Гуманитарные перемирия: мифы и реальность (опыт анализа баз данных)

The report examines the possibility of improving coordination, interaction and cooperation in conducting humanitarian aid operations. It reveals how Civil-Military Cooperation staff would help overcome difficulties in the joint planning process and work between the different actors involved in humanitarian operations through the deployment of the Humanitarian Aid Coordination Centre.

Given the increased numbers of disasters and humanitarian crises which occur in the face of diminishing global resources, the contemporary disaster management and humanitarian fields face greater challenges to optimize cooperation and coordination processes among actors as well as in ensuring and increasing humanitarian aid delivery performance. This research, by using two case studies, will comparatively investigate inter-organizational cooperation and its performance on humanitarian operations during emergency response periods of the West Java Earthquake 2009 and the West Sumatera Earthquake 2009 in Indonesia. A combination of quantitative analysis, social network analysis (SNA), and qualitative analysis is used. SNA has been proven to be instrumental in modeling humanitarian actors’ cooperation. In this research, humanitarian operation performance is analyzed in terms of its coherence, coverage, and connectedness. By categorizing results from the SNA in correlation with Gillmann’s typology, it is proven that the networks in West Java fit the lead-agency type while in West Sumatra fit the lead-partnership type. In terms of performance, humanitarian operations in West Sumatra performed better in all three criteria compared to those in West Java. Based on the conclusions from this research, recommendations to improve cooperation and coordination among humanitarian actors in disaster situations have been made.

Many field office leaders contend that humanitarian aid operations call for authoritarian leadership in order for aid workers to more quickly adapt to changes and thus deliver a better job performance. However, given that field reports highlight leadership as a serious operational failure, is it really effective to lead aid workers with an authoritarian style? We draw on human motivation theorizing to address this question because many aid workers join humanitarian aid operations primarily to help beneficiaries. We test our hypotheses with a sample of 299 aid workers from the field. Contrary to the common view, we find that, when leaders are less authoritarian, aid workers who are prosocially motivated are better capable of adapting to changes and thus performing because leaders would not undermine the autonomy that they require to stay motivated. However, under less authoritarian leaders, the adaptability and job performance of aid workers with lower prosocial motivation continue to suffer. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings for humanitarian aid operations are discussed.

In February 2000, Mozambique suffered its worst flooding in almost 50 years: 699 people died and hundreds of thousands were displaced. Over 49 countries and 30 international non-governmental organisations provided humanitarian assistance. Coordination of disaster assistance is critical for effective humanitarian aid operations, but limited attention has been directed toward evaluating the system-wide structure of inter-organisational coordination during humanitarian operations. Network analysis methods were used to examine the structure of inter-organisational relations among 65 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in the flood operations in Mozambique. Centrality scores were used to estimate NGO-specific potential for aid coordination and tested against NGO beneficiary numbers. The average number of relief- and recovery-period beneficiaries was significantly greater for NGOs with high relative to low centrality scores (p < 0.05). This report addresses the significance of these findings in the context of the Mozambican 2000 floods and the type of data required to evaluate system-wide coordination.

Protracted crises and frequent natural disasters have generated an unprecedented number of people in need of humanitarian assistance. The international community faces a great challenge in supporting these populations, as the gap between needs and available funding is growing. To close this resource gap, the European Union (EU) aims to step up its engagement with emerging donors, particularly China, to increase their level of funding. Although China has previously been reluctant to engage in the international humanitarian system, its response to the COVID-19 pandemic indicates a change in attitude. Over the past year, China has delivered hundreds of tonnes of personal protective equipment (PPE) to over 150 countries and dispatched medical teams abroad. It has also donated $100 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN) and pledged to establish a global humanitarian response depot and hub in China in cooperation with the UN. <br> Amidst increasing geopolitical tensions between China and the EU, China’s growing humanitarian engagement opens an opportunity for the EU to engage with China in the humanitarian sector. However, rather than framing China’s increased engagement in solely financial terms, the EU should develop a long-term strategy as to how to engage with China on humanitarian matters. A dialogue that takes both parties’ different approaches towards humanitarian aid into account and searches for common ground could open the door towards possible cooperation. This would not only help in narrowing the funding gap but carry the potential for greater coordination and consequently more effective assistance provision. <br> China conceptualises humanitarian aid as a subcategory of development aid and provides the majority of its assistance bilaterally. Beijing’s state-centric approach to humanitarian assistance means in practice that it engages mostly in the aftermath of natural disasters rather than conflict settings. The EU, on the other hand, has a separate humanitarian aid policy that guides the allocation of funds and provides its humanitarian assistance through non-governmental organisations (NGOs), UN agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). <br> This Briefing Paper maps out the characteristics of Chinese humanitarian aid and outlines two areas on which the EU’s tentative steps towards a dialogue with China could focus. <br> • Food security sector: Food insecurity is a key component in existing humanitarian needs, only exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Food assistance and nutrition are already a key area of engagement for the EU and China. The EU should advocate for China to scale up its contributions to global food security through the World Food Programme (WFP), with whom China has a good working relationship. This could be combined with a political dialogue on how to foster cooperation on food security assistance. <br> • Anticipatory humanitarian aid: Disaster risk reduction, preparedness and response play an increasingly important role in global humanitarian aid. China has built up its most significant expertise in response to natural disasters. Enhancement of disaster risk reduction is one of the strategic priorities of the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) for 2020–2024. In light of both parties’ interest in anticipatory humanitarian aid, knowledge exchange in this area has the potential to open the door for future cooperation.

A critique of seven assumptions behind psychological trauma programmes in war-affected areas

Whether in-kind or cash, coordinated help organizations such as the American Red Cross, count on donations to help those in need when and after disasters happen. Yet, it has been observed that the type (in-kind versus cash) and the quality of donations largely impact the success of meeting urgent demand in humanitarian operations. In particular, unsolicited items hamper the synchronization of logistical operations and hence may create more problems than solutions. This research sheds light on the behavioral and decision making aspects of a donor while developing analytical models of how that behavior can be influenced by soliciting a minimum amount of cash donation, which in turn mitigates the negative impact of unsolicited items. We investigate the literature on donor psychology and feed those extant findings to the analytical model. We provide explicit expressions for the optimal solicitation amount and the impact of that amount on maximizing the donor’s likelihood to donate cash, as opposed to in-kind items. Also provided are some execution insights through extensive sensitivity analysis.

Quality management has been widely discussed in the literature, and recent special issues on humanitarian supply chains and relief operations have emphasized the increasing importance of quality management in this key emerging area. In this paper, we provide an extensive literature review in the field of quality management in humanitarian operations and disaster relief management. Our comprehensive review, comprising 61 articles published from 2009 to 2018, leads to the identification of enablers (e.g., transparency, policy framework), challenges (e.g., financial services, identity protection), and theory development approaches, as well as numerous research gaps that must be addressed.

This article is a joint effort of civil protection and humanitarian aid experts to compare and search for a common ground of the two relief and recovery mechanisms deployed to disasters. The hypothesis says that efficiency and close collaboration of civil protection and humanitarian aid is a key requirement to reduce the impact of major disasters on developing countries and affected populations. As a case study tropical cyclones, Idai and Kenneth that hit Mozambique in 2019 have been chosen. Strategic and operational documents, lessons learnt reports, statistics, appeals, donor response decryptions, semi-formal interviews with delegates to Mozambique, personal experiences and findings have been used. Starting from the situation analysis the authors presented needs assessment tools and different assets mobilized to the operation, then they showed how these assets were allocated to sectoral activities. The decision-making process and collaboration with the host nation were included. Lively discussion on main challenges allowed to formulate a few key recommendations for the future. Strengthening international cooperation and coordination through a complex mechanism of sharing competencies among different stakeholders, proper division of tasks and responsibilities, and reviewing lessons learnt from relief operations seem to be key factors to develop and improve the whole aid system.

SummaryMany humanitarian aid workers receive training prior to being dispatched into the field, but they often encounter challenges that require additional learning and creativity. Consequently, aid organizations formally support collaboration among the expatriate and local workers in a field office. At best, those aid workers would not only exploit their joint knowledge but also explore novel ways of managing the challenges at hand. Yet differences between expatriate and local groups (e.g., in ethnicity, religion, education, and salary) often thwart intergroup collaboration in field offices and, by extension, any joint learning or creativity. In response to this issue, we study the role of field office leaders—specifically, how their boundary‐spanning behavior may inspire collaboration between the two groups and therefore facilitate joint learning and creativity. We propose that a leader's in‐group prototypicality additionally catalyzes this process—that is, a leader's behavior has more impact if s/he is seen as representing his/her group. We tested and found support for our hypothesized moderated mediation model in a field sample of 137 aid workers from 59 humanitarian organizations. Thus, our study generally highlights the pivotal role that field office leaders play for crucial outcomes in humanitarian aid operations. Furthermore, we offer concrete steps for field office leaders who want to inspire better collaboration between the expatriate and local aid workers they lead.

Гуманітарна допомога й цивільний захист належать до напрямів зовнішньополітичної діяльності Європейського Союзу. Допомога спрямовується через 200+ міжнародних і місцевих партнерських організацій та агентств і підтримується тисячами європейських волонтерів. Це робить ЄС одним із найпотужніших донорів гуманітарної допомоги у світі. На міжнародній арені Союз підтримує й пропагує свої цінності та інтереси й сприяє миру, безпеці, сталому розвитку і взаємній повазі між народами. Збереження життя, запобігання та полегшення людських страждань, збереження честі й гідності населення, яке постраждало від стихійних лих та техногенних криз, – місія Генерального директорату Європейської комісії з питань цивільного захисту й операцій із гуманітарної допомоги. Уся діяльність ЄС та країн-членів у сфері надання гуманітарної допомоги здійснюється відповідно до норм міжнародного гуманітарного права і його базових принципів: гуманності, нейтральності, неупередженості та незалежності. Операції з надання допомоги ЄС керуються такими додатковими принципами: координації, узгодженості й взаємодоповнюваності між задіяними учасниками; якості, ефективності та підзвітності; різноманітності партнерських відносин. Низка нормативно-правових документів регулює гуманітарну діяльність ЄС щодо збереження життя людей під час надзвичайних ситуацій, подолання їхніх негайних негативних наслідків; надання необхідної допомоги постраждалим від довготривалих криз, особливо там, де уряди виявляються неспроможними допомогти; боротьби з наслідками переселення населення; забезпечення готовності до ризиків стихійних лих і використання відповідного швидкого раннього попередження й системи втручання тощо. Із 1992 р. ЄС надавав допомогу потерпілим після численних катастроф по всьому світу, зокрема жертвам війни в Югославії, геноциду в Руанді, громадянської війни в Судані; постраждалим від стихійних лих у Тихоокеанському регіоні, Західній Африці, на Балканах тощо. Сьогодні Україна також є реципієнтом гуманітарної допомоги ЄС .

Blockchain technology, originally developed for cryptocurrencies, has evolved into a powerful tool for enhancing humanitarian aid distribution in conflict zones, where traditional centralized systems frequently fail due to corruption, inefficiencies, and trust deficits. This research presents an integrated framework leveraging blockchain’s immutable ledger, advanced cryptographic security, and decentralized consensus, alongside smart contract automation to ensure tamper-proof records and secure, real-time tracking of aid. The system incorporates biometric identity verification and zero-knowledge proofs to safeguard sensitive beneficiary data, minimizing fraud risks while enhancing transparency. Extensive laboratory simulations, controlled pilot studies, and field experiments conducted under varying network conditions demonstrate improvements in transaction throughput, reduced latency in intermittent connectivity scenarios, and enhanced operational resilience. IoT-driven sensor integration ensures continuous monitoring, while automated rule execution streamlines aid distribution by eliminating manual errors, bureaucratic overhead, and delays. The system enables rapid beneficiary verification and transparent reporting, fostering trust among donors, aid organizations, and recipients. Experimental results indicate that even under severe resource constraints, the framework scales effectively to serve large populations while addressing ethical concerns and digital exclusion issues. Future advancements will focus on refining privacy protocols, achieving cross-chain interoperability, and optimizing consensus algorithms for ultra-lightweight performance in resource-constrained environments, ensuring efficiency, accountability, and reliability in humanitarian aid operations. Keywords, Humanitarian Aid, Blockchain Technology, Decentralized Validation, Supply Chain Transparency, Smart Contracts, Biometric Verification, Zero Knowledge Proofs, IoT Integration

This article focuses on the inability of the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) to directly fund local partners in the field. Considering the growing international funding gap, the EU acknowledges the importance of collaborating with the latter. The ‘localization’ of the aid, understood as empowering local partners in affected countries to lead and deliver humanitarian aid, is depicted by the humanitarian sector as an answer to inefficient aid, offering a comprehensive response to increasingly complex crises. However, and mainly due to the difficulty to adopt such an approach, the EU fails to reform its incompatible legislative framework: the EU Council Regulation 1257/96 of 1996. Supported by an eclectic analytical framework, the article answers the following question: what explains the constraints the EU is facing in changing the latter? The analysis of fourteen semi-structured interviews explores the reasons behind the continuity in the EU’s decision-making process since 2016, although it committed otherwise. Two main explanations may be found: firstly, the EU, particularly the Commission, is reluctant to changes that would be detrimental for its DGs; secondly, tensions with international implementing partners hinders incentives for change. Additionally, the article discusses future considerations, should the EU launch legislative reforms. The article found that the current administrative burden is heavy, preventing small partners to collaborate with the EU, favouring important International Organizations (IOs) and International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs).

With a view to transcending purely philanthropic or political approaches to disaster relief overlooking the entitlement of victims of a catastrophe to be assisted, this article analyses humanitarian assistance from a human rights perspective. Humanitarian aid operations are presented as the result of the interaction between the human rights of people affected by disasters and the corresponding governmental obligations. A distinction is made between the current scenario of disaster relief in which the relevant rights are the ones to life, food, health and medical services, water, adequate housing and clothing, and a prospective regime in which a human right to receive humanitarian assistance is recognized by the international community. The juxtaposition of the two regimes highlights the differences in the levels of protection they afford. It also proves that, in both cases, the adoption of a human rights-based approach safeguards affected people by empowering them to challenge governmental decisions to refuse international aid and by placing under international scrutiny the measures taken by sovereign States to protect their populations in the aftermath of catastrophes.

For years, humankind has been facing various disasters of which logistics has a crucial role for alleviating sufferings of vulnerable people, who are isolated and in need of basic supplies. Owing to the increasing importance of logistics in humanitarian operations, logistics service providers (LSPs) have recently become more prominent. Yet, only a few LSPs have the capabilities and mechanisms to offer operational solutions for humanitarian relief. Also, the conducted extensive literature review makes evident that the existence of a limited number of normative research reveals a barrier about what LSPs can bring into the humanitarian field. Accordingly, why LSPs are particularly important in the humanitarian supply chain and how LSPs manage their activities and resources in humanitarian operations become the main questions to be addressed. Thus, this study seeks to explore humanitarian operations of LSPs from different dimensions, enabled by Business Model Canvas (BMC). In this sense, the obtained findings clarify both similar and different viewpoints of diverse LSPs when mapped against the BMC. Consequently, the categorised interrelated information presented through the cross-case synthesis provide novelty to advance insights both on strategic missions of LSPs in humanitarian relief operations and on the usage of BMC beyond its common commercial implementations.