Question:
The recent Syrian refugee crisis has been classified as one of the largest humanitarian crises in recent history. Discuss three challenges associated with this humanitarian crisis. How would you recommend managing these challenges? Be prepared to substantiate your ideas.
Instructions:
The answers should be at least 3 substantive paragraphs, well developed, referenced, and properly formatted. “Substantive” means that the writer has added to the dialogue with referenced facts or pertinent personal experience leading to a reasoned argument that advances the scholarly discussion. Discussion question answers must include at least one reference that is not from the assigned reading.
Reference to appropriate authoritative resources and official websites. Must be accessible online. Use New Times Roman 12 font with 1” margins and APA style.
1 example from other student is attached, but do your original work.
Review videos of The Syrian Refugee Crisis
by CHDS · Published December 11, 2017 · Updated December 11, 2017
Dr. Anne Marie Baylouny, Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School and an expert in the Middle East, Refugees, Islam, and Social Welfare, talks about the Syrian refugee crisis in this four part series.
Part I: Dimensions of the Syrian Refugee Crisis
Part II: The Syrian Refugee Crisis’ Effects on Host State
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smsjj1UHPMk
Part III: Why did the Syrian Refugees go to Europe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1SZaamCJ04
Part IV: Potential Solutions to the Syrian Refugee Crisis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfb9s6epbvw
Teaching Points:
What are the differences between a humanitarian response and disaster response? Are there any similarities? From a purely academic perspective we can look at both and divide each into the phases of a disaster but, from a more pragmatic perspective, what are the tangible similarities and differences?
I tend to lean towards the definition I located on a humanitarian aid group’s website, a humanitarian disaster occurs when the human, physical, economic or environmental damage from an event, or series of events, overwhelms a community’s capacity to cope. The only challenge I have with this definition is the word “cope”. I believe ending the definition at cope leaves this definition wanting. What will/is the community needing to cope with? However, this is semantics and the intent of the definition is well suited.
So, let’s breakdown this definition and discuss in greater detail humanitarian crises (for the purposes of this discussion and brevity, crisis will be used instead of disaster). A good place to start is the cause of the crisis. What causes a humanitarian crisis? The list of possible causes could literally take the remainder of this page and still may not be all inclusive. We should ask, does the cause greatly influence the response? It is my belief that the cause does not overly influence our response. Although, we will certainly add or change resources based on the exact issue(s).
Continuing with the dissecting the definition, what is meant by human? Human rights violations? Basic human needs? Overwhelming disease? All of the above? I lean towards all of the above and as we’ve seen in the recent past human needs can be quite overwhelming in terms of response. A tangent to human damages is physical. While the definition provided leaves room interpretation, physical damage includes shelter and infrastructure. There is also an argument for safety and security under this heading. Economic damage is not typically thought of as a humanitarian crisis but, a broken economy will certainly have a negative humanitarian impact. A real-time example of this is the crisis currently underway in Venezuela. Crippled economy and trade has led to disastrous living conditions for a majority of the country. Unfortunately, economic stability is beyond the scope of Emergency Managers but, it is certainly an important issue to discuss. It is my belief that future successes need to be measured on the sustainability of the area that is impacted by the incident rather than the speed and efficiency that resources are provided. Additionally, I firmly believe that the emergency management needs to embrace the idea of embedding community and economic development resources into response and recovery operations. To round out the definition we need to discuss environmental damage. Certainly, a hot topic related to environmental damage is climate change and while climate change does not directly cause widespread disasters, there is some science that suggests that it does worsen natural disasters which, in turn can lead to greater humanitarian impacts. Less controversial topics regarding environmental damages would be severe weather incidents. We can also look at large-scale industrial accidents such as oil spills or nuclear accidents as part of environmental damage.
Now that we have examined the definition of a humanitarian crisis, let’s discuss how this definition unfolds in a real-world incident. Can an argument be made that the causation of a humanitarian incident is not as important as the response and the response regardless of the causation is quite similar. From a purely humanitarian perspective, what are the fundamental concerns and needs? I tend to take a Maslowsian approach and perhaps this an over simplification of the question, but, providing basic human needs is what is truly necessary. For anyone unfamiliar with Maslow, the pyramid below is an oversimplification of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In disaster and humanitarian response, we collectively do fairly well with the bottom two levels of the pyramid. However, collectively, we do extremely poorly at providing or even moving towards the upper tiers of the pyramid.
I will give fair warning that the next few sentences are unpopular in the heavily response focus of emergency management but, they are important to hear nonetheless. Again, speaking collectively, we do an extremely poor job at providing a sustainable or even stable environment in many post disaster areas regardless of the cause of the disaster. This is especially true when discussing humanitarian disasters. If we work under the assumption that an area no longer has the ability to sustain human life whether from environmental, violence, disease, etc. than isn’t it incumbent upon us (emergency responders) to provide an area for the survivors to not simply survive but to thrive. I personally do not consider relocating survivors an acceptable practice. There is some evidence that suggests that if persons are displaced during a humanitarian incident it can take up to seventeen years to for those persons to be repatriated. So, is it a better plan to rebuild or reestablish their home or have other areas absorb the refugees? This is a question of philosophy and practicality and one that I am interested in discussing further. What are your thoughts?
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