Final session “Ethical Humanitarianisms”

08. Dec. 2021

The Friedensau Institute of Evaluation (FIFE) and the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA) hosted the final event of the "Ethical Humanitarianism" discussion series on December 7, 2021. Participating as subject matter experts were:

Prof. Tamara Enomoto (Organization for Strategic Cordination of Research and Intellectual Properties, Meiji University, Japan),
Euclides Gonçalves (Director of Kaleidoscopio, Mozambique),
Shelagh Gastrow (Consultant at Gastrow Consulting, South Africa),
Ornella Morderan (Director of the Sahel Program at the Institute for Security Studies, Mali).
Emmanuel Mutisya (Program Coordinator and Consultant, Education and Skills Development, African Development Bank, Côte d'Ivoire); and
Lisa Román (Senior Research Advisor, Unit for Research Cooperation, The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Sweden).

The event was chaired by Dr. Kwaku Arhin-Sam (Head of the FIFE Institute) from the ThHF side:

"In the event, the panelists presented their conceptualization of Ethical Humanitarianisms from their perspective and experience in working within the Humanitarian and Development field. Tamara addressed the issue of discrimination and racism within the humanitarian sector as she talked about her research findings and experience working with Oxfam on disarmament but also as an academic in Japan.
Euclides discussed the problem of exploitation of local knowledge in the context of Mozambique by the international humanitarian and development organizations from the local organizations because of power relations between these organizations. He also emphasized the misuse and misrepresenting of data by the humanitarian sector. Then, Shelagh presented the establishments and actions of local organizations during the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia. She emphasizing the importance of local funding by citing an example in South Africa during last year Covid-19 Pandemic.
Ornella pointed out the humanitarian sector-wide issues: racism and prejudices, ignorance of the local context, distrust of the local partners and draining of local capacities.
Emmanuel reflected on the grounded moral principles of humanitarianism as well as the actions taken by the African Development Bank in building Ethical Humanitarianisms.
Lisa touched on the perspective of the state-funded philanthropy, SIDA, its funding, motives, objectives and raised awareness on the power imbalance in international research relations.
Afterwards, the participants discussed localization strategies, international research relations and acknowledgement of local expertise, the importance of having deep local knowledge in giving humanitarian aid. In the end, the panelists gave keywords and phrases for the re-set and future strategies for Ethical Humanitarianisms."

Bild der THH Friedensau