Difficult Issues in Humanitarian Aid

Aug 5 Rotary Speaker Madison Wall (r) with her friends,
(from l-r) Morgan Flythe, Megan Linney

The August 5, 2013 program at the Newport Rotary Club was presented by Emory University sophomore Madison Wall on Difficult Issues in Humanitarian Aid. The presentation was a summation of her class at The College of Charleston on The Politics of Humanitarian Aid. She was the guest of Rotary Club President Pam Wall, her mother.

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Picture Credit: humanitarianaid.weebly.com 

Madison put humanitarian aid in the context of a triangle, with aspects at each point of independence, neutrality and impartiality, and then explained the importance of each. She discussed the intersection of the media, and the psychological reaction the masses have to crises or conflicts based on the way and the time in which they are presented. Lastly she talked about the economics of aid, sustainability, and the lack of accountability for the end result of aid, which often ends up prolonging the very conflicts and problems it is meant to alleviate. Examples from the World War II Concentration Camps, Biafra, Ethiopia to the Rwandan genocide and later related central African conflicts were used as examples.          

Related to Rotary Aid Projects, it was mentioned in later discussion that "sustainability" in grant projects, and a verifiable local presence by Rotarians, helped to minimize some of the issues raised.

Madison was accompanied to Rotary by her friends Morgan Flythe and Megan Linney.