Humanitarian Aid - Institutions of Aid

• All aid is political
• The rise of consequentialism
• Teleological ethics: actions justified by consequences
• Deontoloigcal ethics: duty based ethics

Designed to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain and protect human dignity during an in the aftermath of emergencies

Should be consistent with the basic humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence

• Financial and material resources provided to promote the broader economic development and welfare of developing countries
• May have essentially political goals: engendering political transformations in recipient countries aimed at reducing poverty and promoting economic and social development

• The humanitarian imperative - 610 signatures of NGOs
• 1. Humanitarian imperative must come first
• 2. Basis of need alone
• 3. Must not be used to further a paricular religious point
• 4. Not to act as instruments of government foreign policy
• 5. Respect culture
• 6. Build disaster response on local capacities
• 7. Involve programme beneficiaries
• 8. Reduce future vulnerability 
• 9. Accountable
• 10. Recognise disaster victims as dignified humans

• Red Cross Movement
• International Committee of the Red Cross
• Founded 1863 to help victims of war and armed conflict
• Funded by donations from states party to Geneva conventions (83%) national socieities: $1.85billion
• International Federation of Red Cross (1919) comprised of national socieities in over 100 countries and 100 million volunteers

• Speaking out or silent diplomacy? Biafra crisis, Nigeria
• The idea of "temoignage" - "to witness"
• $1.01 billion in 2013. 89% of income from private sources (2013 Financial Report)

610 NGOs

1863

1919

To witness

Biafra crisis, Nigeria

89% of income from private sources (2013 FInancial Report)

$1.01 billion

• Increase in number of natural disasters and continuation of human caused disasters
• Greater diversity of humanitarian actors - complexity?
• Increased politicisation of humanitarian aid

• Dependency
• Complexity and coordination
• Masking responsibility
• The problems of consequences
• Questions of risk and security

• 2004 Asia Tsunami
• Lots of money generated, distributed to 10 big NGOs and over 190 smaller ones
• Problems in coordination, effectiveness and distribution

• More effective 
• Lessons learnt
• "Cluster organisation"
• Good links with government

• 2014: 329 aid workers killed, kidnapped or seriously wounded
• 2003-2013 - aid working worker kidnapping quadrupled (HO, 2014)

• NGOs - $7.4 billion (141,400 field staff)
• UN - $9.3 billion (85,000)
• Red Cross - $1.2 billion (47,000)

• Humanitarians have always faced challenges and dilemmas e.g. being associated with political interests, poor coordination, not meeting needs, possibility of creating dependency and other unintended consequences
• However, in the past 2 decades, these have increased because of a number of factors:
• Power of the media to mobilise huge amounts of money
• Acceptance of the politicisation of aid by donor governments and its use for national security interests
• Use of the military to deliver aid
• Concerns about negative consequences for potential recipients and aid workers