Gap or prehistoric monster? A history of the humanitarian-development nexus at UNICEF.

Why has bridging the humanitarian-development divide been such a long-running endeavour, and why have so many frameworks to do so been proposed and picked apart over the years? Rather than contributing yet another 'mind the gap' approach, this paper seeks to articulate why such a lacuna emerged in the first place, and to explore how to exit a debate that has grown increasingly circular. To provide one possible answer to the questions above, the paper draws on the history of UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) in working across the 'humanitarian-development' nexus. Suggesting that the gap is more artefact than fact, derived from the institutionalisation of aid, the paper argues that focusing on the challenges and the concepts that inherently transcend humanitarian-development silos may enhance understanding of what it means-and what is needed-to operate at the intersection of humanitarian and development action on behalf of children.

Tracking Japan's development assistance for health, 2012-2016.

BACKGROUND: Development assistance for health (DAH) is one of the most important means for Japan to promote diplomacy with developing countries and contribute to the international community. This study, for the first time, estimated the gross disbursement of Japan's DAH from 2012 to 2016 and clarified its flows, including source, aid type, channel, target region, and target health focus area. METHODS: Data on Japan Tracker, the first data platform of Japan's DAH, were used. The DAH definition was based on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) sector classification. Regarding core funding to non-health-specific multilateral agencies, we estimated DAH and its flows based on the OECD methodology for calculating imputed multilateral official development assistance (ODA). RESULTS: Japan's DAH was estimated at 1472.94 (2012), 823.15 (2013), 832.06 (2014), 701.98 (2015), and 894.57 million USD (2016) in constant prices of 2016. Multilateral agencies received the largest DAH share of 44.96-57.01% in these periods, followed by bilateral grants (34.59-53.08%) and bilateral loans (1.96-15.04%). Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) was the largest contributors to the DAH (76.26-82.68%), followed by Ministry of Finance (MOF) (10.86-16.25%). Japan's DAH was most heavily distributed in the African region with 41.64-53.48% share. The channel through which the most DAH went was Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (20.04-34.89%). Between 2012 and 2016, approximately 70% was allocated to primary health care and the rest to health system strengthening. CONCLUSIONS: With many major high-level health related meetings ahead, coming years will play a powerful opportunity to reevaluate DAH and shape the future of DAH for Japan. We hope that the results of this study will enhance the social debate for and contribute to the implementation of Japan's DAH with a more efficient and effective strategy.

Feminist perspectives on the history of humanitarian relief (1870-1945).

Taking a Feminist perspective as a starting point, this introductory piece seeks not only to integrate women as the main agents within the history of humanitarian relief, but also to understand their assistance to victims, from the Franco-Prussian War to WWII, as a type of situated knowledge which was broadly associated with the notion of care through the implementation of practices such as dressing wounds, vaccinating, feeding and clothing vulnerable populations. This political and epistemological position allows us to analyse the agency of women humanitarians as a caring power involving strong gender, class, religious and colonial power relations within the history of Western Empires. Furthermore, our Feminist approach enables us to deconstruct the essentialist vision through which women humanitarians have frequently been depicted as compassionate mothers or loving angels, as well as to contextualize their contrasting experiences of complicity with Western Empires and resistance to male delegates and political and medical representatives. Far from heroic representations, women humanitarians had to navigate through complex global hierarchies although this did not necessarily come into conflict with their dreams about female emancipation.

A female genealogy of humanitarian action: compassion as a practice in the work of Josephine Butler, Florence Nightingale and Sarah Monod.

Taking the Second Conference of the International Abolitionist Federation as a starting point, this article reconstructs a female genealogy of humanitarian action by shedding light on the transnational connections established by Josephine Butler, Florence Nightingale and Sarah Monod between the abolitionist cause against the state regulation of prostitution and the nursing movement. By using gender and emotion histories as the main methodologies, their letters, journals and drawings are analysed in order to question their alleged natural compassion towards the unfortunate by examining this emotion as a practice performed according to gender, class, religious and ethnic differences. As an expression of maternal imperialism, this essentialist vision provided them with an agency while taking care of victims. However, Butler, Nightingale and Monod's care did not only work in complicity with late-nineteenth century British and French Empires, as it frequently came into conflict with the decisions taken by male authorities, such as those represented by politicians, military officials and physicians. By carefully looking at the conformation of their subjectivities through their written and visual documents, their compassion ultimately appears more as a tactic, for asserting their very different stances concerning Western women's role in society, than as an authentically experienced emotion.

The 'merciful and loving sex': Concepción Arenal's narratives on Spanish Red Cross women's war relief work in the 1870s.

Spain signed the Geneva Convention in 1864 and the Spanish Red Cross Society (SRC) was established in July of that year. Yet, only after 1870 the SRC revived and quickly expanded, forming local and provincial committees as well as ladies' sections. This revival mostly resulted from, first, the activation of humanitarian sensibilities and networks on the occasion of the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871), and then, the general mobilization of the SRC in reaction to the Carlist war of 1872-1876. This article examines the humanitarian work of Spanish women throughout this period through the intervention of the SRC ladies' sections, especially the central one. It reveals that these women played a crucial role in organizing, deploying and sustaining its humanitarian relief to the combatants. They empowered themselves by taking advantage of, and contributing to, the spreading of a view of women - very common at the time - as having a specific gender 'instinct' that made them 'naturally' suited to charitable and compassionate tasks. Pacifism is present in the humanitarian views and practices of these women, particularly in the case of Concepción Arenal (1820-1893), a social reformer, lawyer and writer, who was fully involved with the SRC during the Carlist war.

The Norwegian Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the Korean War (1951-1954): Military Hospital or Humanitarian "Sanctuary?"

During the Korean War (1950-1953) the Norwegian government sent a mobile army surgical hospital (MASH) to support the efforts of the United Nations (UN) Army. From the first, its status was ambiguous. The US-led military medical services believed that the "Norwegian Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" (NORMASH) was no different from any other MASH; but both its originators and its staff regarded it as a vehicle for humanitarian aid. Members of the hospital soon recognized that their status in the war zone was primarily that of a military field hospital. Yet they insisted on providing essential medical care to the local civilian population as well as trauma care to UN soldiers and prisoners of war. The ambiguities that arose from the dual mission of NORMASH are explored in this article, which pays particular attention to the experiences of nurses, as expressed in three types of source: their contemporary letters to their Matron-in-Chief; a report written by one nurse shortly after the war; and a series of oral history interviews conducted approximately 60 years later. The article concludes that the nurses of NORMASH experienced no real role-conflict. They viewed it as natural that they should offer their services to both military and civilian casualties according to need, and they experienced a sense of satisfaction from their work with both types of patient. Ultimately, the experience of Norwegian nurses in Korea illustrates the powerful sense of personal agency that could be experienced by nurses in forward field hospitals, where political decision-making did not impinge too forcefully on their clinical and ethical judgment as clinicians.

[The participation of italian nurses in the spanish civil war (1936-1939): identity, ideals and motivations]. / La partecipazione delle infermiere italianealla guerra civile spagnola (1936-1939):identità, ideali e motivazioni.

. The participation of italian nurses in the spanish civil war (1936-1939): identity, ideals and motivations. INTRODUCTION: The Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936 as a result of social and political tensions. It saw the nationalists and republicans of the Popular Front clash. The conflict ended in April 1939, when the Franco regime began and lasted until 1975. AIM: The research aims at investigating the training, organization, identity, ideals and motivations of the Italian nurses who participated as volunteers in this conflict. METHODS: The research was divided in phases according to Prosopography as a historical research method. Materials from secondary sources were analyzed at cultural sector libraries. Primary sources were then sought from national and international archives. Finally, experts in contemporary history were consulted. RESULTS: During the Spanish civil war, about 1000 Italian nurses participated in the conflict, giving their contribution in the two distinct factions. The anti-fascist volunteers, often not professionally trained, provided assistance throughout the war front while the nurses of the Italian Red Cross, graduated and supported by a militarized health care facility, created a unique and well-organized sector. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the limits due to the difficulty of finding the sources, the research shows that both bodies were moved by personal and political motivations. The analysis of personal data and the testimonies outlined important differences in education and social extraction, but also interesting similar elements that they shared in their humanitarian ideals.

Health Care Providers in War and Armed Conflict: Operational and Educational Challenges in International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions, Part I. Historical Perspective.

Since 1945, the reason for humanitarian crises and the way in which the world responds to them has dramatically changed every 10 to 15 years or less. Planning, response, and recovery for these tragic events have often been ad hoc, inconsistent, and insufficient, largely because of the complexity of global humanitarian demands and their corresponding response system capabilities. This historical perspective chronicles the transformation of war and armed conflicts from the Cold War to today, emphasizing the impact these events have had on humanitarian professionals and their struggle to adapt to increasing humanitarian, operational, and political challenges. An unprecedented independent United Nations-World Health Organization decision in the Battle for Mosul in Iraq to deploy to combat zones emergency medical teams unprepared in the skills of decades-tested war and armed conflict preparation and response afforded to health care providers and dictated by International Humanitarian Law and Geneva Convention protections has abruptly challenged future decision-making and deployments. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2019;13:109-115).

The 1917 Halifax Explosion: the first coordinated local civilian medical response to disaster in Canada.

SUMMARY: The 1917 Halifax Explosion was an unfortunate but predictable tragedy, given the sea traffic and munitions cargo, resulting in sudden large-scale damage and catastrophic injuries, with 1950 dead and 8000 injured. Although generous support was received from the United States, the bulk of the medical work was undertaken using local resources through an immediate, massive, centrally coordinated medical response. The incredible care provided 100 years ago by these Canadian physicians, nurses and students is often forgotten, but deserves attention. The local medical response to the 1917 disaster is an early example of coordinated mass casualty relief, the first in Canada, and remains relevant to modern disaster preparedness planning. This commentary has an appendix, available at canjsurg.ca/016317-a1.

Henry Dunant, fundador de la Cruz Roja / Henry Dunant, founder of the International Red Crosse

El presente se aborda la figura de Henry Dunant, activista en favor de la causa humanitaria, fue testigo de las secuelas de la batalla de Solferino en Italia cuyo impacto le llevó a escribir sus memorias y experiencias en el libro "Un recuerdo de Solferino" en el que reclamó la creación de un cuerpo de voluntarios para socorrer a los heridos de guerra sin distinción del bando que fuera. En 1901, recibió el primer Premio Nobel de la Paz por su papel al fundar el Movimiento Internacional de la Cruz Roja (AU).

The current work is about the figure of Henry Dunant, militant in favor of the humanitarian cause. He was a witness of the sequels of Solferino´s battle, in Italy, the impact of which led him to write his memoirs and experiences in the book "A recollection of Solferino". In it he claimed for the creation of a voluntary corps to help war wounded people without distinction of the band where they fought. In 1901 he was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize because of its role in the foundation of the International Red Crosse Movement (AU).

Failing to protect humanitarian workers: lessons from Britain and Voluntary Aid Detachments in the Second World War.

This paper draws on official records of international and British organizations, newspaper reports, and volunteer memoirs to study the failure to protect humanitarian workers in the Second World War. The Second World War saw a significant expansion in the use of air warfare and flying missiles and these technological advances posed a grave threat to civilians and humanitarian workers. In this context, the International Committee of the Red Cross advocated unsuccessfully to restrict air warfare and create safe hospital zones. The British Government grappled with the tension between military and humanitarian objectives in setting its bombardment policy. Ultimately, humanitarian principles were neglected in pursuit of strategic aims, which endangered civilians and left humanitarian workers particularly vulnerable. British Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses experienced more than six-fold greater fatality rates than civil defence workers and the general population. The lessons from failures to protect humanitarian workers in the face of evolutions in warfare remain profoundly relevant.