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Les enjeux informationnels dans la communication humanitaire contemporaine

Information issues in contemporary humanitarian communication

In relations between the media and humanitarian players – which have long been observed and analysed – a strategic interdependence between the two sectors stands out. What also stands out are challenges in the independence of each sector and in the veracity of information. Over the past fifty years,...

Dana Popescu-Jourdy - Valérie Gorin

Focus

Le rôle essentiel de la communication humanitaire à l’ère de la mésinformation et de « l’infobésité »

The crucial role of humanitarian communication in the fake news and “infoglut” era

Lubiana Gosp-Server

Focus

Communiquer, témoigner, résister : la prise de parole publique de Médecins Sans Frontières face à la désinformation

Communicating, witnessing, resisting: the public voice of Médecins Sans Frontières in the face of disinformation

Andrea Bussotti - Agnès Varraine-Leca - Anaïs Deprade

Focus

Les chiffres comme déclencheurs de l’émotion : enjeux des données dans la communication et le plaidoyer humanitaires

Figures as emotional triggers: data issues in humanitarian communication and advocacy

Émilie Poisson

Focus

Entre savoir « tacite » et « explicite » : la communication humanitaire en quête d’une troisième voie

Between “tacit” and “explicit” knowledge: humanitarian communication in search of a third way

Tom Ansell

Focus

La valeur du témoignage à l’ère de l’intelligence artificielle

The value of testimony in the age of artificial intelligence

Amal Abou El Ghayt-Huart

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Aid in danger

Aid interrupted: what Myanmar’s crisis reveals about humanitarian system’s fragility

This article is an extension of our special issue “International aid under threat: What consequences? What responses? What reconfigurations?”. According to the author, forty years after their creation, refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border reveal their Achilles heel: a deadly dependence on external funding. American budget cuts are causing a health crisis there and forcing […]

Aid in danger

After the funding stops: the human cost of aid dependency in Côte d’Ivoire

This article is an extension of our special issue “International aid under threat: What consequences? What responses? What reconfigurations?”. According to the two authors Côte d’Ivoire’s HIV success story masks a dangerous vulnerability. When PEPFAR funding vanished, community workers kept showing up unpaid while the government watched NGOs collapse. A chronicle of how foreign dependency […]

Aid in danger

A new era for aid: prioritising people and protecting progress

As donor budgets shrink and crisis-hit populations face abandonment, IRC charts a data-driven path forward. Through evidence-based targeting, proven innovations, and local partnerships, the organisation demonstrates how strategic action can maximise impact even amid unprecedented cuts. Humanitarian aid is facing a make-or-break moment. While global needs and extreme poverty are soaring to new highs, traditional […]

Aid in danger

Geneva’s Role as a Centre for International Cooperation Faces a New Challenge from the U.S.

Published on 10 April 2025 Stability in the Balance Geneva, French-speaking Switzerland’s largest city, is celebrated as the birthplace of Henry Dunant, founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the seat of the League of Nations, and the home of the Geneva Conventions, the bedrock of international humanitarian law. Today, it is […]

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Articles

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Focus

Electricity: a strategic issue in the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts

Throughout history, energy resources have been strategic targets during armed conflict. And electricity infrastructure has long been on the front line. This is especially true in Ukraine and Gaza, as the authors explain here. In contemporary conflicts, electricity plays a crucial role, both for the survival of civilian populations and in military operations. In fact, […]

Tania Chauvin - Hervé Gouyet - Véronique Pingard

Focus

state sovereignty souveraineté des états

International humanitarian law, State sovereignty and the erosion of the humanitarian consensus: the end of humanitarianism?

This article examines the dilution of the legal framework on which humanitarian action has historically been based, primarily through the prism of international humanitarian law and related challenges posed to State sovereignty. The authors trace key changes over recent decades, including those regarding needs, the corresponding impact on policy enacted by aid organisations, effects on […]

Duncan McLean - Michiel Hofman

Focus

“Clean India”: why the undeniable success of the Swachh Bharat Mission does not signal the end of open defecation

A fact of life in India for centuries, this practice has major health implications. The author explains what these are and looks back at “Clean India”, a major national campaign to build toilets across the country. The apparent success of the campaign fails to conceal the underestimation of its impact on the caste system. Whether […]

Julien Eyrard

Focus

french migrants humanitarian state sovereignty east asia souveraineté état restructuration peuples performance

Sovereignty as responsibility in East Asia’s response to crises

Though aspects of Oscar Gómez’s article resonate with Duncan Mclean’s opening article, one is not a reflection of the other. The former has the merit of shifting the gaze on this concept to show us how it has evolved over the past fifty years, in East and Southeast Asia.

Oscar A. Gómez

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Interviews

Ukraine-Gaza: Exchange of views

Published on 29 April 2024. The discussion took place on 4 April 2024, as an introduction to the Alternatives Humanitaires General Assembly. The reason why these two conflicts are attracting so much international attention is because they undeniably mark a turning point that Humanitarian Alternatives felt duty-bound to analyse. A complex and ambitious issue of […]

Culture

The Ukraine war as seen by press cartoonists

On the publication of Fichez-nous la paix ! (Leave us in peace!) in the Cartooning for Peace collection, published by Gallimard and in partnership with Amnesty International, Kak and Vladimir Kazanevsky explain the importance of their profession: press cartoonists. Joint interview by Nicolas Foucher of Amnesty International. The president of Cartooning for Peace, Kak is […]

Culture

Interview with Plantu and Reza: “Infuriating doves of peace”

The renowned photographer Reza and Le Monde’s iconic cartoonist Plantu have just published a book in which they revisit eighty or so of their respective photos and cartoons. The publication, which covers a vast range of historical events and global issues – from the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 to the genocide of the Tutsis […]

Interviews

Interview with Bruno Cabanes : “Humanitarian Photography”: an historian’s point of view

Bruno Cabanes is an historian, specialised in contemporary history. He is the Donald G. and Mary A. Dunn Chair in Military History at Ohio State University in the United States. He has written several books on the First World War and the post-war era, including The Great War and the Origins of Humanitarianism, 1918-1924 (Cambridge […]

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Information issues in contemporary humanitarian communication

The crucial role of humanitarian communication in the fake news and “infoglut” era

Communicating, witnessing, resisting: the public voice of Médecins Sans Frontières in the face of disinformation

Figures as emotional triggers: data issues in humanitarian communication and advocacy

Between “tacit” and “explicit” knowledge: humanitarian communication in search of a third way

The value of testimony in the age of artificial intelligence

Our publications

Aid in danger

Aid interrupted: what Myanmar’s crisis reveals about humanitarian system’s fragility

After the funding stops: the human cost of aid dependency in Côte d’Ivoire

A new era for aid: prioritising people and protecting progress

Geneva’s Role as a Centre for International Cooperation Faces a New Challenge from the U.S.

Our current selection

Electricity: a strategic issue in the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts

International humanitarian law, State sovereignty and the erosion of the humanitarian consensus: the end of humanitarianism?

“Clean India”: why the undeniable success of the Swachh Bharat Mission does not signal the end of open defecation

Sovereignty as responsibility in East Asia’s response to crises

Interviews

Ukraine-Gaza: Exchange of views

The Ukraine war as seen by press cartoonists

Interview with Plantu and Reza: “Infuriating doves of peace”

Interview with Bruno Cabanes : “Humanitarian Photography”: an historian’s point of view

Join the HA community

Create your account

CREATE A FAVOURITES LIST

GET ACCESS TO BIBLIOGRAPHIC RESOURCES

MANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND PURCHASES

DOWNLOAD THE ARTICLES IN PDF

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