The Haiti earthquake and international humanitarian assistance: practices of The Republic of China (Taiwan) / 海地震災與國際人道援助-兼論中華民國的作法

碩士 / 國立政治大學 / 外交學系戰略與國際事務碩士在職專班 / 100 / With global climate change, natural disasters occur more frequently; therefore, the importance, diversity, urgency and complexity of humanitarian assistance not only become more and more prominent, but also become contemporary universal value. In the 1990s, the United Nations and the European Union reshuffled their humanitarian aid agencies, by unifying Humanitarian Aid Office’s authority, the mechanism of the international humanitarian assistance becomes more complete.
Firstly, in January 2010 Haiti was hit by a catastrophic-magnitude earthquake, causing great damages and losses. The international community launched in recent years the largest mobilization for rescue and disaster relief. The essay reviews cross-border cooperation in humanitarian aid for the Haiti earthquake and analyzes the implementation of international humanitarian assistance. A total of more than 30 countries including the United States, United Nations and other 14 international organizations, 37 non-governmental organizations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, work together to assist the Haitian relief and reconstruction work.
Secondly, 134 survivors were rescued by 67 search and rescue teams, also claimed to be the most successful rescue case in past decades. Until February 2012, refuges that lived in the temporary camps are significantly reduced from 1.5 million to 490,000 and the percentage of the progress of the repair and reconstruction of the damaged houses has reached 50%. Instead of the overlap and waste of resources, all the international actors work together to make a great success, thanks to disaster relief experience accumulated in the United Nations over the years.
The unified command of the United Nations effectively avoids duplication of relief resources and waste and takes advantage of the prime time in enhancing effectiveness and outcomes of the humanitarian aid. Although the evacuation of the United States’citizens in Haiti and the incident that the U.S. troops were sent to control Haiti International Airport in the relief process result in temporary drawback in the international disaster relief efforts, thus causing international discontent, the intervention of the UN Under-Secretary-General John Holmes helped resolve the issue. This could serve as a good example for United Nations and the international community to carry out humanitarian assistance on disaster relief in the future. Despite the early slight disorder, the whole humanitarian process proceeds with stability in the end.
Finally, the humanitarian aid funds of the Republic of China(Taiwan) to the Haiti earthquake, compare with that of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and other important international non-governmental organizations, are
trivial, yet the Republic of China(Taiwan) makes the best use of its advantages and traditional strengths and followed the principles of “small but beautiful”, “small but clever” and “small but good”. The strategy of the implementation of the reconstruction plan of Taiwan, compares with that of the United Nations, the European Union and the United States, seems more effective and truly meets the urgent needs of the victims, which will also serve as the best reference model for Taiwan in the stipulation of its humanitarian aid policy in the future.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:TW/100NCCU5322003
Creators曾榮傑
Contributors姜家雄
Source SetsNational Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan
Languagezh-TW
Detected LanguageEnglish
Type學位論文 ; thesis
Format186

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