Beyond Despair

Michael Barnett, University Professor of International Affairs and Political Science, and Maryam Z. Deloffre, Associate Professor of International Affairs and Director, Humanitarian Action Initiative, co-hosted, with Community World Service Asia (CWSA), a half-day conference, “Beyond Despair,” at the Regional Humanitarian Partnership Week (RHPW) meetings in Bangkok, Thailand. The RHPW is organized by Asian Disaster Reduction & Response Network(ADRRN), CWSA, the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and is the largest gathering of humanitarian actors in the region. In Beyond Despair, Barnett and Deloffre focused on the positive–how do humanitarian actors leverage their creativity and pragmatism to provide aid despite access challenges and structural barriers? Professor Barnett presented data from a survey conducted last year with Smruti Patel of Global Mentoring Initiative (GMI) and Political Science Ph.D. student Alex Vandermaas-Peeler, on the nature and sources of structural barriers – racism/colonialism embedded in attitudes and institutions, funding (and lack thereof), access constraints etc. Professor Deloffre then led a discussion on how humanitarian actors bypass these barriers to provide life-saving assistance. Over 250 practitioners, policymakers and academics from Asia, the Middle East and Africa attended the session. 
 

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