Humanitarian Relief - Sometimes Just a Band-Aid
They'd rather be fishing.
I had the good fortune this weekend to meet up with Michael. Aside from our epic and publicly discussed Settlers of Catan throw-down, (my wife trounced both of us two games in a row), we had a short discussion about the merits of development versus emergency humanitarian work.
Humanitarian work is easy to quantify (e.g. 14,000 people got two meals today), while development can seem more fluffy. I've been thinking about it, and I don't think it's unfair to say that the need for humanitarian relief often comes from poor development such as bad food production models or other root causes like bad governance or injustice.
I've been reluctant to talk about the Middle East because it's such a firebrand topic, but it's one of the most accessible examples I can think of to show that humanitarian relief is too often a temporary band-aid while we tolerate the root causes of the suffering. We can talk about humanitarian access in the occupied Palestinian territories until we're blue in the face, but these are not areas that need humanitarian access outside of the fact that every other kind of access is cut off. I make no judgment on the need that Israelis feel to protect their own security, but they aren't doing themselves any favors--even from a security perspective--by creating a defunct state dependent on international aid next door.
Palestinians are well-educated and live in what would otherwise be a solidly middle income economy. We see lots of video of Hamas fighters training in black face masks, but how many videos do we see of strawberry farmers with their crops rotting in their fields? It's not as exciting, but it might be a helluva lot more important in the long run.
Here's an article from 2007 in the Independent about how Gaza strawberry farmers lack access to their markets to sell. And here's an article from AP about how Israeli Navy restrictions and harassment hurt the Gaza fishing market. The UK's Department for International Development has a series of articles about how lack of access to markets hurts Palestinians as well. Now, I've talked about markets, but you need to factor in other root causes of the need for perpetual humanitarian assistance (access to drinking and irrigation water, ability to buy imported goods such as spare parts for machinery, access to fuel, access to hospitals and drugs...the list goes on; check out the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs excellent PowerPoint presentation for more info and maps on impediments to movement and access).
And there you have it. Quantifiable as it is, humanitarian relief in this case is nothing but a band-aid. It's a case of perpetual hopelessness or--if you like to think about the dolla' dolla' bills--an endless money pit. I could have easily made this blog about how Niger is a constant food aid recipient because they have rampant deforestation, a changing climate, bad agricultural practice and an exploding population, but I figured most Americans can identify more closely with the Middle East case.
The point is, while things like development assistance, institution-building or advocacy might seem like fluffy expenditures compared with humanitarian relief in conflict or disasters, we could often spend money on them forever and only be applying--at best--a temporary fix.
COMMENTS (3)