Conflict and Health
[Accessed 12 July 2014]
http://www.conflictandhealth.com/

Research
Gender-based violence in conflict and displacement: qualitative findings from displaced women in Colombia
Andrea L Wirtz, Kiemanh Pham, Nancy Glass, Saskia Loochkartt, Teemar Kidane, Decssy Cuspoca, Leonard S Rubenstein, Sonal Singh and Alexander Vu
Author Affiliations
Conflict and Health 2014, 8:10 doi:10.1186/1752-1505-8-10
Published: 11 July 2014
Abstract (provisional)
Introduction
Gender-based violence (GBV) is prevalent among, though not specific to, conflict affected populations and related to multifarious levels of vulnerability of conflict and displacement. Colombia has been marked with decades of conflict, with an estimated 5.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and ongoing violence. We conducted qualitative research to understand the contexts of conflict, displacement and dynamics with GBV. This as part of a multi-phase, mixed method study, in collaboration with UNHCR, to develop a screening tool to confidentially identify cases of GBV for referral among IDP women who were survivors of GBV.
Methods
Qualitative research was used to identify the range of GBV, perpetrators, contexts in conflict and displacement, barriers to reporting and service uptake, as well as to understand experiences of service providers. Thirty-five female IDPs, aged 18 years and older, who self-identified as survivors of GBV were enrolled for in-depth interviews in San Jose de Guaviare and Quibdo, Colombia in June 2012. Thirty-one service providers participated in six focus group discussions and four interviews across these sites.
Results
Survivors described a range of GBV across conflict and displacement settings. Armed actors in conflict settings perpetrated threats of violence and harm to family members, child recruitment, and, to a lesser degree, rape and forced abortion. Opportunistic violence, including abduction, rape, and few accounts of trafficking were more commonly reported to occur in the displacement setting, often perpetrated by unknown individuals. Intrafamilial violence, intimate partner violence, including physical and sexual violence and reproductive control were salient across settings and may be exacerbated by conflict and displacement. Barriers to reporting and services seeking were reported by survivors and providers alike.
Conclusions
Findings highlight the need for early identification of GBV cases, with emphasis on confidential approaches and active engagement of survivors in available, quality services. Such efforts may facilitate achievement of the goals of new Colombian laws, which seek to prevent and respond to GBV, including in conflict settings. Ongoing conflict and generalized GBV in displacement, as well as among the wider population, suggests a need to create sustainable solutions that are accessible to both IDPs and general populations.

Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness
Volume 8 – Issue 03 – June 2014
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?jid=DMP&tab=currentissue

Editorial
The 2015 Hyogo Framework for Action: Cautious Optimism
Frederick M. Burkle Jra1, Shinichi Egawaa4, Anthony G. MacIntyrea2, Yasuhiro Otomoa5, Charles W. Beadlinga6 and John T. Walsha3
a1 Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC
a2 Department of Emergency Medicine, George Washington University, Washington, DC
a3 Children’s National Health System, Washington, DC
a4 International Research Institute of Disaster Science and the Division of Surgery, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
a5 Department of Acute Critical Care and Disaster Medicine, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan
a6 Center for Disaster and Humanitarian Medicine, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland.
[No abstract]

Editorial
Supporting Health in the Hyogo Framework for Action-2
James J. James
[No abstract]

Original Article
Development of a Self-Administered Questionnaire to Assess the Psychological Competencies for Surviving a Disaster
Danjun Fenga1 c1 and Linqin Jia2
a1 School of Nursing, Shandong University, China
a2 School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, Shandong, China.
ABSTRACT
Objective To find the psychological competencies for surviving a disaster and develop a self-report questionnaire to assess them.
Methods Interviews with 16 earthquake survivors and 16 fire fighters followed by qualitative analysis were used to find psychological competencies. Formation of the item pool, a pilot study among 20 college teachers and students, a series of principal component analyses for the data from 345 college students, and a confirmatory factor analysis for the data from 307 participants with various occupations were used to develop the Psychological Competencies for Surviving a Disaster Questionnaire (PCSDQ).
Results We found 4 psychological competencies: risk perception of a disaster, disaster knowledge and self-relief skills, low fear in a disaster, and sense of control over a disaster. The 24-item PCSDQ assessed these psychological competencies. The Cronbach alpha of PCSDQ subscales ranged from .75 to .87.
Conclusions The psychological competencies for surviving a disaster were found to be risk perception of a disaster, disaster knowledge and self-relief skills, low fear in a disaster, and sense of control over a disaster. Using the PCSDQ to assess a person’s psychological competencies for disaster survival will make it possible to provide that person with an individualized and targeted disaster self-relief education and/or training program. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2014;0:1-9)

Global Health Governance
[Accessed 12 July 2014]
http://blogs.shu.edu/ghg/category/complete-issues/summer-2013/

Analyzing Leadership in Global Health Governance
– June 16, 2014
Sophie Harman and Simon Rushton
Rhetoric around the need for more and better leadership is ubiquitous in contemporary global health governance, yet there has been little articulation of what type of leadership is required, who might play leadership roles, and in what fora leadership might be exercised. Global health governance has widely been seen as a policy space characterised by a multiplicity of (often competing) actors with no overall authority. Nonetheless, major accomplishments exist, and in some cases there are impressive levels of collective action to address particular health problems. We argue that leadership provides an important lens for understanding how goals are met in global health governance. Drawing on the existing literature on global health governance and leadership and agency in international relations, we set out in this paper a framework for analysing leadership in global health governance. Crucially, we argue, such a framework must be specific enough to be operationalised in terms of a program of research and at the same time broad enough to capture a wide variety of different sources, sites and forms of leadership – including the roles played by ‘hidden leaders’ who are seldom acknowledged in mainstream analyses of global health politics.

Institutional Readiness in Practice of Pandemic Response to an Emerging Infectious Disease
– June 16, 2014
Asif B. Farooq and Shannon E. Majowicz
This paper argues that emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) remain a threat-focused security issue as the relative success of recent international responses do not fully reflect our current readiness for EID outbreaks. Existing pandemic response plans have been tested only for either virulent or highly transmissible diseases. Therefore, global health institutions have not yet been tested for the worst-case scenario: a disease with high virulence and transmissibility. We categorize EIDs into four quartiles according to their virulence and transmissibility, identify five relevant factors, and use recent EID outbreaks to develop inferences for response capacity to a possible outbreak of highly virulent and transmissible EIDs. We conclude there may be significant shortcomings in the existing pandemic response capacity to EIDs, which could lead to a public health crisis.

International Responses to Sexual Violence in Situations of Armed Conflict
– June 16, 2014
Jane Galvão, PhD
This commentary describes efforts to address sexual violence, especially in situations of armed conflict, and bringing attention to this issue in connection with the Post-2015 United Nations (UN) Development Agenda.1 Analysis on sexual violence during armed conflict is not a new subject and even an initiative UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict (UN Action) was launched in March 2007, bringing together 13 UN entities,2 but here I will focus on some of the international responses, and particularly on the UN Security Council resolutions. I will highlight the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council from the year 2000 to 2011, illustrate the issue mentioning Kosovo and Rwanda as examples of prosecution of perpetrators of sexual violence during armed conflicts, as well as the United Kingdom Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, launched in 2012.3

Global Public Health
Volume 9, Issue 6, 2014
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rgph20/.Uq0DgeKy-F9#.U4onnCjDU1w

Sexual and reproductive health and rights in the post-2015 development agenda
Gita Sena*
DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2014.917197
pages 599-606
Abstract
Women’s health is currently shaped by the confluence of two important policy trends – the evolution of health system reform policies and from the early 1990s onwards, a strong articulation of a human rights-based approach to health that has emphasised laws and policies to advance gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). The drive for sexual and reproductive rights represents an inclusive trend towards human rights to health that goes beyond the right to health services, directing attention to girls’ and women’s rights to bodily autonomy, integrity and choice in relation to sexuality and reproduction. Such an expanded concept of the right to health is essential if laws, policies and programmes are to respect, protect and fulfil the health of girls and women. However, this expanded understanding has been ghettoised from the more mainstream debates on the right to health and was only partially included in the Millennium Development Goals. The paper argues in favour of a twofold approach in placing SRHR effectively in the context of the post-2015 development agenda: first, firmly ground it in an inclusive approach to the right to health; and second, drawing on two decades of national-level implementation, propose a forward-looking agenda focusing on quality, equality and accountability in policies and in programmes. This can build on good practice while addressing critical challenges central to the development framework itself.

Intervention – Journal of Mental Health and Psychological Support in Conflict Affected Areas
July 2014 – Volume 12 – Issue 2 pp: 168-318
http://journals.lww.com/interventionjnl/pages/currenttoc.aspx

From the editor… questions of evidence
Marian Tankink
Editor in chief, Intervention
Excerpt
These days, more and more programmes and therapies are being developed to improve psychological and (psycho)social wellbeing of people affected by (armed) conflict. Yet, there is still little evidence of the efficacy of these programmes and therapies. The search for evidence raises many basic questions, starting with: what is evidence? When do findings become evidence? What is the justification for claiming that something is evidence, and how are they socially constructed or expressed? Furthermore, what and where are the facts to be found, and what is the impact of observation or perception? What exactly are we measuring if, for instance, we are attempting to interpret mental health and wellbeing?
Throughout this issue of Intervention, these questions raise important, as well as problematic, issues that are not easy to resolve. This is especially true when the concept of ‘evidence’ relates to qualitative findings, which within the field of ‘evidence based medicine’ are not considered ‘real’ evidence. Data collected through use of qualitative research is, by its very nature, subjective, meaning data from a person or a group is used as evidence within the context of a time and place. This, in itself, poses the question: is it possible within the context of conflict, chaos, urgency, temporality and complexity that our research findings can claim to be ‘evidence’ at all?…
… The final part of this issue is a debate on Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET). NET aims to treat people who are unable to integrate their personal traumatic experiences into their personal memories and public history. As a result, they can be locked within their psychological circumstances, making it very difficult for them to experience appalling lived events as meaningful and therefore, ‘sufferable’ (Zur, 1998). NET aims to help the traumatised person through creating a life line that gives an overview of his/her life and includes not only traumatic experiences, but positive ones as well. A cord (the line of life) is spread out and the life of the patient is worked through chronologically; flowers are added to the cord to represent positive experiences and stones for negative and/or traumatic ones. The traumatic experiences are thereby reconstructed through the integration of autobiographic and context information of the traumatic memory (the hot spot). This is called narrative exposure. Next to the line of life and the exposure of the stones, a third aspect of NET is a written account made of lived experiences and that can be considered as a testimony (Jongedijk, 2014). This approach is currently being used in many low and middle income countries (LMIC), by trained lay therapists, but is not without controversy.

Journal of Development Economics
Volume 110, In Progress (September 2014)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03043878/110

Nudging to use: Achieving safe water behaviors in Kenya and Bangladesh
Original Research Article
Pages 13-21
Jill Luoto, David Levine, Jeff Albert, Stephen Luby
Abstract
Consistent adoption of preventive health behaviors could save many lives, but we do not understand how to create consistent adoption. For example, low-cost point-of-use (POU) water treatment technologies such as chlorine and filters can substantially reduce diarrheal disease, a leading cause of child mortality worldwide. Nonetheless, these products are not consistently used anywhere in the developing world, even when available and heavily subsidized. We ran complementary randomized field studies in rural western Kenya and urban Dhaka, Bangladesh in which households received free trials of POU products to test the role of marketing nudges on usage. Health-oriented marketing messages inspired by behavioral economics incrementally increase the use of all products in both countries. We discuss how our findings from these two studies complement and contradict each other, and what we can learn generally about the uptake of these (and potentially other) preventive health goods.

Journal of International Development
July 2014 Volume 26, Issue 5 Pages 567–747
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jid.v26.4/issuetoc

CORRUPTION AND THE EFFICIENCY OF CAPITAL INVESTMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES (pages 567–597)
Conor M. O’Toole and Finn Tarp
Article first published online: 19 MAR 2014 | DOI: 10.1002/jid.2997
Abstract
This paper tests the effect of corruption on the efficiency of capital investment. Using firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, covering 90 developing and transition economies, we consider whether the cost of informal bribe payments distorts the efficient allocation of capital by reducing the marginal return per unit investment. Controlling for censoring and endogeneity, we find that bribery decreases investment efficiency. The negative effect is strongest for domestic small-sized and medium-sized enterprises. We conclude that reducing the level and incidence of bribery by public officials would facilitate a more efficient allocation of capital.

REVIEW ARTICLE: RESILIENCE, POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENT (pages 598–623)
Christophe Béné, Andrew Newsham, Mark Davies, Martina Ulrichs and Rachel Godfrey-Wood
Article first published online: 6 MAR 2014 | DOI: 10.1002/jid.2992
Abstract
Resilience has become prominent in academia where it is used as a central framework in disciplines such as ecology, climate change adaptation or urban planning. Policy makers and international development agencies also increasingly refer to it. The objective of this paper is to assess the advantages and limits of resilience in the context of development. Although the review highlights some positive elements—for example, the ability to foster an integrated approach—it also shows that resilience has important limitations. In particular, it is not a pro-poor concept, in the sense that it does not exclusively apply to, or benefit, the poor. As such, resilience building cannot replace poverty reduction.

Policy Arena: Rethinking Rural Co-operatives in Development
RETHINKING RURAL CO-OPERATIVES IN DEVELOPMENT: INTRODUCTION TO THE POLICY ARENA (pages 668–682)
Hazel Johnson and Linda Shaw
Article first published online: 1 JUL 2014 | DOI: 10.1002/jid.3004

THE CO-OPERATIVE AS INSTITUTION FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE STUDY OF COPPALJ, A PRIMARY CO-OPERATIVE IN BRAZIL (pages 683–700)
Sara Vicari
Article first published online: 1 JUL 2014 | DOI: 10.1002/jid.3003

GOOD CO-OPERATIVE GOVERNANCE: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM WITH RURAL POVERTY REDUCTION (pages 701–712)
Rowshan Hannan
Article first published online: 1 JUL 2014 | DOI: 10.1002/jid.2989

COLLECTIVE LEARNING IN YOUTH-FOCUSED CO-OPERATIVES IN LESOTHO AND UGANDA (pages 713–730)
Sally Hartley
Article first published online: 1 JUL 2014 | DOI: 10.1002/jid.3000

The Lancet
Jul 12, 2014 Volume 384 Number 9938 p103 – 206 e22 – 29
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/current

NCD Countdown 2025: accountability for the 25 × 25 NCD mortality reduction target
Robert Beaglehole, Ruth Bonita, Majid Ezzati, George Alleyne, Katie Dain, Sandeep P Kishore, Richard Horton
Preview
In 2012, all countries committed to achieving a 25% reduction in premature mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by 2025 (the 25 × 25 target). In 2013, countries also agreed to a set of voluntary targets for risk factors and health systems.1 Unlike the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were directed at low-income and middle-income countries, NCD targets are for all countries. Achieving targets for just six NCD risk factors (tobacco and alcohol use, salt intake, obesity, and raised blood pressure and glucose) will come close to achieving the global 25 × 25 target, especially if a more ambitious tobacco reduction target is adopted.

PLOS Currents: Disasters
[Accessed 12 July 2014]
http://currents.plos.org/disasters/

Preventing Malnutrition in Post-Conflict, Food Insecure Settings: A Case Study from South Sudan
July 7, 2014
Abstract
Background: Decades of civil conflict compound the challenges of food insecurity in South Sudan and contribute to persistent, high levels of child malnutrition. As efforts to prevent child malnutrition continue, there is a critical need for strategies that effectively supplement the diets of pregnant women and young children in transitional, highly food insecure settings like South Sudan.
Methods: This mixed-methods case study of four communities in South Sudan reports on the diets of children under 2 years of age and explores household-level factors including household size, intrahousehold food allocation practices, and responses to scarcity that may have significant impact on the effectiveness of strategies relying on household ration distribution to supplement the diets of pregnant women and children under 2 years of age.
Results: Participants reported experiencing increased scarcity as a result of prolonged drought and household sizes enlarged by the high volume of returning refugees. Although communities were receiving monthly household rations through a non-emergency food assistance program, most households had exhausted rations less than 30 days after receipt. Results showed that more than one half of children 12-17 months and one third of children 18-23 months consumed diets consisting of fewer than 4 food groups in the last week. Intrahousehold food allocation patterns give children first priority at meal times even in times of scarcity, yet adult women, including pregnant women, have last priority.
Discussion: These findings suggest that distribution of supplementary household rations will likely be insufficient to effectively supplement the diets of young children and pregnant women in particular. In light of the multiple contextual challenges experienced by households in transitional, food-insecure settings, these findings support recommendations to take a context-specific approach to food assistance programming, in which considerations of intrahousehold food allocation patterns and broader cultural and environmental factors inform program design. Incorporating assessments of intrahousehold food allocation patterns as part of needs assessments for food assistance and voucher or cash transfer programs may contribute to more effective, context specific programming.

Prehospital & Disaster Medicine
Volume 29 – Issue 03 – June 2014
https://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?jid=PDM&tab=currentissue

Editorial
Is There a Scientific Basis for Disaster Health and Medicine?
Samuel J. Stratton
Excerpt
Is there a need for scientific support for disaster health and medicine? It seems that there is an accepted disaster health and medicine knowledge base that is based largely on opinions of those who have deemed themselves expert in disaster health, or based on descriptive experiences of some during disaster deployments. While opinion and experience may be methods for determining standards for health and medicine in disasters, scientific exploration is the basis for forming the knowledge base of a respected and effective domain in the various areas of health and medicine. In a sarcastic view, if opinion and singular experience were an acceptable basis for establishing knowledge, the Western civilizations would still consider the earth the center of the universe.
At present, disaster health and medical science continues to develop slowly, despite three decades of recognition by early pioneers in the disaster medicine field of the need for application of scientific principles. Certainly, attaining “pure” disaster science with randomized controlled trials to show causal effects is likely not attainable because of the need to prospectively control study variables. Because of the nature of disaster events, most variables can rarely be controlled. On the other hand, epidemiologic and qualitative methods that provide associations among variables are applicable to disaster research and provide effective working science knowledge for the field. Additionally, disaster medical research is particularly appropriate for the developing field of simulation research. Simulation research allows for development of disaster event models that can be tested against actual events as they occur and can provide for control of important variables such that disaster effects can be predicted…

Comprehensive Review
When and Why Health Care Personnel Respond to a Disaster: The State of the Science
Susan B. Connor
Abstract
Objective Emergency response relies on the assumption that essential health care services will continue to operate and be available to provide quality patient care during and after a patient surge. The observed successes and failures of health care systems during recent mass-casualty events and the concern that these assumptions are not evidence based prompted this review.
Method The aims of this systematic review were to explore the factors associated with the intention of health care personnel (HCP) to respond to uncommon events, such as a natural disaster or pandemic, determine the state of the science, and bolster evidence-based measures that have been shown to facilitate staff response.
Results Authors of the 70 studies (five mixed-methods, 49 quantitative, 16 qualitative) that met inclusion criteria reported a variety of variables that influenced the intent of HCP to respond. Current evidence suggests that four primary factors emerged as either facilitating or hindering the willingness of HCP to respond to an event: (1) the nature of the event; (2) competing obligations; (3) the work environment and climate; and (4) the relationship between knowledge and perceptions of efficacy.
Conclusions Findings of this study could influence and strengthen policy making by emergency response planners, staffing coordinators, health educators, and health system administrators.

Comprehensive Review
Enhancing the Minimum Data Set for Mass-Gathering Research and Evaluation: An Integrative Literature Review
Jamie Ransea1a2 c1, Alison Huttona2, Sheila A. Turrisa3 and Adam Lunda3
a1 Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
a2 Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
a3 Mass Gathering Medicine Interest Group, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada
Abstract
Introduction In 2012, a minimum data set (MDS) was proposed to enable the standardized collection of biomedical data across various mass gatherings. However, the existing 2012 MDS could be enhanced to allow for its uptake and usability in the international context. The 2012 MDS is arguably Australian-centric and not substantially informed by the literature. As such, an MDS with contributions from the literature and application in the international settings is required.
Methods This research used an integrative literature review design. Manuscripts were collected using keyword searches from databases and journal content pages from 2003 through 2013. Data were analyzed and categorized using the existing 2012 MDS as a framework.
Results In total, 19 manuscripts were identified that met the inclusion criteria. Variation in the patient presentation types was described in the literature from the mass-gathering papers reviewed. Patient presentation types identified in the literature review were compared to the 2012 MDS. As a result, 16 high-level patient presentation types were identified that were not included in the 2012 MDS.
Conclusion Adding patient presentation types to the 2012 MDS ensures that the collection of biomedical data for mass-gathering health research and evaluation remains contemporary and comprehensive. This review proposes the addition of 16 high-level patient presentation categories to the 2012 MDS in the following broad areas: gastrointestinal, obstetrics and gynecology, minor illness, mental health, and patient outcomes. Additionally, a section for self-treatment has been added, which was previously not included in the 2012 MDS, but was widely reported in the literature.

Tropical Medicine and Health
Vol. 42(2014) No. 2
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/tmh/42/1/_contents

Current Trends of Immunization in Nigeria: Prospect and Challenges
Endurance A. Ophori, Musa Y. Tula, Azuka V. Azih, Rachel Okojie, Precious E. Ikpo
Released: July 12, 2014
Abstract
Immunization is aimed at the prevention of infectious diseases. In Nigeria, the National Programme on Immunization (NPI) suffers recurrent setbacks due to many factors including ethnicity and religious beliefs. Nigeria is made up of 36 states with its federal capital in Abuja. The country is divided into six geo-political zones; north central, north west, north east, south east, south west and south south. The population is unevenly distributed across the country. The average population density in 2006 was estimated at 150 people per square kilometres with Lagos, Anambra, Imo, Abia, and Akwa Ibom being the most densely populated states. Most of the densely populated states are found in the south east. Kano with an average density of 442 persons per square kilometre, is the most densely populated state in the northern part of the country. This study presents a review on the current immunization programme and the many challenges affecting its success in the eradication of childhood diseases in Nigeria.

From Google Scholar+ [to 12 July 2014]
Selected content from beyond the journals and sources covered above, aggregated from a range of Google Scholar monitoring algorithms and other monitoring strategies.

(Google eBook) Humanitarian Architecture: 15 stories of architects working after disaster
Esther Charlesworth
Routledge, Jun 27, 2014 – 264 pages
Never has the demand been so urgent for architects to respond to the design and planning challenges of rebuilding post-disaster sites and cities. In 2011, more people were displaced by natural disasters (42 million) than by wars and armed conflicts. And yet the number of architects equipped to deal with rebuilding the aftermath of these floods, fires, earthquake, typhoons and tsunamis is chronically short.

Surgery
http://www.surgjournal.com/
Commentary on: Surgical skills needed for humanitarian missions in resource-limited settings: Common operative procedures performed at Médecins Sans Frontières facilities
Robert L. Sheridan, MD
United States Army Reserve; Burn Unit Director, Boston Shriners Hospital for Children, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
Accepted: May 6, 2014; Published Online: June 28, 2014
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.surg.2014.05.001
Excerpt
I HAPPENED TO BE A SURGEON-VOLUNTEER at the Partners-in-Health surgical hospital in Canges Haiti when the January 2010 earthquake struck. In the ensuing days I had the opportunity to help as a stunned Partners-in-Health team managed a large influx of patients, most with major crush injuries, many presenting days later. I should not have been surprised by the frequency of post-rhabdomyolysis–induced renal failure, but I was. We all were. However, Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres [MSF]) was not surprised. Not only were they not surprised, they were prepared. Just a few days after the quake, they had flown in and set up a field dialysis center to which we began to send patients dying from renal failure. From prior experience, they knew this would be an important yet treatable problem among survivors. And they were ready to act….

Millennium – Journal of International Studies
June 27, 2014 0305829814529470
The Rise of the Humanitarian Drone: Giving Content to an Emerging Concept
Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, PRIO, Norway
Kjersti Lohne, University of Oslo, Norway
Abstract
This article explores and attempts to define the emerging concept of the humanitarian drone by critically examining actual and anticipated transfers of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, from the global battlespace to the humanitarian emergency zone. Focusing on the relationship between the diffusion of new technology and institutional power, we explore the humanitarian drone as a ‘war dividend’ arising from the transfer of surveillance UAVs, cargo-carrying UAVs and weaponised UAVs. We then reflect on the ways in which military practices and rationales guiding drone deployment may also shape humanitarian use, giving particular attention to the concept of surgical precision, the implications of targeting logic, and the ambiguous role of distance. Next, we consider the broader implications for humanitarian action, including the promise of global justice and improved aid delivery. Finally, we analyse the most difficult aspect of the humanitarian drone: namely, its political currency as a ‘humanitarian weapon’ in conflict scenarios.

International Journal of Supply Chain Management
Vol. 3, No. 2, June 2014
[PDF] Improving Volunteer Productivity and Retention during Humanitarian Relief Efforts
K Lassiter, A Alwahishie, K Taaffe
Abstract
In the aftermath of a disaster, humanitarian organizations quickly assemble a workforce that can immediately serve a community’s needs. However, these needs change over time, and the volunteer base (and their skill sets) also changes over time. In this paper, a
mathematical programming model is formulated to solve a volunteer assignment problem in which beneficiaries’ needs are addressed based on how many volunteers are assigned to each of the levels of needs. In addition, we also examine the changes in these volunteer assignments based on several key cost parameters, need likelihood scenarios, and volunteer training opportunities. Under various demand scenarios, the optimum decision is to begin training some unskilled volunteers early in the response period even when the short-term, unskilled task demands are still high, in preparation for the more skilled, long-term task demands that are yet to come. Humanitarian relief organization managers who generally feel as though a peak of long-term/skilled volunteer task demands will come at some point during the disaster response should strongly consider allowing volunteer training assignments.

Globalizations
Volume 11, Issue 3, 2014
Special Issue: Global Governance, Legitimacy and (De)Legitimation
Business–humanitarian partnerships: Processes of normative legitimation
Liliana B. Andonovaa* & Gilles Carbonniera*
DOI: 10.1080/14747731.2014.901717
pages 349-367
Published online: 24 Jun 2014
Abstract
There has been a surge of business–humanitarian partnerships (BHPs) in the contemporary era of globalization and rebalancing of power between states and non-state actors. The rationale of BHPs rests both on ethical and effectiveness principles. The article therefore argues for a broad normative approach drawing on three general sources of legitimacy: procedures, relative effectiveness, and the fit of new partnership governance with moral standards that pertain to the relevant policy arena. We focus on the partnership initiatives of UNICEF and the International Movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent with the aim of assessing how their normative legitimation has been pursued. Our study reveals that while humanitarian agencies have adopted clear principles and procedures to safeguard the normative integrity and procedural legitimacy of partnerships with for-profit entities, the agencies find it much more difficult to assess and credibly communicate the outcome and comparative worth of such collaboration.