Keyword Archives: Humanitarian Action and Politics

Drawing upon extensive field research in the region and informed by additional field study dating back to the mid-1990s, the study calls renewed attention to the politicization and instrumentalization of humanitarian action and to serious shortcomings in donor behavior measured against their own undertakings to Good Humanitarian Donorship.

Building on data collected through interviews in the aid community as well as with ordinary Afghans, the briefing paper finds that humanitarianism is under deep threat in Afghanistan because of the perceived association of aid agencies with the US-led intervention. Humanitarian actors and the principles they profess are under attack. The ability of humanitarian agencies to address urgent need is compromised by internal and external factors, i.e., both by the organization and modus operandi of aid agencies on the ground, and by an extremely volatile and dangerous operating environment.

Based on extensive field interviews in Iraq and neighboring Jordan, this briefing paper is an update of an earlier study on perceptions of humanitarian action in Iraq, which was part of the Humanitarian Action 2015 program.