Opinions

For the past several months, news about food shortages and famines affecting large segments of the East African population have been fueling donation appeals from major public and private aid organizations.

One year after the earthquake in Port-au-Prince, a number of observers and actors are questioning the international aid : reconstruction is at a standstill, homeless people are still facing the same situation and the deadly cholera epidemic reminds us that international aid has not helped to improve the very poor sanitation system.

The United Nations has again raised the question of the implication of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) - in power in Rwanda since July 1994 - in crimes committed between 1993 and 2003 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The main objective of the United Nations Development Millennium Goals - a consensus if ever there was one - is to end poverty.

UN Women was created in July 2010, after intense negotiations between United Nations member states and women's rights organizations. This new structure will take over the mandates of the four UN organizations heretofore devoted to gender issues.

Rony Brauman criticises the International Criminal Court's indictment of the Sudanese president for genocide. If the prosecutor's argument is followed, humanitarian organisations working in the displaced people's camps should be charged with complicity in genocide.

The debate over humanitarian intervention is keeping the northeastern US's left wing intelligentsia in a continual stir, torn between its opposition to imperialism and its devotion to human rights.

In May 2010, a convoy of six boats loaded with medical equipment, building materials, school supplies and prefabricated shelters, as well as numerous volunteers, headed for Gaza. This "freedom flotilla" aimed to "break the siege of Gaza". It was stormed by an Israeli commando. Nine activists lost their lives. In this article, Rony Brauman questions the terms used to legitimize or disqualify this initiative and the tragedy that followed. Was the flotilla "humanitarian" or "political"? Is there a "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza or not?

On March 3, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen sent a direct appeal to the humanitarian community. Acknowledging the limits of military force in the stabilization and reconstruction effort in Afghanistan, he wants to create a closer partnership with the NGOs.

The public arena is once again the stage for discourse and undertakings of Titanic proportions. Some endeavour to adjust our planet's thermostat while others devote themselves to wiping out the scourge of disease.

In January 2009, eight regional and national NGOs got together to create the "International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect." The photo on their website's homepage sets the tone.

Pharmaceutical companies produce drugs and are increasing involved in the clinical trials of these products. This conflict of interest is incompatible with the expectations  of Public Health. Rony Brauman suggests that the industry no longer be responsible for therapeutic trials.