Traditional humanitarian principles, such as the neutrality of humanitarian aid, are being undermined within complex humanitarian emergencies and with the rise of the new global world order. This loss of neutral space is a result of several overlapping factors. Since the end of the Cold War, Western foreign policy has re-oriented itself to using aid as a means of maintaining stability and stemming the rise of terrorism, and this has increasingly politicised aid. Alongside this merging of foreign policy and humanitarian goals is decreasing security for NGO staff and beneficiaries. Furthermore, many NGOs have decided selectively to abandon the principles of neutrality and non intervention by actively promoting the idea of militarised humanitarian intervention in cases of genocide.
This edition of ontrac explores the challenges to NGO neutrality in the changing global context. Jo Boyden writes about the Sri Lankan experience of politically-contested humanitarian aid within an internal conflict. Reflecting twenty years on from the Ethiopian famine with its international response, Brian Pratt outlines the ongoing role of humanitarian aid organisations and assesses what has changed. John Beauclerk highlights the way in which Bosnian civil society continues to reflect social divides, and Charlie Buxton analyses the impact of the ‘War on Terror’ on civil society response in the Central Asia region. ontrac will continue to monitor this debate in the context of changing geo-politics over the coming months.
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ONTRAC 28. Moral and Practical Challenges to NGO Neutrality
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ONTRAC 28. Moral and Practical Challenges to NGO Neutrality. Arabic
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