War Games: Humanitarian Aid

Having examined what defines humanitarian assistance and the differing types of aid, as well as attempting to explain the theory and some practical issues with the idea of humanitarian NGOs using responsible enterprise effectively. The final part to this essay aims to deconstruct three reasons explaining why responsible enterprise either fails or is not as successful as it should be, when supporting crises. Firstly, the question of whether humanitarian aid actually prolongs war should be investigated. In Polman’s (2011) book, War Games, she states that Florence Nightingale expressed views that any means that reduce the cost of war for governments, for example by providing volunteer efforts, only encourages further wars and for a longer time. That is to say, usually a war would be over when there are not enough or no soldiers left to fight the opposition, or when the government decides that there are not enough
Rather cynically, a whole new industry of humanitarian aid has been conceived and developing over the last fifty or so years, with an array of organisations all fighting for donations, competing for the best crisis territories and scrambling to make the most emotionally appealing marketing campaigns (King, 2016). Furthermore, money and supplies are increasingly representing a business opportunity for nations in conflict, aid becoming a huge feature in military strategy (Hanover, 2013). Humanitarianism Contested, a book written by Barnett and Weiss (2010) fundamentally brings to light the expected growth, seen since it was published, of the humanitarian industry. The only redeeming feature of the author’s predictions is that they hope for an eventual reform in humanitarianism.