John Twigg asks if there are serious points in the Lancet editorial or only mudslinging. It's a serious opinion piece that raises at least two very important issues. However, the one it gives most attention to, the need to scrutinize INGO practice, is out of touch with reality. With the SPHERE standards well established and under revision and also benefiting from the cluster system division and coordination of labor, there is much more coordination among all humanitarian players including INGOs. They are human institutions, and they suffer from deficiencies and temptations that are all subject to. But my own observation over the past 40 years is that their practice has become much more professional, responsible, and coordinated.
The other two points bear more serious discussion. Firstly, the Lancet reminds us that daily life before the earthquake was in a way also a disaster. This is not trite to say or cynical. Poverty does not immediately lead to vulnerability to death, injury, and loss of livelihood in an earthquake, and not all poverty is the same. But urban poverty in Haiti created densities and living conditions that were bound to maximize loss of life. Will recovery reproduce these conditions or alter them? A very good letter to the Guardian today speaks to that question, and I recommend that everyone read it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/22/haitian-empowerment-prime-goal.
The second point made by the Lancet is that some disasters are neglected, that "some lives are judged more important than others". This is also certainly true. However, the reasons why some disasters are neglected are multiple and complex. This subject too needs much discussion and action. The IFRC offers a typology of neglect which might serve as the basis of such a conversation. See http://www.ifrc.org/what/disasters/about/forgotten-disasters.asp.
Ben Wisner
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-----Original Message-----
>From: John Twigg <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Jan 22, 2010 12:35 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: mud-slinging and international relief agencies
>
>This week's issue of The Lancet contains an editorial entitled 'Growth of aid and
>the decline of humanitarianism' (attached).
>
>Take a look: it's only 1 page. Is this a serious critique of humanitarian agencies or
>just mud-slinging? It does raise important issues, even if these are not original
>insights, but The Lancet has a reputation for provocative editorials - maybe it's
>not above a bit of publicity-seeking itself - and some of the media have duly
>obliged this week by reporting on its editorial.
>
>Comments to this list by all means. You can also email the editor, Richard Horton
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