten years since Michael Barnett and Thomas Weiss published Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics. Here, several of the world’s leading #disaster academics discussed theoretical issues that could arise during humanitarian aid work. The book was hailed in the academic world but criticized for its lack of experiential knowledge. Ayesha Ahmad and James Smith, the editors of the brand new anthology Humanitarian Action and Ethics, address this. In the book’s 17 chapters, all discussing ethical and moral dilemmas in humanitarian disasters, 22 practitioners and 13 academics have their say. Most of them write about their own experiences working in specific crises. #Syria, #Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of #Congo have dedicated chapters. The increasing migration from the #Middle East# and #Africa to #Europe is a major theme in several chapters. However, most authors draw their examples from various humanitarian disasters worldwide where they have served as doctors, psychiatrists, nurses, or something else. The majority of contributors work within the #healthcare sector. Perhaps not surprising since the editors are affiliated with Doctors Without Borders. Nevertheless, more than just healthcare professionals contribute during humanitarian disasters, and I miss approaches from other practitioners, logisticians, engineers, and accountants. This could have made the book even more interesting.
Compromises
Decisions made during a humanitarian disaster will always be marked by compromises because there are never enough resources to make the best choice. The aim is to make the decision that is «least worst» («least-worst option», page 133). What does a doctor do when she cannot obtain the needed medications? She buys them on the #black market#. What do healthcare workers do when the regime’s forces repeatedly bomb the clinic they operate because they treat regime opponents? They divide the clinic into smaller units and operate less visibly from private houses, which makes the regime perceive them as even more dangerous. What do you do when the hospital where you work is full? Do you turn away patients or work under conditions you know are hazardous to health? If you work at a hospital that cares for refugees, what do you do when some of the local population become critically ill? Most readers of Modern Times Review would surely answer: treat them as well. But the book problematises funding problems and reporting issues associated with helping others beyond the scope of a given project. Furthermore, what happens when #refugees arrive, the medicines are depleted, or the maternity ward is full? Evaluations become even more difficult when it concerns internally displaced persons (IDPs) and not refugees, as in the narrative from southern #Chad (pages 191-192), where all the citizens are from the same country.
Decisions made during a humanitarian disaster will always be marked by compromises because there are never enough resources to make the best choice.
Different actors
Other challenging discussions revolve around who works on humanitarian disasters. International humanitarian actors on one side and local humanitarian actors on the other. Recently, a third category has emerged: «the good helpers.» These dare amateurs who feel compelled to contribute something when they hear about the disaster. Being passive feels wrong. This category includes many Norwegians who travelled to a Greek island with organizations like Dråpen i havet (A Drop in the Ocean).
Emergency Relief vs Development Aid Internationally employed specialists work for exorbitant salaries; in 1999, I was involved in hiring a nutrition specialist for a refugee camp in #Guinea. She demanded a monthly salary of 80,000 Norwegian kroner in addition to having all expenses covered (20 years ago!). Locally employed staff often earn only five to ten percent of internationally employed staff for performing similar jobs in the same places. Maëlle Noé discusses how this affects the working climate between external and local actors involved in humanitarian disasters.
While emergency relief primarily aims to save lives, development aid aims, among other things, to promote #gender equality# (Sustainable Development Goal 5), decent work (SDG 8), and reduced #inequality (SDG 10). When the salary differences are so extreme, emergency relief work undermines development aid. Jane Freedman problematises both the motivation and usefulness of voluntary international humanitarian amateurs. She refers to them as «volunteer tourists» (page 94) engaged in «selfie humanitarianism» (page 99). Based on her own research in «The Jungle», the nickname for the large refugee camp in Calais, France, she says that many of the young people who volunteered there primarily saw themselves as adventurers. Although they wanted to be useful, they also wanted to experience something new. Many were disappointed with the migrants’ dissatisfaction with food and housing standards; they expected gratitude from the refugees but encountered frustration and anger instead. Other amateurs brought so much fresh food for distribution that large quantities had to be discarded in the camp. Moreover, Freedman argues that all the voluntary, free efforts obscure the fact that #migration requires political solutions, not just (attempted) personal empathy.
Giving all authors the credit they deserve for their contributions is impossible. The editors have done a great job of collecting texts from various practitioners in emergency relief and supplemented them with some academic analyses. This is a book that deserves to be under the Christmas tree for employees of humanitarian organizations and included in the reading lists for students of human rights and international security.
