The proliferation of crises around the world has led to a sharp increase in the scale of humanitarian aid required to meet the vital needs of the people affected by them for food, water, medical care and shelter. Humanitarian organizations can either meet those needs directly or support local services engaged in the same work. In most cases, both approaches are used. Malnutrition, illness, wounds, torture, harassment of specific groups within the population, disappearances, extra-judicial executions and the forcible displacement of people are all found in many armed conflicts. Aside from their direct effects on the individuals concerned, the consequences of these tragedies for local systems must also be considered: the destruction of crops and places of cultural importance, the breakdown of economic infrastructure and of health-care facilities such as hospitals, etc. The impact of armed conflict on people and systems vital to their survival can take different forms, as the following examples illustrate: when Rwandan refugees fled into former Zaire, the mortality rate rose sharply, to as much as 10 times what is regarded as the threshold of extreme emergency, and large scale displacement invariably causes a dramatic increase in malnutrition rates.
In children under the age of five, this can reach 20% (Rwandan refugees in Zaire, 1994) or even 50% (Somalia, 1992).
Aid for victims of conflict remains the primary responsibility of the warring parties. The need for outside help arises when the parties to a conflict are unable or unwilling to shoulder that responsibility. Any successful aid strategy will have different goals. For example, aid is primarily intended to prevent the disastrous consequences mentioned above by stepping in before the health of the victims of conflict deteriorates. This requires prompt action either to assist the affected population groups directly or to prevent the deterioration of health care, agricultural or other local systems. This enables those systems to cope with the situation and thereby to prevent people’s health from deteriorating. But aid should also be designed to prevent the growth of dependence on outside assistance. Perrin, P. (1998).
The Essay on Health Care Delivery Systems 2
Abstract The American health care system is designed to focus on the organizations of individuals, places, and to treat and prevent adequate health care for the target populations. The federal government conducts an immense portion of delivering health care systems in our world today. The purpose for health care delivery systems is to provide financial tangible benefits and provide health care ...
The impact of humanitarian aid on conflict development. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Retrieved from http://www.icrc.org Development assistance can promote conflict when it is administered without considering social and political conditions.
It is very difficult to ensure that the effects of ‘apolitical’ aid are politically or ethnically neutral. Problems arise primarily due to the institutional cultures and organizational dynamics of donor agencies, which are not geared to dealing with the needs of deeply divided societies. Success is often measured in terms of the amount of money disbursed, rather than the outcome of programs. The mandate of these donor agencies is to promote economic growth and development “without regard to political or other non-economic influences or considerations.” Policies are aimed at improving overall macroeconomic stability and economic growth, irrespective of potential income-distribution effects. However, as James Boyce writes, to concentrate solely on increasing the size of the economic pie, without considering how that pie is divided, is an approach “singularly ill-suited to war-torn societies.” As all peace settlements are based on a balance of power between warring sides, any measure that disproportionately benefits or hurts one side can make both sides reassess their positions, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the peace. Branczik, A. (2004, February).
The Term Paper on Civil War Weapons And Artillery
The Weapons of the American Civil War The Civil War, also called The War Between the States, was one of the bloodiest wars in American history. What made the Civil War such a massacre? The Civil War was such a bloodbath because the technological advances were so far superior to the tactics of the infantry, that the weapons virtually obliterated the soldiers. Soldiers would form lines known as a ...
Humanitarian aid and development assistance. Beyond Intractability. Retrieved from http://www.beyondintractability.org Rwanda is only the latest example of what can happen when small arms and light weapons are sold to a country plagued by ethnic, religious, or nationalist strife. In today’s wars such weapons are responsible for most of the killings of civilians and combatants. They are used more often than major weapons systems in human rights abuses and other violations of international law. Light conventional arms sustain and expand conflict in a world increasingly characterized by nationalist tensions and border wars. Yet the international community continues to ignore trade in those weapons, concentrating instead on the dangers of nuclear arms proliferation. No tragedy better illustrates the need for controls than Rwanda, where the U.S. contribution to the present relief effort is expected to reach $500,000,000 or about two dollars for every U.S. citizen. Rwanda’s genocide, which began in April 1994, was preceded by a war launched in October 1990 by Tutsi guerrillas of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) against the Hutu-led government.
Rwanda was already one of the poorest nations in Africa. Although both the government and guerrillas had limited resources with which to buy arms, and their combined 45,000 combatants never comprised a very large market, arms suppliers rushed to both sides like vultures to a carcass. An arms race was under way. More than a dozen nations helped fuel the Rwandan war, and both sides appear to have purchased considerable weaponry through private sources on the open market. By its own admission, the Rwanda government bankrupted its economy to pay for those weapons. Former Warsaw Pact countries appear to have supplied both sides, seeing opportunity in Rwanda less than one year after the Berlin Wall fell. It remains unclear how long it took ex-Warsaw Pact equipment to reach Rwanda, but eventually most RPF guerrillas carried Kalashnikov AKM automatic rifles, many manufactured in Romania. Goose, S., Smyth, F. (1994, September 3).
Arming genocide in Rwanda. Frank Smith Independent Journalist Since 1987. Retrieved from http://www.franksmyth.com/foreign-affairs/arming-genocide-in- rwanda / It has been fifteen years since the genocide that devastated Rwanda in 1994, and while the players and sides have changed, the politics sadly remain largely the same.
The Essay on The War On Aids
The war on AIDS A relatively new incurable disease has shaken the world. Millions of people are already dead because of it. The name for it is AIDS. Nowadays there are an estimated 42 million people living with HIV or AIDS world-wide, and more than 3 million die every year from AIDS-related illnesses. HIV is always far more widespread than all studies indicate. Therefore it is important to know as ...
Rwanda is enmeshed in another cycle of repression, with an elite that represents a clear minority engaged in legal and extra-legal policies that impoverish the majority of the people in the country. Unfortunately for all involved, while foreign aid is crucial for the development of Rwanda and to lift it out of poverty, this same foreign aid is actually perpetuating the crisis. The government rules by and for the elite Tutsis who came out of Uganda in 1994 and their small group of allies. However, aid that flows to that government has the perverse effect of enabling this group to keep control even when that control actually stems from purposefully limiting the development of the vast majority of the people in the country. The civil war took place in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994 and subsequently spread to the DRC and caused enormous loss in human capital through countless victims. The war also damaged or destroyed infrastructure and equipment, as well as public and private buildings. Additionally, productive resources were diverted toward war activities. Additionally, productive resources were diverted toward war activities. Hakizimana, E., Endless, B. (2009, April 15).
Rwanda Today: when foreign aid hurts more than helps. Retrieved from http://www.hrrfoundation.org Rwanda has made stunning progress since what was one of the 20th century’s greatest tragedies, when more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu extremists. Life expectancy has doubled since 1994 to more than 60 years. Economic growth consistently reaches 8% annually. And the number of deaths of children under age 5 has plummeted in the last two decades from 230 per 1,000 to 55. In the years since the hundred days of bloodletting, in which as many as a million people were killed, the small Central African country has wowed donors and investors, though lately human rights advocates have criticized President Paul Kagame for displaying an increasingly authoritarian approach.
Kagame says that improved education and an end to poverty are the most effective ways to prevent a return of violence. The government spends a quarter of its budget on health and 17% on education, according to the World Bank. The positive news out of Rwanda stands in sharp contrast to the results of the West’s vows that “never again” would the world stand by as the massacres that occurred in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia in the mid-1990s unfolded. Dixon, R. (2014, April 7).
The Term Paper on Aids And Africa
The following are facts cited in “Acquired Immune Deficiency syndrome” by Gerald J. Stine. Worldwide, about 9,000 persons a day become HIV-infected. The majority of all HIV infections worldwide occur in people ages 15-24. Over 1 million people die of AIDS each year. The number of HIV-infections worldwide has tripled since 1990! It is estimated that there will be a 20% decline in population in East ...
Rwanda makes great progress 20 years after genocide. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://www.articles.latimes.com In conclusion, I guess it depend on who you ask to see if Rwanda is moving forward or not. I do believe that it is. It has come a long way.
References
Perrin, P. (1998).
The impact of humanitarian aid on conflict development. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Retrieved from http://www.icrc.org Branczik, A. (2004, February).
Humanitarian aid and development assistance. Beyond Intractability. Retrieved from http://www.beyondintractability.org Goose, S., Smyth, F. (1994, September 3).
Arming genocide in Rwanda. Frank Smith Independent Journalist since 1987. Retrieved from http://www.franksmyth.com/foreign-affairs/arming-genocide-in- rwanda / Hakizimana, E., Endless, B. (2009, April 15).
Rwanda Today: when foreign
aid hurts more than helps. Retrieved from http://www.hrrfoundation.org Dixon, R. (2014, April 7).
Rwanda makes great progress 20 years after genocide. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://www.articles.latimes.com
