HUMANITARIAN ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR RELATION TO BUSINESS AND

CULTURE

PREPARED BY ELİF BAYSAL

University Of West Bohemia

Student: Elif BaysalCourse: Business CultureLecturer: Professor Arniel HabacFaculty of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering April 2016

WHAT IS HUMANITARIAN AID?

• Humanitarian aid or Humanitarian assistance:Material and logistic assistanceResponse to humanitarian crises (natural disaster,man-made disaster)• Purpose : save lives, reduce suffering and respecthuman dignity

HUMANITARIAN AID• What kind of humanitarian aid are there?:Providing food Healthcare

HUMANITARIAN AIDAccess to water Protection

WHAT IS A HUMANITARIAN ORGANIZATION (HO)? Humanitarian organization• Access humanitarian aid• Efficient humanitarian assistance available

*Chance to Donate, volunteer and advocate

Some well known Humanitarian Organizations• 1. World Food Programme (WFP) Fighting hungerLargest HO fighting hunger90 million people each year

2. Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) global poverty basic education, prevent the spread of disease, increase access to clean water , expand economic opportunity, protect natural resources emergency aid for war and natural disasters

Some well known Humanitarian Organizations 3. Oxfam International They focus on issues of active citizenship, agriculture, education, gender justice, health, peace and security and youth outreach

4. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) the world’s largest humanitarian networkReaching 150 million people in 189 National Societies4 basic areas: disaster response, disaster preparedness, health and community care and promote humanitarian values of social inclusion and peace.

5. Action Against Hunger (AAH) 

Ending world hunger

Providing communities with access to safe water and sustainable solutions to hunger.

In 2012, AAH provided 550,000 small farmers with tools, treated 42,000 malnourished children in Democratic Republic of Congo and helped 170,000 people gain access to clean water in Kenya.

4 Principles of Humanitarian Organizations• Humanity• Neutrality• Impartiality• Operational Independence

(The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA))

4 Principles of Humanitarian Organizations

•Humanity: The purpose of humanitarian action is to protect life and health and ensure respect for human beings.• Neutrality: Humanitarian actors must not take sides in confilicts of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature.• Impartiality: Humanitarian action must give priority to the most urgent cases and more in need people. Making no distinctions on the basis of nationality, race, gender, religious belief, class or political opinions.• Operational Independence: Humanitarian action must be autonomous from the political, economic, military or other objectives in where humanitarian action is being implemented.

Role Of Business In Humanitarian Organizations

FUNDING: donations from ;individuals, corporations, Governmentsother organizations.

Role Of Business In Humanitarian OrganizationsWhy business in humanitarian organizations? It may sound odd or irrelevant to say words ‘Business and Humanitarian’ at the same time since they are nonprofit organizations. However, business in humanitarian organizations is a quite relevant topic to work on, to talk about and to study on ;since they require more work than we expect.

HOs Require Huge Potential of Workers:• WORKERS: Aid Workers are the people distributed internationally to do

humanitarian aid work. They often require humanitarian degrees, most are recruited by organizations

Require Business Intelligence :

Require Business Management:

Require Professional Logistics:

Require Financial Proficiency :

And many more…

Culture In Humanitarian Organizations:• Here we can say it is a huge topic to discuss about. It can be investigated

as a research topic. Even, we have a few example researches about that topic.

• That is why I am going to explain in a few basic topics and example cases that ı have experienced.

• Note: For those who would like to see a research example, you may find this article very useful : by MARK WALKUP, Department of Political Science, University of Florida http://www.unhcr.org/4d94747e9.pdf

Culture In Humanitarian Organizations

I will basically talk about three topics:1.Cultural difference within humanitarian

organizations2.Cultural difference between HOs and local

organizations or governments3.Cultural difference Between HO and Beneficiaries

of the HO

1.Cultural difference among humanitarian organizations

• We have large number of organizations and each organization can be from any nation with extremely different cultures and values.

Example: Diversity among workers and volunteers in the organization with different nations can be investigated in details under the ‘Organizational Culture’ topic. In that case all members of the organizations work together, however they have many different cultural values. That is why each organization has the responsibility to apply 4 basic principles of HOs and each member of the organization must have the highest cultural acceptance.

2. Cultural difference between HOs and local organizations or governments We know that most organizations have different work principles or work attitudes which we can connect to their cultural background. It is more complicated in HOs as most of them are operating on totally foreign lands where the aid is needed. The consequences of that diversity causes so many problems.

Example: As one of the problems we can give the example of ’Dealing with local governments and businesses for voucher cards’. Most of the organizations go for using voucher cards in order to supply financial support to the beneficiaries. In our case we have faced so many restrictions by the governmental deputies or with the local market organizations (market shops, retailers, etc. )

3.Cultural difference Between HO and Beneficiaries of the HO

Example: A big part of HOs work is to find out the beneficiaries needs and requests. Here, there are lots of ways that organizations work on and apply. One of the best common way is to make questionnaires and ask basic questions to each family or individual. With those surveys each need can be known and the aid can be done to each family or individual with the specified need.

However, the questions must be selected very carefully as the cultural sensitivity is the key role. In our case, we have asked families ‘How many members of the family are working?’. Here, we have faced an unexpected cultural complexity. Since the community do not allow their women members to work, no matter how old they are, they are not suppose to work. The volunteers of the HO have assigned the women family members as ‘not working’ where they should not have.

Beautiful children of Syria, supplying water to their homes - A village in Şanlıurfa, Turkey on the Syrian Border (2015)

Some photos from my volunteering days;

Beautiful Children of Syria, A village in Şanlıurfa, Turkey on the Syrian Border (2015)

Beautiful Children of Syria, refugee camp on Turkey-Syria Border (2015)

Me and Beautiful Children of Syria, A village in Şanlıurfa, Turkey on the Syrian Border (2015)

Hope you found it useful and helpful.Best regards. Thank you.

Peace to the World.

ELİF BAYSAL

A very short video about working in HOs:• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdSoQnL9Rtk

References• https://en.wikipedia.org• http://borgenproject.org/5-top-humanitarian-aid-organizations/• https://docs.unocha.org/sites/dms/Documents/OOM-humanitarianpr

inciples_eng_June12.pdf• http://www.socialchangeschool.org/en/• http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/report/humanitarian-

assistance-non-state-donors-2015/