Article
Les 50 ans de MSF, ou comment l'humanitaire reste une épine dans le pied des dirigeants
Duncan McLean
20.12.2021Dresser le bilan de cinquante années d’action humanitaire de Médecins Sans Frontières tout en faisant l’inventaire des défis à venir est un exercice délicat. Avec des activités dans plus ...
Article
Humanitarian discourse and the challenges of migration: the European exception?
Maelle L'Homme
16.12.2021Are non-governmental organisations also guilty of double standards? Reviewing humanitarian actors’ approaches to migration in Europe, the author analyses the demands, intentions and dilemmas that...
Book
The Business of Conflict: Humanitarian Assistance and the War Economy in Syria
Duncan McLean
03.09.2021The Syrian crisis is one of the most serious humanitarian disasters in recent history. Yet the widely reported numbers–more than 6 million displaced, including 5 million refugees–reflect...
Article
Research and humanitarian aid: navigating the unpredictable, limiting the avoidable
Duncan McLean
26.07.2021In the world of international assistance, unsolicited visits by researchers – whether sent from the headquarters of the organisation or from other structures – have long generated conflicting...
Article
Radical Objects: The Obelisk of Axum and the Complexities of Restitution
Duncan McLean
08.04.2021As aid agencies struggle to access and respond to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Tigray, a comparatively minor note of physical destruction has understandably garnered little attention. In a...
Article
Sexual abuse perpetrated by humanitarian workers: from moral relativism to competitive victimhood
Françoise Duroch
24.03.2021Drawing on the example of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Françoise Duroch and Emmanuel Noyer review the measures taken by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) to combat sexual violence. The...
Article
Should we discriminate in order to act? Profiling: a necessary but debated practice
Françoise Duroch
28.01.2021In October 2020, MSF organised a workshop in Dakar on staff profiling in operations in the Sahel. Profiling involves the selection of staff based on non-professional criteria, including nationality,...
Article
Vaccination: A Matter of Trust, with Caveats
Duncan McLean, Françoise Duroch
16.01.2021The palpable relief being felt by many over the accelerating approvals of apparently safe and efficient Covid-19 vaccines is hardly surprising. But away from triumphalist headlines, partially satiric ...
Article
«Vivement le nouveau vaccin, qu’on puisse le refuser»
Françoise Duroch
10.12.2020A l’aube des premières campagnes de vaccination contre la Covid-19, une formule a largement circulé sur les réseaux sociaux, en substance: «Vivement la sortie d’un nouveau vaccin, qu’on...
Article
Der Schutz der humanitären Arbeit beginnt bei uns selber
Duncan McLean
30.10.2020States always find ways and means to exclude unwanted aid organisations. The drastic tightening of anti-terror legislation is only the latest manifestation of these methods.
Article
Tough choices: moral challenges experienced by aid workers during the Covid-19 pandemic
Françoise Duroch, Miriam Kasztura
23.07.2020The truly unprecedented nature of the pandemic has mobilised and confused humanitarian NGOs and their staff as much. Forced inaction mixed with setting up programmes within a context of high...
Article
International aid in the Covid era: the need for transparency
Duncan McLean, Françoise Duroch
11.06.2020The scale and spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, combined with the large number of deaths it has caused, have created a toxic mix of rumour and innuendo – further complicating aid operations that...