The Crisis Caravan: What's Wrong with Humanitarian Aid?

by Linda Polman

Overview

In her controversial, no-holds-barred exposé Linda Polman shows how a vast industry has grown up around humanitarian aid. The Crisis Caravan takes us to war zones around the globe, showing how aid operations and the humanitarian world have become a feature of military strategy. Impassioned, gripping, and even darkly absurd, journalist Linda Polman "gives some powerful examples of unconscionable assistance...a world where aid workers have become enablers of the atrocities they seek to relieve" (The Boston Globe).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312610586
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	08/30/2011
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Linda Polman is an Amsterdam-based journalist who for fifteen years has reported from war zones for a range of European radio stations and newspapers. She is the author of We Did Nothing, which was shortlisted for the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Goma: A "Total Ethical Disaster" 13

2 Contract Fever 36

3 MONGOs 48

4 Donor Darlings 63

5 Aid as a Weapon of War 95

6 Refugee Warriors 106

7 The Hunger Weapon 114

8 When Recipients Call the Shots 123

9 Afghaniscam 139

10 The Logic of the Humanitarian Era 157

Afterword: Ask Them Questions 172

Aidspeak 181

Acknowledgments 209

Notes 211

Bibliography 215

Index 221

Editorial Reviews

Particularly timely just now… Polman finds moral hazard on display wherever aid workers are deployed. In case after case, a persuasive argument can be made that, over-all, humanitarian aid did as much or even more harm than good… Her style is brusque, hard-boiled, with a satirist's taste for gallows humor. Her basic stance is: J'accuse.” —Philip Gourevitch, The New Yorker

“A reporting tour de force, devastating.” —The Sunday Times (London)

“Marvelous, cool, brusque, fearless.” —The Guardian (London)

“Ms. Polman's prose is scorching.” —The Economist

“A disturbing account…Raises profound questions not just about the palliative efficacy of aid, but whether it fuels and prolongs conflict.” —Financial Times

From the Publisher

Dutch journalist Polman (We Did Nothing: Why the Truth Doesn't Always Come Out When the UN Goes in) here contends that humanitarian aid agencies are unable to act impartially and independently in response to crises. Heart-wrenching examples abound: Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, aid agencies strengthening Hutu refugee warriors who then continue genocide against Rwandan Tutsis; Sierra Leone's child amputees serving primarily as arresting visual appeals to foreign political and religious funding; and aid siphoned off from allocated projects in Afghanistan. The book, originally published in Dutch in 2008, predates Haiti's recent earthquake, but connections may be made to those aid circumstances as well. Polman expertly compels readers to consider how, when, and at what cost humanitarian aid is provided. VERDICT This is a strongly recommended addition for readers in current global affairs and all public library collections, especially well paired with Neil Middleton's Humanitarian Assistance?: Haiti and Beyond, publishing this month, or Delivering Aid Differently: Lessons from the Field, edited by Wolfgang Fengler and Homi Kharas.—Catherine C. McMullen, MLIS, Portland, OR

Library Journal