Human Rights versus the Humanitarian Ideal: Sustainable Programming in Countries with Questionable Human Rights Records

The humanitarian assistance community is gradually forming a consensus that sustainable interventions should focus on building resilience in order to successfully address the ongoing effects of natural disasters and complex emergencies as well as to minimize the effects of new crises.[1] Such attempts often require working within local government institutions to build local capacity in health, education, food production, or any one of the many silos that fall under the sprawling UN Cluster System.

Ideally, these efforts strengthen the institutions of local and national governments which represent the interests of the communities they serve. But what happens when these efforts are undertaken in less than ideal circumstances, as they so often are? Even a cursory analysis of humanitarian aid financial allocations shows that there is significant overlap between the places where the largest amounts of humanitarian assistance are dispersed (Figure 1) and countries which are repeatedly rated as having an extreme risk for human rights abuses (Figure 2). Under these circumstances, it is unavoidable that humanitarian assistance and human rights advocacy will sometimes conflict with one another.

Reflections on Nepal

It’s hotter than I expected. Having never been to Nepal before, my imagination was dominated by photos of Sagarmāthā and its snowcapped reaches, but down here in Dhading Besi, the summer sun is unrelenting. We’ve been waiting on a hard-packed dirt field-turned-helicopter-landing-zone for a day and a half, awaiting our turn to be delivered via Indian Air Force helicopter to the furthest reaches of the district. The field looks like it serves as an intermittent parade ground for military formations, and the outpost off to the corner looks defensible. The bunkers are empty, but I recognize their sight lines are well-arrayed and the layers of concertina wire are carefully maintained, kept clear of debris and brush that might make them easier to leap over. I struggle to remember how long ago the insurgency had been and wonder what had happened to the Maoists. Asking some of the Nepali staff members what the result had been, they hesitantly say that they had been incorporated into the government. I remark that surely that meant they had truly been defeated, and I’m rewarded with a boisterous laugh among the normally quiet staff members. It was a good and heartfelt laugh, and I relax a bit while simultaneously berating myself internally for bringing up what could have been a very awkward and controversial subject. Reminding myself that a student intern is best seen and not heard, I continue to ponder the heat.