Discussion Group: Humanitarian Response

Critical Issues in Humanitarian Response
Discussion Group

The Critical Issues in Humanitarian Response discussion group is convened by Peter Bell (Senior Research Fellow), Sherine Jayawickrama (Domain Manager, Humanitarian NGOs) and Ojobo Atuluku (Mid-Career Fellow). Please email Ojobo_Atuluku if you are interested in joining this discussion group.

Third Meeting:
Is Humanitarian Assistance Becoming Too Politicized and Militarized?
Friday, April 24, 2:00 – 3:30 pm
Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Conference Room, 5 Bennett Street (Charles Hotel Courtyard)
Light refreshments served

Discussion leader:

Nicolas de Torrenté is Outgoing Executive Director of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in the United States. Before joining the US office in early 2001, he worked as an administrator and head of mission in Tanzania and Rwanda, and later as an emergency coordinator in Somalia, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Macedonia, and Afghanistan. He has also served as advisor on the agency’s work in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. In 2001 Mr. de Torrenté headed MSF’s programs in northern Afghanistan and in 2004, he conducted an assessment mission on access to medical care, including the incidence of rape, in the DRC. A Swiss national, Mr. de Torrenté holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics, as well as degrees from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Switzerland and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston.

One of Nicolas de Torrente’s most recent articles is A War Without Limits, Somalia's Humanitarian Catastrophe published in the Harvard International Review:
http://hir.harvard.edu/index.php?page=article&id=1838

Second Meeting:
Thursday, April 9th, 2:00 – 3:30 pm
HKS Faculty Dining Room, Littauer 163
The Intersection of Climate Change and Disasters - Acting in Time through Policy and Politics
Light refreshments served

Discussion leaders:
Arrietta Chakos
Acting in Time Disaster Recovery Project
Taubman Center & Ash Institute, HKS

Arrietta has been involved in disaster risk reduction public policy, sustainable development and community engagement. Before completing graduate studies at the Harvard Kennedy School, she was assistant city manager in Berkeley, California. There she coordinated Berkeley’s legislative affairs; hazard mitigation programs; land use development agreements; and tax distribution issues. Directing Berkeley’s hazard mitigation programs included strategic development of local tax measures to reconstruct critical city facilities and California’s first municipal hazard mitigation plan for sustainable disaster risk reduction. Ms. Chakos has worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services on hazard mitigation initiatives. She advises the National Research Council; FEMA; GeoHazards International; the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); the World Bank; the Association of Bay Area Governments; the University of New Orleans and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Publications include papers for technical conferences on disaster risk reduction; for the American Society of Civil Engineers; for Spectra, an engineering professional publication; for the "Natural Hazards' Observer"; and in the OECD publication, Keeping Schools Safe in Earthquake Country; as contributor to the United Nations publication, "Regional Development;" and as contributing author in the 2009 Global Warming, Natural Hazards, and Emergency Management.

Letha Tawney
Independent Consultant on
Climate Change Policy

Climate change is an environmental issue, but Tawney also understands the economic drivers, the technical possibilities for and barriers to solutions and the larger foreign policy context of the global climate deal. Her expertise is in the international negotiations and their interplay with domestic climate policy. Her projects have included investigation of risk management and adaptive strategy to climate impacts, institutional models for reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, economic modeling of climate impacts and bioenergy issues in developing economies. Tawney’s public sector clients include the UN Foundation and Food for the Hungry, among others. Letha received her MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School in 2008, where she focused on climate change and negotiations. She blogs regularly at Driving Apollo’s Horses (http://www.apolloshorses.com) on a wide range of climate policy issues.

Please come prepared with your contributions to the discussion topic. We are hoping for a lively and vigorous discussion around the central questions facing humanitarian response today.

Convened by:
The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations
Domain of Practice on Humanitarian NGOs

First Meeting:
Thursday, March 19th, 2:00 – 3:30 pm
HKS Faculty Dining Room, Littauer 163

Humanitarian crises – both "natural" and man-made – have become increasingly complex. This presents non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in humanitarian response with multiple challenges, including: the politicization of humanitarian crises, the proliferation of slow-onset disasters connected to food insecurity, and the threat of increased disasters related to climate change. Lessons learned on the ground over decades have shown, among other things, that: to be effective humanitarian responses must respect the dignity of individuals and communities; responses must lay the foundation not only for short-term relief but also for long-term "recovery"; the reduction of poverty is key to decreasing vulnerability to disasters; and lack of coordination invariably undermines the effectiveness of humanitarian response.

The Hauser Center’s domain of practice on Humanitarian NGOs will convene a discussion group that will meet in March, April and May 2009 to consider and debate critical issues in humanitarian response. The discussion group will bring interested students (especially those with experience working on humanitarian issues) together with practitioners who are dealing with some of these questions in real time, and academics investigating the same or allied questions. The idea is to create a climate for genuine discussion and lively exchange, in which all participants come to the table with a commitment to share, listen and reflect.

The discussion group is intended to be a space for building relationships, exchanging ideas and connecting real-world challenges to scholarly study of humanitarian issues. Topics for discussion are likely to include:

• Complex emergencies, long-term development: putting emergency response in the context of poverty reduction.
• The competition for humanitarian space: the blurring of civilian and military roles.
• Policy issues in complex humanitarian emergencies.
• Rights-based approaches to humanitarian response.
• Climate change and the future of humanitarian response.

Guests, who will serve as resource people and catalysts of discussion, will include NGO leaders and UN officials, in addition to faculty and research fellows.

Convened by:
The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations
Domain of Practice on Humanitarian NGOs