Charity of Nations: Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World

Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
Well researched, well documented, and challenging for all actors involved in humanitarian action

Gerry Barr, President and CEO, Canadian Council for International Cooperation
[Should] become a standard reference in the current discussion of the humanitarian enterprise. We would all be better for it.

Sadako Ogata, Former UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Much more than an indictment of a humanitarian apparatus that allows 'forgotten emergencies... timely, important, and highly readable.

Angelo Gnaedinger, Director General, International Committee of the Red Cross
an insightful analysis of the complexities of the humanitarian enterprise.

From the Publisher
Unique Features: *Probes the reasons behind governmental and nongovernmental responses to urgent human need *Will be one of the most important and influential assessments of humanitarianism in a decade *Up-to-date field research, extensive interviews with practitioners and donor government officials, and over sixty collective years of work in humanitarian and development issues *Accessibly written for the concerned international public, undergraduate and graduate students, practitioners, and analysts troubled by the direction of today’s humanitarian action

About the Author
IAN SMILLIE is an Ottawa-based development consultant and writer. He has lived and worked in Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Bangladesh. He was a founder of the Canadian development organization, Inter Pares, and was Executive Director of CUSO. Recent books include Patronage or Partnership: Local Capacity Building in Humanitarian Crises (Kumarian Press, 2001) and Managing for Change: Leadership, Strategy and Management in Asian NGOs with John Hailey (Earthscan, London, 2001). In 2000 and 2001, Ian Smillie served on a UN Security Council expert panel investigating the links between illicit weapons and the diamond trade in Sierra Leone. Today he serves as Research Coordinator on Partnership Africa Canada's 'Diamonds and Human Security Project' and is a participant in the intergovernmental 'Kimberley Process,' which is developing a global certification system for rough diamonds. LARRY MINEAR directs Tufts University’s Humanitarianism and War Project. He has worked on humanitarian and development issues since 1972. A posting in the Southern Sudan was followed by advocacy work in Washington, D.C. on behalf of Church World Service and Lutheran World Relief. Over the years he has served as a consultant to governments, UN agencies, NGOs, and the Red Cross movement. Since co-founding the Humanitarianism and War Project in 1991, he has conducted and coordinated research on many humanitarian crises and written extensively for specialized and general audience. His most recent book, The Humanitarian Enterprise: Dilemmas and Discoveries (Kumarian Press, 2002) reviews the findings and recommendations of this research group.


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Smillie (Partnership Africa Canada) and Minear (Humanitarianism and War Project, Tufts University) argue that much of what passes for humanitarianism today is a commercial enterprise. They probe the reasons behind governmental and nongovernmental responses to urgent human need, and explain why some crises get the lion's share of attention while others are forgotten. Contrasting cases in Afghanistan, East Timor, and Sierra Leone, they illustrate how foreign policy and domestic politics have shaped what has become the business of humanitarianism, and call for a revamped humanitarian structure. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


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