Magister Legum - LLM / This study investigates the the impact of armed conflict on child education in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Naturally, armed conflict affects negatively on people‟s life. In particular, armed conflict affects the education of children as military groups attack schools, schools children and teachers. Ultimately, armed conflicts also affect the quality of education children receive during hostilities. In light of this, the study assesses how the Congolese government, in line with international and regional human rights obligations, responds to the educational needs of children affected by armed conflict.

The field of Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM) suggests that transactions, collaboration, and value are important in the supply and delivery of products and services to meet the need of impoverished end-consumers. In many cases, the application of LSCM is paramount in most strategic decision-making efforts. Therefore, this research explores the applications of LSCM processes and activities within the community-based context. The methodology used to address the research questions consisted of a hybrid of mixed methods. This mixed methodology provides three essays that investigate the application and development of LSCM in the community-based context. The essays address the flow of charitable products and services through supply chains. The dissertation does not pay close attention to the first-tier suppliers’ suppliers, which is looking at the originating flow of goods and services (raw materials, manufacturing, etc.). However, the dissertation puts a focus on products and services supplied to focal organizations and how these products are then passed on to end-consumers. Essay I looks at the transaction (costs) that ensue from the supply of charitable products. Essay II analyzes a social service ecosystem and investigates how the network of organizations enable the distribution of charitable products and services. Lastly, Essay III examines the delivery of valuable services to the end-consumers, and what tools Community-Based Enterprises (CBEs) should focus on to develop and retain end-consumers in impoverished communities. The research provides conceptual models that review some fundamental LSCM achievement gaps in supplying, delivering and providing social services to end users within impoverished communities. The dissertation draws upon literature from the fields of economics, marketing, social science, and logistics and supply chain management. The dissertation uses the primary research method of unstructured and semi-structured interviews, case studies, written survey instruments and system dynamics within three studies. The studies resolve to look into the term Community-Based Logistics and Supply Chain Management (CBLSCM) as employed by social service providers in the logistics and supply chain context and investigate how it applies to impoverished communities. The research identifies conceptual models that can be used to explain the role of LSCM within humanitarian aid context. The models offer insights on the managerial implications and evidence of using LSCM processes and techniques within impoverished communities. The research has considered that the type of transactional relationships, structure, shared value, service systems, and consumer value, retention and management mechanisms can be achieved utilizing LSCM.

Natural hazard-induced disasters have become a priority concern for international humanitarian child protection actors due to the increase in their intensity, frequency, and the risks they pose for children worldwide. In responding to natural hazard-induced disasters, international humanitarian child protection actors are giving increasing attention to the role of the family in promoting children's well-being. The current interventions implemented to support families in these crisis settings are limited by the lack of grounded understanding of what family is in different contexts, and an understanding of how families adapt to contextual stressors. Using a combination of a literature review, meta-ethnography and critical reflection on how to strengthen humanitarian practice, this dissertation examines how families respond, adapt and can be better supported in natural disaster settings. Key findings are that families draw upon cultural strategies of adaptation to navigate changes in their environment and support their children’s well-being. These strategies are often disrupted by external humanitarian responders, however, hindering the ability of families to adapt and causing unintended harm. Current family-level interventions are limited by their reliance on Northern conceptions of the nuclear family, their failure to recognize the rich diversity of family arrangements and supports that exist, and their predominant focus on dynamics within the family unit, often neglecting to fully consider the interactions families have with their social and physical surroundings. This dissertation provides evidence for why and how current interventions to strengthen families in humanitarian contexts should be realigned in a manner that gives greater attention to families’ adaptation strategies, including cultural and relational aspects, builds on local strengths and avoids causing unintended harm.

Thesis advisor: Christopher P. Salas-Wright / Around the world, attacks against humanitarian aid workers pose a pervasive and intransigent threat to health and human rights, but evidence about the complex factors that predict perpetrators' behavior as well as attack outcomes remains quite limited. While previous studies have addressed several aspects of local and global trends of attacks against humanitarian assistance, more evidence is also needed to understand the dynamics of recurrent incidents, small-scale attacks, as well as patterns of events across time and space; and how the observed trends are driven by conflict-related and contextual factors. In this dissertation, we investigate the predictors and spatiotemporal dynamics of attacks against humanitarian assistance from 1997 to 2022 using publicly-available datasets from the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD, Humanitarian Outcomes, 2022) and the Armed Conflict Dataset version 22.0 (ACD; Glaeditsch et al., 2002; Davies et al., 2022). / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

This study critically explores the pervasive issue of corruption in humanitarian assistance, focusing on the Liberia Red Cross Society (LRCS) during the Ebola outbreak in Liberia from 2014-2016. For a country grappling with broken infrastructure and fragile healthcare systems due to a 14-year-long civil war, the Ebola crisis in Liberia was an unprecedented disaster as evidenced by 10,672 recorded cases and 4,808 reported fatalities between 2014 and 2016. The LRCS was a prominent local humanitarian actor in the Ebola response and recovery efforts, but its work was marred by corruption stemming from organizational, contextual, and motivational factors. This study sheds light on the nature and extent of corruption within humanitarian action from the perspective of the LRCS and the Ebola epidemic in Liberia, contributing to humanitarianism as a discipline and a profession. The study utilized the principal-agent theory and the organizational culture theory of corruption in humanitarian assistance, which had been employed in earlier studies of a similar nature. In terms of methodology, a qualitative approach with retrospective review was employed to address two research questions regarding the drivers and impact of corruption in the Ebola response and recovery operations conducted by the LRCS. Data for the study were collected from a mix of 14 pre-existing sources, including documents originating from the LRCS and its consortium of donors and partners, as well as published news content from notable local and global media outlets. The results were generated through document analysis facilitated by ATLAS.ti, a qualitative data analysis software, which considered patterns, trends, and insights within the sources gathered for the study. Multiple rounds of analyses on the data were conducted to validate the results of the study.  The findings of this study reveal a complex web of corruption within humanitarian aid delivery during crisis and disaster. Corrupt practices within the LRCS included fraud and misuse of Ebola relief funds and resources, driven by individual motivations coupled with a number of organizational and contextual factors. The corruption had adverse effects on the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of relief efforts, potentially leading to reduced donor confidence in the LRCS and funding reduction. The study also stresses the importance of leadership, decision-making processes as well as resource management in preventing or enabling corruption within humanitarian aid organizations. These findings underscore the need for robust internal oversight, accountability mechanisms, and ethical leadership in humanitarian organizations to prevent and address corruption effectively.

This thesis examines the role and relationship of standardization and advocacy in humanitarian aid planning processes within the emergent field of education and instability. Standardization refers to the aid industry’s increasing emphasis on establishing ‘universal’ principles and normative frameworks. Advocacy refers to transnational-policy-network activities that move forward the global standardization agenda. The study focuses on the purposes and practices of knowledge creation by an education-and-instability ‘epistemic community’: the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE). Drawing on global-level interviews with key figures, participant observations, and documentary analysis, the research explores how this epistemic community promotes its core tenets: that education is an inherent human right and that educational provision should be a frontline humanitarian response on par with food distribution and shelter construction. The thesis analyzes the consensus-making process that resulted in the publication of the 2004 INEE Minimum Standards handbook, the then-epitome of the epistemic community’s knowledge. Next, the thesis examines the local application and adaptation of such global standardization processes in post-conflict Uganda. The case study presents the relationships among international and local ‘development partner’ institutions concerned with educational planning as a complex and contradictory story of power dynamics and knowledge circulation. These ‘partnerships’ are characterized by a shared quest for adherence to the knowledge encapsulated within standardized global frameworks and their normative principles. For Ugandan institutions, fluency in this discourse is a powerful tool to appropriate for their own ends. For international institutions, the knowledge is at once a technical resource and a means to bring ever more stakeholders into the wider epistemic community concerned with humanitarian aid. I argue that, through judicious use of standardization and advocacy mechanisms, INEE seeks to legitimize the education sector’s existence within the humanitarian aid industry and expand support for (or ‘conversion’ to) the education-and-instability epistemic community’s core beliefs.

During post-conflict reconstruction, various roles are bestowed on teachers to manage the effects of violence such as peace educator, conflict resolution expert, counsellor and so on. However, there are no empirical studies that examine what teachers actually do when faced with the challenges of post-conflict schooling. More importantly, most policies often neglect the fact that teachers are not necessarily neutral in conflict. Whilst being professionals, many are also political and social beings that come from the community they serve. Surely the tension between their personal beliefs and professional practice has some impact on how teachers deal with the effects of conflict. This research investigates how teachers, who maintain a reflexive relationship with their community, feel about transforming their role to manage the effects of ethnic conflict. The case of Kenya offers a suitable context in which to research this particular phenomenon because of its continuous association with conflict, consequent corrosion in ethnic relations, and increasing ethnic segregation in education systems. Employing a case study strategy, data was collected using semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The sample size consisted of twenty head teachers and seventy teachers and counsellors from government secondary schools in Nakuru and Kericho. Analysis of the data suggests that ethnic tensions have seeped into schools affecting not only peer relationships but also teacher-student interactions. These tensions and fears continue to impair teachers from actively participating in schools and assuming the role of managing the effects of the conflict. Aside from this, various other factors in their classroots realities shape the manner in which they deal with the effects of the conflict. Some of these factors include external support, professional capacity, their purpose and motivation as well as the school culture. This research concludes that teachers require adequate support and guidance from their head teacher in order to conceptualise their role in relation to managing the effects of violence. While the focus of external institutions is on relaying concepts of ‘peace’ and ‘conflict resolution’ to the students, there is merit in taking a more gradual approach and equipping teachers with the necessary skills and knowledge to teach these concepts. Moreover, teachers too require space to confront their own biases and prejudices towards other groups in order to assume these new roles. Finally, the creation of support networks is essential during post-conflict reconstruction as it ensures that teachers and students are provided with the necessary guidance, knowledge, and assistance in the absence of support from the state.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Politics and Public Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

One of the common lessons learned from the 11 September Terrorist Attacks in 2001, Southeast Asia Tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, was there were major command and control (C2) and information challenges during the crisis response efforts. The Department of Defense (DoD) is currently transitioning to face these global threats of terrorism and natural disasters, as well as support the goals of the new National Strategy, by developing new plans and procedures to improve the coordination, communications and operations between DoD and other entities when responding simultaneously to such complex humanitarian disasters (CHD). In searching for a mobile and adoptable communication solution for military operations, the DoD should consider a C2 system that utilizes advanced commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technology. Hastilyformed networks (HFN) could provide a global broadband network node with internet, voice, video and data capability in a rapidly deployable manner, which offer significant advantages to military and other crisis response activities. The focus of this thesis concentrates on the financial aspects of HFNs in support of humanitarian assistance and/or disaster relief (HA/DR) efforts by U.S. armed forces. This research and analysis of HFNs could present prospective benefits to DoD, which include cost-savings, enhanced emergency response capabilities and improved interagency/international relations. Additionally, this study will provide a recommended model methodology and iterations for future military-use of HFNs in support of the DoD's vision of "transformation."

At its core, this dissertation examines the role of information, particularly as it relates to proxies for quality, and how it affects both donor and organization decision processes in the humanitarian space. In Chapter 2 I consider the context of competition within the sub-sector of international humanitarian relief organizations. It has been observed that large scale humanitarian relief events tend to spawn highly competitive environments in which organizations compete with one another for publicity and funding, often times to the detriment of effective resource utilization. The question of why altruistic organizations behave in this manner arises. Positing that competition is a result of dual organization objectives and the inability to credibly signal quality a model of signaling is presented to explain this phenomenon, and conditions under which pooling and separating equilibrium can occur are shown. Results are shown to match closely with observed behavior, and potential policy remedies are considered using the model as a foundation. Chapter 3 addresses a similar question but broadens the analysis to that of a general market for charitable goods. Building on foundational results in search theory, I propose a two-stage model of donor search behavior to explain the effects of transparency and exposure on both donor and organization behavior as it regards how donors select organizations. Using both analytical and simulated results I show how donor behavior changes under various market constructions, with implications on total market outcomes and organization behavior discussed. Chapter 4 concludes with an empirical analysis to test the assumptions and results from the models of Chapters 2 and 3. Using an observational data set provided by the online charitable giving marketplace GlobalGiving, fixed effects panel regression and logit models are used to investigate the effects of transparency on both the amount of a donor's gift, and on the likelihood of repeat giving. Results are complicated by discussed validity issues, and in general show that within the context of GlobalGiving proxied transparency does not appear to have a significant practical effect on either the amount of the gift or organization selection by a given donor. While some significance is shown for various constructions, the results are not shown to be robust. A discussion of the results within the context of the donor search model of Chapter 3 is also provided.