Harmful Humanitarian Aid: Dilemmas and Solutions

Bringing aid has a price. Linda Polman is a freelance journalist who has been covering peacebuilding and humanitarian aid in the aftermath of war for over 20 years. She explains how aid organizations are forced to deal with local power holders such as chiefs, rebels and warlords. Polman praises attempts by Médicins Sans Frontières to be open about the humanitarian access negotiations – but is it enough?
“I am waiting for the day that an aid organization will be sued by the ICC for aiding a warlord or military regime by having humanitarian negotiations, paying the entrance fee, and aiding this war criminal with killing his own people”.

An interview with War and Peace Talk on 18 October 2013.

For more information on Linda Polman please refer to: her website; her Twitter-account, her book ‘War Games’ on Amazon; an article in the Guardian titled ‘Does Humanitarian Aid Prolong Wars?‘.