Podcasts

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How much responsibility do humanitarian organizations have to protect the staff they send into the field? Due to the often austere, volatile, or insecure nature of humanitarian response settings, aid workers have long recognized the inherent personal and organizational risks of humanitarian action. Yet increasing threats and attacks against humanitarian actors in various emergency settings have spurred renewed debate over organizational responsibilities to protect not only civilian populations, but also their own staff. Much of this debate has focused on the principle of ‘duty of care’, and the ethical, professional, and legal obligations of organizations toward their...

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Dr. Sinead Walsh is a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) and a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She holds a PhD in Social Policy, from the London School of Economics, focusing on the accountability of NGOs in Uganda. Sinead is the former Ambassador of Ireland to Sierra Leone and Liberia, and Head of Mission for Irish Aid in Sierra Leone and Liberia. She is currently researching and writing a book about the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone from her vantage point as one the few diplomats and heads of development agencies in the country prior to and throughout this unprecedented crisis.

In this practitioner profile, ATHA sat down...

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Dr. Lina Abirafeh is the Director of the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World (IWSAW). She has nearly 20 years of experience addressing gender issues in both development and humanitarian settings, with a focus on gender-based violence in emergencies, including in conflict, post-conflict, and natural disasters. She has worked with many UN agencies and international NGOs, including in Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Lebanon, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Dr. Abirafeh has also conducted research on various gender issues in Bangladesh, Fiji, Kenya, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda, and has published much of...

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After over five years of war in Syria, civilians have not only been frequently caught in the crossfire, but have been intentionally targeted. According to an array of sources, homes, schools, hospitals, places of worship and cultural heritage have been destroyed - in particular during the recent siege of Aleppo - and civilians have been subjected to sexual violence, enslavement, terrorism, and other incidents. Additionally, acts undertaken by the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham against the Yazidi people in northern Iraq and Syria have sparked particular outrage and a push for accountability....