Women and children are often the focus of humanitarian aid campaigns, generally considered to be the main victims of humanitarian emergencies. Previous research has explored the portrayal of victims within humanitarian action, focusing on humanitarian images, and how humanitarianism portrays the refugee. There is not, however, a lot of research that focuses on the humanitarian aid campaigns themselves, and not either on women´s victimisation specifically. This thesis thus makes a contribution to research by conducting a critical analysis of women´s portrayal in humanitarian aid campaigns, asking the research question of how women in the Democratic Republic of Congo are portrayed in humanitarian aid campaigns, with a broader aim of examining why humanitarian aid campaigns are gender based. I argue in this thesis through a single within case study that the empirical case “The worst period of her life” campaign created by ActionAid UK victimises women by associating women´s dignity with menstrual health, appealing to donors through the common hardships of menstruation, and picturing women as passive victims. The woman is portrayed as someone who is not capable of action, requiring external intervention. Using Agamben´s framework of “bare life” and homo sacer, this thesis concludes that women´s portrayal in the “The worst period of her life” campaign reduces the female victim to the realm of “bare life”. The already disadvantageous position that women have in the broader societal structure is reinforced by removing their agency in humanitarian aid campaigns. The results thus highlight problematic factors of women´s portrayal in humanitarian aid campaigns, opening for further research on the implications of the victimisation of women within humanitarian action.

Background After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, there was a significant need for basic services such as health, water, food, sanitation, school, protection and security in the largest camp in Port-au-Prince, Park Jean Marie Vincent (PJMV). PJMV IDP camp was located in the commune of Cité Soleil; a slum in Haiti labeled as a red zone and widely regarded as the most insecure place on earth. As a result, the camp residents were left to live on their own contradicting the humanitarian principle of humanity and impartiality. Strong solidarity developed amongst camp residents leading them to organize themselves in order to decrease structural violence. Zanmi Lasante (ZL), a healthcare and human rights organization that works with poorest and most vulnerable communities in Central Plateau, would cross the red zone to accompany the camp residents by providing training, materials, and resources to set up aid activities. Using a qualitative methodology, this study will describe the activities ZL completed and present the outcomes of those activities. This study will argue that the ZL accompaniment helped to decrease structural violence and chaos and allowed the camp residents to persevere. Methods This study is based on a personal story and experience of the researcher in PJMV IDP camp after the 2010 Haitian earthquake. We collected data from semi-structured interviews with 5 ZL staff, 7 camp leaders, and 5 camp residents. The researcher conducted a narrative analysis to recreate a collective memory from four viewpoints: 1) Zanmi Lasante staff; 2) camp leaders; 3) IDP camp residents and 4) the researcher. The researcher used processual methods of qualitative research to identify themes and exemplar narratives to compare and contrast these multiple viewpoints. Results The interviews offered multiple viewpoints on the activities in the camp both before and during the time ZL was active. Activities included creating and staffing a health clinic, training community health workers, establishing a nutrition center, ensuring HIV-AIDS care, and launching a response to the cholera outbreak. In addition, ZL conducted other kinds of activities that put health in the social context, including building a water purification system, establishing a tent village, creating a school program, launching an initiative to protect women from sexual violence, and advocating for food and sanitation. The researcher finds that those additional activities generated good outcomes such as health, security, job creation, capacity building, community engagement and participation, and community empowerment. ZL used a collaborative approach, integrating accompaniment into all activities by working with local residents, leaders and other organizations. This accompaniment decreased structural violence and helped camp residents to be more self-sufficient. The study also explores the challenges of accompaniment as responsibilities for these activities were shifted from ZL to the camp residents and local leaders. Conclusions The goal of this study is to describe the activities conducted by ZL in PJMV from January 2010 to January 2012 and how the approach of offering aid using the accompaniment model impacted the social context in the camp. The researcher recommends that humanitarian aid from within and beyond a disaster affected community be geared toward supporting and partnering with local communities and local organizations. In this way, humanitarian aid will strengthen local communities in a way that may be sustained once these organizations leave.

This diploma thesis looks at Czech non-governmental non-profit organisations operating in the area of development cooperation and humanitarian aid, their role, functioning and dilemmas they face. In the the part, it describes generally non-governmental non-profit organisations, their history, legislative framework, financing possibilities and work they with volunteers in the Czech environment. The second part summarises the results of questionnaire investigation carried out among member organisations of the Czech Forum for Development Cooperation.

This master thesis deals with the Europeanization of humanitarian aid/assistance provided to foreign countries, from the perspective of the Czech Republic. Upon the accession of the Czech Republic into European Union in 2004, the country had to adopt the whole body of acquis communautaire on humanitarian assistance, which implied a range of rights and obligations. By doing so, the humanitarian aid system experienced and undergone major changes, which resulted in significant transformation of conceptual and principal layout constituting the aid provision system. The overall objective of this thesis is thus to prove that such changes have been caused by the misfit between European and Czech hard law and soft law documents. In that regard, the thesis aims to examine the above mentioned changes in several analytical dimensions, including humanitarian aid principles, aid goals, forms of humanitarian aid, territorial and sector aid distribution. To illustrate, this thesis analyses three different time periods, i.e. before, during and after the European influence is being examined. The author exclusively focuses on state actors, while paying attention to qualitative humanitarian assistance aspects.

Ethiopia was one of the first two countries that Sweden gave humanitarian aid to. In this thesis, Ethiopia is used as a case study to understand how the strategy of Sweden’s humanitarian aid has changed over the past fifty-years. How has Sweden’s humanitarian aid changed over the last 50 years? What factors explain these changes? This is a comparative thesis that uses semi-structured interviews. Sweden’s former minister of Foreign Affairs, Hans Blix (1978-1979), Sweden’s former Ambassador to Ethiopia (2017-2020) Torbjörn Pettersson, Michael Ståhl, Counselor of Development Cooperation at Sida in Ethiopia (1994-1996), and Gustav Lindskog, current Program Manager of Humanitarian Aid at Sida have been interviewed.  This thesis has found that the focus of Sweden’s humanitarian aid to Ethiopia has transitioned from the 1800s-religious-based agenda to the 1970s-socialist-based agenda, and now to a more contemporary liberalist agenda, where democracy, human rights and climate change have become more important. This shift can be attributed to the change in the global order.

In the latest years, European governments have increasingly criminalized providing support to displaced people. Humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGO) carrying out life-saving search and rescue (SAR) activities in the Mediterranean Sea have been facing wide obstacles in aiding newcomers, and in many instances have been subject to criminal proceedings. This research attempts to analyse the reasons why maritime sea rescue is equated with illegality. In doing so, it seeks to answer the question, “what are the challenges to reaching legal protection for humanitarian aid workers carrying out search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean when faced with criminalization?” The study argues that humanitarian aid workers (HAW) who have been criminalized as a result of their involvement in maritime sea rescue activities, have to endure many systemic deficiencies. Three layers of interrelated challenges are identified: legal, socio-political, and personal challenges. The study concludes that an independent, quality legal defence; a revisitation of the voluntary nature of the humanitarian exemption clause in the 2002 Facilitation Package; and a larger engagement of civil society actors in changing the narrative and improving the public’s practical knowledge of migration would ensure better protection for humanitarian practitioners involved in search and rescue activities. / <p>It was online.</p>

Yes / This paper proposes a framework to cope with the lack of data at the time of a disaster by em-ploying predictive models. The framework can be used for disaster human impact assessment based on the socio-economic characteristics of the affected countries. A panel data of 4252 natural onset disasters between 1980 to 2020 is processed through concept drift phenomenon and rule-based classifiers, namely Moving Average (MA). A Predictive model for Estimating Data (PRED) is developed as a decision-making platform based on the Disaster Severity Analysis (DSA) Technique. A comparison with the real data shows that the platform can predict the human impact of a disaster (fatality, injured, homeless) up to 3% errors; thus, it is able to inform the selection of disaster relief partners for various disaster scenarios.

No description available.

This thesis aims to explore what factors support aid workers to continue in the humanitarian sector, even with the knowledge that their personal well-being, and sometimes their lives, may be in danger due to risk-filled settings and assignments. To find out what factors that encourage aid workers to continue, the thesis also examines their backgrounds and paths into this profession. It further aims to determine what factors the aid workers find difficult in their work and what coping strategies they use to deal with the difficulties in order to prevent and recover from exhaustion and burnout. Data was derived from semi-structured in-depth interviews with experienced aid workers from both global south[1] and global north[2] countries, working in different organizations, countries and contexts. This material was complemented by an unstructured literature review. The theories that have been used for the analysis and as a guiding framework is mainly the notion of habitus by Pierre Bourdieu (1986, 1996) and, as a complement, the theory of intersectionality (Mattsson, 2010). A number of factors that encourage humanitarian aid workers throughout their careers have been identified. In the research findings, the following themes were distinguished to answer the aim and questions at issue; impeding factors, social background and supporting factors. Impeding factors are included and investigated since they can help to explain what it is that encourage aid workers to persist despite the difficulties they face. Results indicate that the aid workers to a certain extent have been affected by role models and cultural, social and economic conditions and experiences in their upbringing, which have all played a role throughout their careers. Other supporting factors have been gained through the aid work over time, such as developing ways to make it more effective to avoid exhaustion and burnout. The study further shows that a person’s background, as understood via Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, may affect the supporting factors over time. The initial motives to engage in aid work tends to perpetuate throughout the career, and aid workers return back to, and find strength in, such motives after facing burnout. Moreover, it is demonstrated that finding one’s personal coping strategies is essential, such as hobbies and spending time with loved ones. When recovering from exhaustion and burnout, innovations in behavior and more efficient ways to work can be developed. Hence, the supporting factors can change with time.

The research conducted for this master’s thesis determined that the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) current participation in military operations other than war (MOOTW) does not make significant contributions to its ability to develop its capability to conduct a large-scale war. Research was performed on the PLA’s MOOTW missions from 2008 in the areas of humanitarian aid and disaster response (HA/DR), noncombatant evacuation operations (NEO), and counterpiracy. General trends indicated that the PLA’s participation in these operations improved basic military capabilities that are fundamental to performing advanced tactics, but did not directly contribute to its ability to dominate air, land, and sea domains. Research also concluded that China is extremely concerned about how the international community views its role as a responsible stakeholder as an emerging global power. Consequently, the U.S. should be concerned with China’s growing capability to project goodwill as a result of its rapid military modernization. Besides the obvious military competition presented by the PLA’s modernization efforts, the U.S. should share an equal, if not greater concern for the resultant global political competition from China. This research develops a military cooperation framework based on the comparison of relative political goals and political interests between two nations. When applied to Sino-U.S. relations, it presents a spectrum of options available to U.S. decision makers, but suggests that U.S. should only participate in military cooperation with the PLA if there are relative political advantages to the U.S. Finally, it warns against decisions made out of the convenience of short-term interest alignment that do not contribute to solutions for achieving long term political goals.