Humanitarian Aid Is 'Broken,' Says Former U.N. Official
The way we offer assistance to people fleeing conflict no longer works, says Paul Spiegel, a former director of program management at the U.N. refugee agency. He has a few ideas about how to fix it.
The humanitarian aid system is broken.
That's the message of a new paper by Paul Spiegel, a former senior official at the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The piece was part of a special series on health and humanitarian crises published by the British medical journal The Lancet in early June.
Today, more than 65 million people around the world due to violence, war or conflict. "The humanitarian system was not designed to address the types of complex conflicts that are happening at present," wrote Spiegel. "It is not simply overstretched; it is no longer fit for purpose."
