risk management

Jeddah camp Candida Lobes Analysis

Crisis and Humanitarian Containment

12/19/2023 Fabrice Weissman

Challenging the idea that humanitarian actors can act free from politics by virtue of their principles, this chapter argues that the politicization of humanitarian aid is in fact the primary condition for its deployment. Humanitarian actors can only act if they maintain a balance between their own interests and those of people in positions of power. This raises a crucial ethical question: At what point do humanitarian organisations consider that deals reached with political powers cross the blurred but very real line beyond which humanitarian assistance does more harm than good?

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Deux femmes responsables de matériel MSF en Iran MSF Analysis

MSF and kidnappings - the secrets and the dilemmas

09/18/2020 Fabrice Weissman

On the 31st January, a symposium was held at Sciences Po in support of Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal, researchers at Sciences Po's Center for International Research (CERI) who were arrested in Iran on June 5, 2019. Roland Marchal was released on 20th March 2020 in exchange for an Iranian engineer detained in France. On 6th May Fariba Adelkhah was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment for "propaganda against the political system of the Islamic Republic, and collusion to undermine national security". The researcher was offered conditional release on condition that she terminates her research, but she refused. 

The symposium brought together diplomats, journalists, humanitarians and researchers, with the aim of "nourishing reflection about prisoners and hostages, from a political, legal and ethical point of view". Fabrice Weissman presented the experience of Médecins Sans Frontières in the face of kidnappings.  
 

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Vue de l'intérieur de l'hôpital MSF à Kunduz, après son bombardement, octobre 2015 Victor J. Blue Analysis

War Breaks Out: Interpreting Violence on Healthcare in the Early Stage of the South Sudanese Civil War

11/22/2019 Xavier Crombé Joanna Kuper

This article seeks to document and analyse violence affecting the provision of healthcare by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and its intended beneficiaries in the early stage of the current civil war in South Sudan. Most NGO accounts and quantitative studies of violent attacks on healthcare tend to limit interpretation of their prime motives to the violation of international norms and deprivation of access to health services. Instead, we provide a detailed narrative, which contextualises violent incidents affecting healthcare, with regard for the dynamics of conflict in South Sudan as well as MSF’s operational decisions, and which combines and contrasts institutional and academic sources with direct testimonies from local MSF personnel and other residents. This approach offers greater insight not only into the circumstances and logics of violence but also into the concrete ways in which healthcare practices adapt in the face of attacks and how these may reveal and put to the test the reciprocal expectations binding international and local health practitioners in crisis situations.

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The shared MSF / ICRC helicopter exchanging passengers in Gumuruk. In the rainy season helicopter is the only reliable way to move around Pibor County in South Sudan. Robin Meldrum/MSF Analysis

Ending the Code of Silence on Abductions of Aid Workers

11/22/2019 Fabrice Weissman

This article discusses the policy of absolute secrecy on abductions adopted by aid organisations. It argues that the information blackout on past and current cases is to a large extent a function of the growing role of private security companies in the aid sector, which promote a ‘pay, don’t say’ policy as a default option, whatever the situation. The article contends that secrecy is as much an impediment to resolving current cases as it is to preventing and managing future ones. It suggests abandoning the policy of strict confidentiality in all circumstances – a policy that is as dangerous as it is easy to apply – in favour of a more nuanced and challenging approach determining how much to publicise ongoing and past cases for each audience, always keeping in mind the interests of current and potential hostages.

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Michaël Neuman is interview by TRT TRT In the media

Aid agencies under attack

08/25/2016 Michaël Neuman

Michael Neuman is interviewed by TRT World about Doctors Without Borders/MSF's decision to pull out of Yemen and humanitarian security, challenging the idea that humanitarian action has become a greater danger to aid workers.

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Débarquement de réfugiés érythréens à Vibo Valentia en Italie Sara Creta Video

Occupational hazards

07/26/2016 Michaël Neuman Fabrice Weissman

In recent years, fear-mongering reports based on hard data have been describing a world of ever-increasing danger for aid workers. The book "Saving lives and staying alive" explores this observation and compares it with MSF's experience of working in particularly dangerous regions.

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young men during a medical visit Siegfried Modola Articles and blog

ATHA Podcast: Michaël Neuman about "Saving Lives and Staying Alive"

05/12/2016 Michaël Neuman

In "Saving Lives and Staying Alive: Humanitarian Security in the Age of Risk Management" Michaël Neuman and his colleague Fabrice Weissman analyze some of the drivers of professionalization in the context of humanitarian security and its subsequent impact on humanitarian practices through a collection of MSF case studies.

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Queue pour la vaccination au camp de réfugiés Yida Karin Ekholm Opinion

The numbness of numbers

05/11/2016 Michaël Neuman Fabrice Weissman

We welcome Abby Stoddard, Katherine Haver and Adele Harmer's response to our critical article on the production and the use of security data in the humanitarian sector and to our book in general. In a field that has been very much lacking debate, if not controversies, we're extremely glad to see a various range of readers engaging in the discussion. 

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