Crises are the stock and trade of humanitarian agencies. Yet there is no consensus or clarity in the emergency response field as to what constitutes a humanitarian crisis. In a saturated global media environment, the temptation is great for agencies to designate particular situations as humanitarian crises to get attention to a neglected group of vulnerable people or to stigmatize the responsible parties. The rhetorical leaps from “difficult situation” to “humanitarian crisis” to “massive humanitarian crisis” to “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” are as easy as skipping over a puddle.

In the absence of clinical definitions, the challenge for Refugees International and other groups that engage in humanitarian advocacy is to maintain discipline and consistency in the way we use language. For example, RI recently declared Somalia the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world. We had a brief internal debate prior to issuing a statement to this effect. While there are certainly other large-scale complex emergencies, including those in Afghanistan, Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we were able to agree that Somalia embodies a unique combination of large-scale vulnerability coupled with violence and internal chaos at a level that is preventing any sustained humanitarian response despite heroic efforts, mainly by Somalis themselves. The fundamental criteria we apply, admittedly unscientifically, are the scale of the emergency and the gap between the needs and the response.

Complicating the situation further is the harsh reality that governments of states whose citizens are experiencing vulnerability or whose actions are triggering suffering on a large scale resist the humanitarian crisis label. Being the location or the cause of a humanitarian crisis implies unacceptable state failure. Thus, Israel denies that its military action is causing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, despite the severe disruption of food deliveries, on which 80% of Gazans depend, the breakdowns in medical care, and the increasing numbers of people lacking access to clean water. Israel sees itself as a responsible member of the world community, adhering to its obligations under international humanitarian law. Calling the Gaza situation a humanitarian crisis, as the International Committee of the Red Cross, the pre-eminent international humanitarian agency has done, lumps Israel’s actions with those of irresponsible third world states, a club to which it would rather not belong.

The company of humanitarian crisis deniers is extensive. The Burmese government rejects the idea that there is a chronic emergency in the country, and after Cyclone Nargis initially maintained that it could handle the response on its own. The Sri Lankan government insists that there is no humanitarian crisis in the conflict-affected Vanni region, even though half its population is displaced and food deliveries from September until mid-December into the conflict zone amounted to only 40% of the minimum nutritional requirements of the people. Even in the face of the movement of several million of its citizens to neighboring countries, chronic hunger due to lack of food production and employment, and a cholera outbreak, the government of Zimbabwe maintains that the internal situation is fine, little international assistance is needed, and the limited vulnerability that exists is due to outside meddling by forces seeking to overthrow the ruling party.

Facing this politically motivated resistance, we humanitarian advocates have all the more reason to be as precise and careful as possible in our public statements. It should be axiomatic that if everywhere is a crisis, then nowhere is a crisis. Words like “immense,” “massive,” and “catastrophic” should be used sparingly. There should only be one “worst humanitarian crisis” at a time, even if there is no consensus from agency to agency as to which one it is. Finally, more precise and consistent rhetoric will constitute a tiny step towards depoliticizing humanitarian action, and may make a few governments more open to seeing international engagement as a response to need rather than a political tool to undermine their authority.

--Joel Charny

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