The manner in which famines and emergencies are projected in the public domain can give the impression that there are simple solutions for simple problems.
Popular perceptions tend to follow a predictable logic: an emergency - a crisis demanding immediate action; famine - a scarcity of food causing people to migrate and maybe starve; charities - agencies that help people in need; remedy - feed the hungry people. However, when responding to an acute crisis, the work of aid agencies is far from simple, especially in conflict based and politically driven emergencies.
Delivering humanitarian assistance in emergencies is becoming increasingly complex. Granted, an aid agency's response to a sudden flood or hurricane is generally accessible and relatively straightforward. But more often than not, where people are subjected to extreme suffering and deprivation, a humanitarian crisis is precipitated by deep rooted injustices and violations of human rights.
More noticeably since the end of the Cold War, famine, disease and population displacement have more frequently been the direct result, not of a natural disaster, but of war and civil conflict. This is having a profound impact on how aid agencies do their work.
When faced with unstable and unpredictable circumstances, the otherwise straightforward task of delivering aid to people in need becomes problematic. In some extreme instances, even unachievable. The civil conflicts on our television screens such as those in Bosnia, Liberia and Somalia, have thrown up unimaginable atrocities and human suffering. Humanitarian assistance very often has to go deep into the war zones to reach those most in need.
Sudan illustrates some of the dilemmas and abuses. Since the current conflict began 15 years ago, all parties have violated the rights of civilians in one way or another. Humanitarian aid has been diverted; innocent civilians have been bombed; people have been forcibly displaced, abducted into slavery and women raped.
In such conflicts, the use of humanitarian food aid can often become incorporated into the dynamics of war.
In many cases, aid agencies are being asked to enter lawless environments and, in an effort to protect fundamental human rights and assist affected populations, creep ever closer to the front lines of conflict.
Once an aid agency acquires access to a conflict area, it typically brings with it scarce and coveted resources. These are attractive to a warring party, and possess a capacity to induce or attract civilian population movements which may be of political or military significance.
Working in zones of conflict can put the lives of agency staff at considerable risk.
Secondly, humanitarian aid is increasingly seen by many warring parties as a key resource to be manipulated to their own particular advantage. There is a real danger that humanitarian assistance may either help to bolster human rights violators or, inadvertently, prolong a conflict by sustaining combatants.
NGOs such as Concern are learning from working in conflict based environments.
Aid agencies are having to learn to analyse situations more deeply; develop new and creative approaches to their work; and articulate clearer principles to regulate their actions. Notwithstanding the complex and dangerous situations famine conditions may arise in, every human being has the right to live, to eat, to have shelter and to receive humanitarian assistance. Aid agencies, in order to respond, must be on their part principled, transparent, impartial and capable of dealing with the ethical dilemmas they increasingly face.
Paul Murphy is Concern Worldwide's regional representative for the Horn of Africa. Fitsum Assiefe is an Ethiopian nutritionist who works with Concern as a senior nutritionist and policy adviser