Event Summary
Whatever their rhetoric, national security policymakers have often viewed humanitarian response as marginal to the international community’s involvement in issues of war and peace. However, the reality is that humanitarian situations have long affected political and security issues. In Pakistan, for example, after conflict in the Swat Valley fueled large-scale civilian flight, adequate assistance and support for voluntary return quickly became a political imperative for Islamabad, the United States and the international donor community. But how should humanitarians operate effectively in such policy environments? And how do they ensure basic principles, such as effectiveness and impartiality of aid, protection of civilians, access to populations in need and the security of humanitarian workers?
Event Information
When
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
Where
Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map
On November 4, the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement hosted Eric Schwartz, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, to discuss the challenges of implementing humanitarian programs and affecting policy in government. After the program, Assistant Secretary Schwartz took audience questions.
Transcript
BETH FERRIS: There are questions about the relationship between humanitarian assistance and the causes of conflicts, with many arguing that humanitarian assistance is used when the international community can’t decide to take action to address the political conflicts that cause the need for humanitarian assistance -- you know, situations such as Darfur, or Democratic Republic of Congo, years and years in Bosnia. As Sadako Ogata, the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees often said, there are no humanitarian solutions to humanitarian problems.
What does this mean for the future of humanitarian work? In the absence of political action, can humanitarian assistance be sustained indefinitely. . . .Sometimes it seems that humanitarian ideals are under fire from all sides -- increasingly vociferous critics who charge that humanitarians have not only failed to address the needs of people, but have actually made conflicts longer. And day-to-day challenges in the field, of questions such as how to balance security of humanitarian staff with meeting the needs of people on the ground? How far to negotiate with non-state actors to ensure humanitarian access? How much compromise is needed and acceptable to ensure humanitarian response?
Some have suggested that the days of principled humanitarianism are over, and that a more pragmatic humanitarianism is necessary.
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Participants
Featured Speaker
Eric Schwartz
Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration