Humanitarian aid in settings of conflict has always been fraught with challenges. In the absence of political engagement, however, manipulation by state authorities, however, have the potential to pervert aid intervention to inflict harm. South Sudan exemplifies how states may abuse the humanitarian response to retreat from public responsibility, divert funds to further violence and conflict an...

• Do people think foreign aid is a legitimate expenditure of taxpayer money? • How much foreign aid do people believe is given, and to whom, in which countries? • How effective do people think aid is in humanitarian crises, or for poverty reduction, enhancing human development or contributing to security? • Do people believe that foreign aid provides value for money? • What purposes do people b...

INTRODUCTION This paper aims to raise awareness regarding ethical issues in the context of humanitarian action, and to offer a framework for systematically and effectively addressing such issues. METHODS Several cases highlight ethical issues that humanitarian aid workers are confronted with at different levels over the course of their deployments. The first case discusses a situation at a ma...

Humanitarian action has always been a highly political activity. The provision of humanitarian assistance and protection has relied upon engaging with political authorities in conflict-affected countries, and thus influenced the political economy of conflict. At the same time the provision of humanitarian assistance has been influenced by domestic political considerations in donor countries, re...

This article examines the relationship between humanitarian aid and ecologically unequal exchange in the context of post-disaster reconstruction. I assess the manner in which humanitarian aid became a central part of the reconstruction process in India's Tamil Nadu state following the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This article focuses on how the humanitarian “gift” of housing became a ...

has come in a context in which the US backed coalition has consistently sought to use humanitarian aid to build support for its military and political ambitions. MSF denounces the coalition’s attempts to co-opt humanitarian aid and use it to ‘win hearts and minds’. By doing so, providing aid is no longer seen as an impartial and neutral act, endangering the lives of humanitarian volunteers and ...

An increasing number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) provide humanitarian assistance, including healthcare. Some faith-based NGOs combine proselytising work with humanitarian aid. This can result in ethical dilemmas that are rarely discussed in the literature. The article explores several ethical issues, using four generic activities of faith-based NGOs: (1) It is discriminatory to den...

Considering that negative intergroup emotions can hinder conflict resolution, we proposed integrative emotion regulation (IER) as possibly predicting conciliatory policies towards outgroups in violent conflict. Two studies examined Jewish Israelis' self-reported IER, empathy, liberal attitudes, and support for humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Study 1 (N = 298) found that unlike reappra...

 The authors would like to thank the European Agency for Reconstruction for access to their data and their kind support. ABSTRACT Different procurement decisions taken by relief organizations can result in considerably different implications in regards to transport, storage, and distribution of humanitarian aid and ultimately can influence the performance of the humanitarian supply chain and t...

In Canada, although opinions vary on what specific measures are most appropriate to support our economy during the present economic crisis, most appear to agree that the federal government needs to intervene. In light of the broad support for financial rescue efforts aimed at the domestic economy, it seems fair to ask what portion of the Canadian budget, if any, should be allocated to internati...