Naturalists as well as volunteer workers and medical professionals will enjoy the warm and personal tale of one woman's experiences in the scorching climate and the heart-melting expressions of humanity at this tent hospital in Ethiopia. This book describes the function of a Doctors Without Borders program at the ground level, at the TB mission they established in eastern Ethiopia during 2001. The culture of the Afar people is part of the story as well as the physical surroundings of the mission including the birds and animals of the desert setting. It is also a story about relationships and how like a family a vastly different group of people from all over the world can become when they all share a life of physical hardship but enormous reward. Setting up a hospital and lab in the desert, and battling daily on behalf of people ill with TB, malaria and other tropical diseases, the invaluable organization of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) succeeds against enormous odds. Their success proves what a collection of individuals can do with the skills at hand to make the world a better place - and enjoy the process. The team concept, so vital to the mission concept, comes alive in the author's depiction of the scene at Gahla.The culture of the migratory Afar people, with their fierce reputation and teeth filed to points, and the city lifestyle in Ethiopia's capital Addis are explored. As an avid birder, the author also includes descriptions of the exotic birds, animals and insects of this part of the Rift Valley with its searing heat and volcanic vents. Geologists suggest that one day the entire Afar Triangle may give way in a tectonic shift to become the new Afar Sea. Until then, it is home to a wide range of wonderfully resourceful people and colorful fauna that enliven this "impossibly" hot, dry land.The World Trade Center disaster took place one week after the author's return from a Muslim part of the world and the outpouring of compassionate correspondence she received from the people whom she had just left tells volumes about why we must not tar all Muslims with the brush of terrorism.

The “Famine and Forced Relocations in Ethiopia 1984-1986” case study is describing the difficulties and dilemmas met by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) during the famine that decimated the Ethiopian population in 1984-1985. This famine triggered an unprecedented humanitarian mobilisation and huge media attention. But the Ethiopian regime at the time also used the international aid as a bait to attract the populations and forcibly resettle them in appalling conditions. In this context: what should have been done when it appeared that aid was being used against the population for whom it was intended? Could MSF’s denunciation have endangered international aid operations in Ethiopia? By taking such positions, could MSF put its own existence and, thus, its other activities at risk?

From international NGOs to UN agencies, from donors to observers of humanitarianism, opinion is unanimous: in a context of the alleged "clash of civilizations", our "humanitarian space" is shrinking. Put another way, the freedom of action and of speech of humanitarians is being eroded due to the radicalisation of conflicts and the reaffirmation of state sovereignty over aid actors and policies. The purpose of this book is to challenge this assumption through an analysis of the events that have marked MSF's history since 2003 (when MSF published its first general work on humanitarian action and its relationships with governments). It addresses the evolution of humanitarian goals, the resistance to these goals and the political arrangements that overcame this resistance (or that failed to do so). The contributors seek to analyse the political transactions and balances of power and interests that allow aid activities to move forward, but that are usually masked by the lofty rhetoric of "humanitarian principles". They focus on one key question: what is an acceptable compromise for MSF? This book seeks to puncture a number of the myths that have grown up over the forty years since MSF was founded and describes in detail how the ideals of humanitarian principles and "humanitarian space" operating in conflict zones are in reality illusory. How, in fact, it is the grubby negotiations with varying parties, each of whom have their own vested interests, that may allow organisations such as MSF to operate in a given crisis situation - or not.

Life in Crisis tells the story of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders or MSF) and its effort to "save lives" on a global scale. Begun in 1971 as a French alternative to the Red Cross, the MSF has grown into an international institution with a reputation for outspoken protest as well as technical efficiency. It has also expanded beyond emergency response, providing for a wider range of endeavors, including AIDS care. Yet its seemingly simple ethical goal proves deeply complex in practice. MSF continually faces the problem of defining its own limits. Its minimalist form of care recalls the promise of state welfare, but without political resolution or a sense of well-being beyond health and survival. Lacking utopian certainty, the group struggles when the moral clarity of crisis fades. Nevertheless, it continues to take action and innovate. Its organizational history illustrates both the logic and the tensions of casting humanitarian medicine into a leading role in international affairs.

Medical Humanitarianism provides comparative ethnographies of the moral, practical, and policy implications of modern medical humanitarian practice. It offers twelve vivid case studies that challenge readers to reach a more critical and compassionate understanding of humanitarian assistance.

The terrible 1984 famine in Ethiopia focused the world's attention on the country and the issue of aid as never before. Anyone over the age of 30 remembers something of the events - if not the original TV pictures, then Band Aid and Live Aid, Geldof and Bono. Peter Gill was the first journalist to reach the epicentre of the famine and one of the TV reporters who brought the tragedy to light. This book is the story of what happened to Ethiopia in the 25 years following Live Aid: the place, the people, the westerners who have tried to help, and the wider multinational aid business that has come into being. We saved countless lives in the beginning and continued to save them now, but have we done much else to transform the lives of Ethiopia's poor and set them on a 'development' course that will enable the country to do without us?

Pioneering medical sociologist Ren e C. Fox spent nearly twenty years conducting extensive ethnographic research within M decins Sans Fronti res/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), a private international medical humanitarian organization that was created in 1971 and awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1999. Drawing on unprecedented access to MSF staff meetings, doctors, and field workers, Fox weaves a rich tapestry of the MSF experience with emerging and reemerging infectious diseases. Including vivid photographs of MSF operations, Doctors Without Borders explores the organization's founding principles, distinctive culture, and inner struggles to realize more fully its "without borders" transnational vision.