Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1993. / Typescript.

Diss.--Institut für Kunstgeschichte--München--Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität, 1995. / Bibliogr. p. 247-281. Index.

The overarching focus of this research is to examine the role and effectiveness of formal network organizations in mitigating barriers to disaster relief. I address this larger focus by examining the impacts of one formal network organization, the Partnership for Quality Medical Donations (PQMD) on its twelve NGO members. Specifically, the study addressees the following questions: 1) How does PQMD function? 2) What effects has PQMD had on its NGO members' relationships with each other, especially in the context of disaster response efforts? The research design for this study uses a qualitative framework. The study includes a literature review, content analysis of PQMD's website, research from a previous study with the same organization, and new interviews with representatives from nine NGO members, as well as the executive director of PQMD. My findings indicate that PQMD has been able to successfully bring together 27 different organizations (private and nonprofit), and mitigate the barrier of lack of central authority and lack of trust, to discuss their concerns, learn from one another, learn about one other, and create relationships that lead to better communication and collaboration in humanitarian relief. Although PQMD is working on a much smaller scale, I argue that researchers can look at this formal network organization to better understand how to improve the coordination of humanitarian aid on a worldwide scale and can glean lessons from this group. / Master of Public and International Affairs

No description available.

The thesis represents the first thorough study of forms of charity and medical and poor relief in an Italian city in the post-Renaissance period. It complements the studies of other Italian cities carried out for an earlier period and contributes to comparison between European patterns of charity. The study reverses the usual demand-centred approach, which sees transformations in charitable provision mainly as a response to changing demographic and economic conditions, by focusing instead on the role played by changes in the nature of "supply", i.e. in the social composition of governors and benefactors and in the indirect and symbolic meanings which charity embodied for its dispensers. The main argument of this study is that the nature of control over charity had a significant impact on the form initiatives towards the poor took: dynamics of conflict, prestige and patronage among the elites contributed to forge charitable attitudes and definitions of poverty to a much larger extent than it has been recognised. Wills and other biographical material, figurative representations of charity and analysis of the architectural form of institutions have been used, besides the more obvious sources, to trace shifts in the symbolic implications of charity. This study also contributes to a reassessment of the periodisation and the features usually regarded as typical of the 'Italian model' of charity and poor relief. It argues, in particular, that the importance of institutional forms of care and assistance has been exaggerated and the role played by outdoor relief for the poor and sick underestimated. Moreover, it emphasises the crucial function of the municipal government as agency of relief well into the early modern period.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / Multinational humanitarian and military efforts such as those seen in Somalia, Kosovo and Afghanistan are known as Complex Humanitarian Emergencies. These types of emergencies are complex and difficult to operate in because they contain political, military and humanitarian considerations. The various actors responding to a CHE can be divided into two distinct groups - military and civilian. Each of these groups needs the other to effectively respond to the crisis. Thus communication, collaboration and coordination are critical. Technology can play a significant role to enable information sharing between the various participants during CHEs. This thesis documents the continued development of a collaborative, Information Technology-based, operation support system designed to facilitate information sharing at the field/tactical level during CHE and Peace Operations. The operational support system was designed in the context of a Tactical Humanitarian Relief Habitat and will undergo a technical evaluation in a simulated CHE/Peace Operations environment. The end state of our research will result in recommendations for continued development of a habitat designed for utilization in the Civil Military Operations enter of a CHE or Peace Operation. / Major, United States Marine Corps / Captain, United States Marine Corps

This thesis analyses issues related to aid in Ethiopia and provision of elder care in the US. The first essay assesses the targeting of two major aid interventions, public works and food aid. Both types of aid are primarily allocated through community-based targeting. The few studies that have analysed the accuracy of aid targeting in Ethiopia have shown biases along demography, geography and political affiliations lines. With the introduction in 2005 of the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), a major social protection programme, several administrative guidelines were introduced aimed at improving targeting. This paper uses the last two rounds of the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey to investigate whether there were changes in both targeting determinants, and amount received for PSNP public works and food aid components from 2004 to 2009. Overall, the PSNP appears to be allocated on the basis of observable-poverty-related characteristics, and food aid on household demographics. In addition, results suggest for both PSNP and food aid beneficiaries, political connections are significant in determining receipt of the program in 2004, but no longer in 2009, indicating an improvement towards means-based targeting. The second essay investigates the long-term effectiveness of emergency aid in Ethiopia in pro- tecting child health from the negative effects of a severe drought that hit the country in 2011. Child malnutrition remains a critical issue in Ethiopia and the literature has shown that shocks can have long lasting effects on physical and cognitive development. Using the two rounds of the Ethiopian Rural Socioeconomic Survey (ERSS) collected in 2011 and 2013, I explore the impact of emergency aid on child height-for-age aged 0-36 months two years after the drought had occurred. Because aid was not randomly allocated, I use a matching estimator to account for selection into the programme. The results show that emergency aid was effective in protecting children that experienced the drought. In the last essay, I research the effects of kindergarten eligibility on the provision of elder care in the US. I am able to identify the trade-off between child care and elder care by exploiting age eligibility criterion for public kindergarten, in combination with state-level variation, in the provision of full-time kindergarten. Through a reduced form approach, I estimate the Intention to Treat (ITT) for the effect of eligibility to kindergarten on provision of elder care. The results show that having the youngest child aged 5 in states that offer full-time kindergarten increases the probability of providing elder care by around 9 percentage points, which corresponds to 63 percentage increase to the baseline. The effect is higher for females (9.2) than for males (8.1).