Pierre Micheletti, preface by Xavier Emmanuelli
Éditions Parole, 2020
[Published in French]
Publisher’s note
A very large proportion of humanitarian action takes place in conflict zones. Every year, between 100 and 200 million people throughout the world depend on vital external aid in order to survive.
International emergency solidarity actions are deployed in the name of the fundamental principle of a shared humanity between the actors of aid and its beneficiaries. Nevertheless, these actions are confronted with difficulties that threaten to paralyse them. They are unable to raise the annual financial resources that they need. Teams are faced with suspicion and sometimes violence on behalf of warring parties. Antiterrorism laws do not take into account the realities which humanitarian actors are confronted with, that feed their insecurity.
Having untangled the complex skein of different actors and analysed the ambiguities that currently compromise humanitarian action, Pierre Micheletti draws up a list of ten recommendations in order to preserve the ability to act and to avoid the risk of being instrumentalised by major powers.
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and its serious impact on the global economy, the first of these proposals concerns a radical change in terms of emergency funding. One figure sums it up, giving this essay its title: 0.03%…
Translated from the French by Juliet Powys
