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publications

Humanitarian Actors and Practices

 

How do humanitarian aid workers think and act?

This work focuses on how humanitarian organisations operate, including their members, affiliations, messages, practices and cultures. Aid to refugee, displaced, deported, exiled and interned populations plays a central role in humanitarian action both now and in the past. What types of aid are provided to internees and displaced persons? What kinds of obstacles and dilemmas does it face? What sorts of practical, political and ethical questions are raised by the participation of humanitarian organisations in population displacement and internment policies?

Réfugiés en Tanzanie Louise Annaud Cahier

Food aid and the politics of numbers in Ethiopia

05/15/2008 François Enten

This study sheds light on the mechanisms producing the official data used by humanitarian aid decision makers. It views Early Warning Systems (EWS) as tools that facilitate consensus between the decision-makers involved in the allocation of food aid, enabling them to reach institutional agreements. 

 

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MSF distribue du matériel en Afghanistan Tim Dirven Cahier

MSF and protection: pending or closed?

04/01/2008 Judith Soussan

To embark upon a study of this theme is to enter a field strewn with contradictory representations linked to a highly sensitive issue – the limits of our responsibility – that has generated endless disagreements and debates on our “identity” and the existence or nonexistence of a role for MSF “beyond care”. 

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Un camp de réfugiés à Yida Yann Libessart Cahier

Humanitarian action in situations of occupation

01/01/2007 Xavier Crombé

This Cahier du CRASH by Xavier Crombé combines a study of the experience and positions of MSF vis-à-vis occupation contexts since the 1980s, and the minutes of a talk organised by the 'Fondation MSF' in January 2006 on "Humanitarian action in situations of occupation". 

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Char d'assaut au Burundi Helmut Wachter Analysis

Independance and security

12/05/2006 Xavier Crombé

MSF is an independent organisation that carefully protects its autonomy. In this article, Xavier Crombé draws the connection between this founding principle and the issue of security for humanitarian actors.

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A group of refugees move on as they are told they can cross the border. Borja Ruiz Rodriguez Opinion

Codes of conduct: whose interests do they serve?

01/01/2003 Fiona Terry

As the USA announces its decision to suspend food aid to North Korea - one of the largest beneficiaries of global food aid - Fiona Terry reveals the true political issues behind the decision, and reminds us of how "humanitarian" assistance is used to bolster one of the planet's most oppressive regimes. 

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MSF doctor in a west Kabul maternity Amador Gullar Opinion

Humanitarian action victim of its own success

01/01/2003 Fiona Terry

The international aid regime tends to exaggerate changes over the last decade in the nature of so-called humanitarian crises. Neither violence perpetrated against civilian populations nor the dilemmas posed to aid organisations attempting to assist them have worsened since the end of the Cold War. 

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