The Crisis Caravan Summary

The Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid
The author of “The Crisis Caravan”, Linda Polman is a Dutch journalist with personal experience with war zone charities since 1993; she has firsthand accounts in Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and numerous others. Her novel “The Crisis Caravan” is the consequence of her and others experiences and gives an uncompromising view of the contradictions of the humanitarian industry, and the results of money raisers, like the United States, neither being held accountable to lenders nor the voters they promised.
The author situates her perspective on humanitarian aid by positioning herself in-between an old debate between Florence Nightingale and Henri Dunant. Dunant was the founder of the International Committee
Approximately 37,000 International aid organizations each year have to compete for a share of this funding. "The Crisis Caravan" immediately alerts readers that there are serious problems in the aid industry, beginning with the constant error of duplicating effort and expenses, which creates excessive spending with minimal progress. The author proceeds to explain that inflated statistics of success cause an exaggeration of accomplishment. Other problems aid organizations face are soldiers demanding money for everything an organization brings in, including food and medicine for victims, and taking a sum of donated supplies. Soldiers use some of these supplies for their benefit but Linda Polman explains that much of theses supplies are sold for more arms. Therefore, aid representatives, as well as the rest of the world, start to wonder whether humanitarian aid is doing more harm than good. Unfortunately, the United States plays a role in this problem, mostly because they are the leading humanitarian aid funder in the world. Politicians contribute to this problem by making promises of aid but are more concerned with publicity, public support, and donations that are tied into making those promises rather than the aid itself. “The Crisis Caravan” states that a few INGO’s attempt to challenge humanitarian aid abuses. However, the International Committee of the Red Cross estimates every major disaster attracts, on average, about 1,000 aid organizations and with the estimated 37,000 organizations across the globe, there is always a rival donor willing to fill the