When the earth quakes
When the earthquake struck Turkey and Syria in February 2023, Alessio Paduano was there on the ground, during a disaster that was essentially a cross-border catastrophe in a geopolitically sensitive...
“We don’t do mental health”: a review of Médecins Sans Frontières’ first “psy” mission
Leninakan, December 1989. It was a year after the earthquake that devastated Armenia that Médecins Sans Frontières launched its first “psy” mission. The author looks back at the reflections and hesitations...
Humanitarian aid workers and the challenge of climate change
Christophe Buffet is co-director of this issue’s Focus “Are humanitarian aid workers ready to tackle the challenge of climate change?” We were already asking ourselves this question in 2009[1]Christophe Buffet,...
Anticipating uncertainty, preparing for the unknown: humanitarian actors in the face of issues linked to climate change
This first article provides an overview of the issues facing humanitarian workers and points out the ambiguities that persist. Insufficient and non-binding normative frameworks do not prevent actors who, themselves,...
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...
Ebola: past, present and future
Epidemiologists following the Ebola virus since its emergence in 1976 and involved in the heart of the response to this last and most terrible epidemic, Michael Edelstein and David L. Heymann...
New models of working and partnership in development: the example of Friendship, a Bangladeshi organisation
Founded by Runa Khan, Friendship began its activities in 2002 with a floating-hospital to ensure access to health care for ultra-poor communities in Bangladesh. Since then, Friendship has extended its...
The Canadian Humanitarian Coalition: is three-tiered humanitarianism the making?
In the last ten years, the Humanitarian Coalition in Canada has been changing some of the rules governing the humanitarian response of Canadian NGOs. Leading NGOs that it regroups have...
“The Kamaishi miracle”: lessons learned from the 2011 tsunami in Japan
The tsunami that hit the east coast of Honshu Island in Japan in 2011 not only made Fukushima a martyr city, a universal symbol of the current nuclear risk. It...