Nicolas Lemay-Hebert led our session this week, providing a captivating introduction for the ‘Conflict Analysis and Humanitarian Intervention’ module I’ve chosen to take next term, and to which I will apply much of what I’ve learned here.

How do interventions impact everyday life?

The main take-away I had from this session was how the “conflicting objectives” (Lemay et al., 2018) of humanitarian relief versus development assistance could cause such dire implications. Having previously studied some of the history of international development, I am aware of the negative outcomes interventions have often had, but this session really challenged me to think on a much more detailed level about the potentially damaging effects of seemingly insignificant changes. In Haiti, the effects of providing free health services during and after the emergency phase caught my attention. While it is considered a ‘right’ in humanitarian doctrine, it ultimately resulted in bankrupting local health providers and businesses, challenging the ‘Do No Harm’ principle of development (Lemay et al., 2018).

Do No Harm?

An approach devised to limit the impact of NGOs in the 1990s, there have since been several examples of development projects failing to meet this standard, often intensifying social divisions (Anderson 1999). Regardless, Duffield (2001) argues this minimalist approach doesn’t go far enough and that to achieve long-term goals, sustained development assistance needs to be made a priority from the start.

Is ‘unintended’ a justifiable excuse?

In coming away from this debate, I am reminded of the words of former Minister of State for DfID, Rory Stewart. In likening intervention to mountain rescue, he suggested:

“you don’t take a doctorate in mountain rescue, you look for somebody who knows the terrain… a guide who doesn’t press on relentlessly when conditions turn against them” (Rory Stewart, 2011)

Perhaps the development community could learn a lot from this?

Throughout this week I developed a keen desire to study the ‘unintended consequences’ of interventions further, so I will most likely choose this topic for my second assignment. I’ll build on what I’ve learned this week on Haiti, and apply similar frameworks to investigate other contexts, probing the idea of development intervention as a whole.

References

Anderson, M. (1999). Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace – Or War. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

Duffield, M., Macare, J. and Curtis, D. (2001). Editorial: Politics and Humanitarian Aid. Disasters, 25(4): 269-74.

Lemay-Hebert, N., Martel, A. and Robitaille, P. (2018). “Haiti: tensions between aid relief and development in the health sector”. Humanitarian Alternatives, 8. Available at: http://alternatives-humanitaires.org/en/2018/07/03/haiti-tensions-between-aid-relief-and-development-in-the-health-sector/  [Accessed: 10th January 2019]

Stewart, R. (2011) Time to end the war in Afghanistan [Video file]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwU8eavPInw [Accessed: 10th January 2019].