National Defence committee  Somehow I think Haiti was off the charts in every respect. They got decimated, and they didn't have much capacity to start with.

National Defence committee  Pakistan, for example, is a case where the government has taken control, as in ideal circumstances each government should. They coordinated the effort, and we all worked as a part of their plan for humanitarian assistance and reconstruction. I think they did receive lots of supp

National Defence committee  Not necessarily. They may still try to destroy them. I think CARE has done a study in Afghanistan. I think the percentage of schools that get blown up is smaller. But the conclusion regarding the schools built by UNICEF and CARE and other NGOs was also that further study was ne

National Defence committee  We take supplies with us. We have a constant system of risk assessment and we try to manage the risk. At some point, when the risk becomes too great to be managed.... For example, our operations in Somalia are now done from Kenya. We don't have warehouses in Somalia. We don't h

National Defence committee  No. Exactly. We try to strengthen the local human rights organizations and progressive organizations, so they can do monitoring and so on. Then they become targets as well, as they have been in Somalia. An executive director of one of Oxfam's partner organizations in Somalia was

National Defence committee  The UN has developed some tools. They have new guidelines for peacekeepers and operations. They're trying to get the contributing countries to apply and also to better train their soldiers. The missions, as defined in the Security Council resolutions, are better defined and provi

National Defence committee  Honestly, Afghanistan is one of those puzzles where I don't know what would work, actually. It's such a complicated situation. Oxfam has been in Afghanistan for 30 years, through the Taliban times and all of this, and it's such a complicated case that it would be really hard to s

National Defence committee  Definitely. I would agree with your statement. I would also say, however, that there are cases where military action in the form of peacekeeping or other observers and staff may still be necessary. The United Nations may be able to prevent lots of crises and lots of bad situation

National Defence committee  Canada has an excellent reputation for its humanitarian work internationally, but it's mostly due to the efforts that Canada puts into the United Nations humanitarian efforts, coordination, and so on, and through its NGOs. Nationally, it may be different because of the images tha

National Defence committee  I think so, if the military was securing the place. I don't think the military has much to add in terms of building the school, getting the community together, organizing them, and thinking about the longer term and the needs and where a school should be. They definitely have bet

National Defence committee  It's the steps before. It's getting the community to feel that they own it, that it's theirs, so that they are protecting it, rather than never using it or not caring if it gets blown up. That would be, in my books, more development. And humanitarians have made so many mistakes

National Defence committee  I don't know of many cases, actually, for Canada, in particular--other governments, more so. I think even the Afghanistan mission has been sanctioned by the UN as a UN-approved mission. It's not a UN mission, but the UN has had a UN Security Council resolution. So I don't know of

National Defence committee  I think it's definitely perceived more favourably, especially in the cases where an NGO has already been present on the ground, and these are most cases. When we just fly in, there is the same problem with perception, especially with lots of people flying in, but when we're alrea

National Defence committee  I don't think so.

National Defence committee  I would say coordinating through the United Nations mechanisms. When I say that, I mean not being coordinated by, because NGOs are very keen on preserving their independence and so on, but there is extreme value for us in exchanging information, and I guess for the militaries as