“We can never construct the best world in which our compassion can immediately translate into an end of suffering, but we can try to build a second-best world based on hard-headed assessments of the needs and options.” –Fiona Terry, Condemned to Repeat: The Paradox of Humanitarian Action, p. 216 “It is presumed that market solutions are always to be preferred, that governments and regulators are generally incompetent, and that great wealth reflects superior intelligence or insight, rather than having anything to do with entrenched privilege or power.” -page 6 Reactions to Vale the Humanitarian Principles: New principles for a new environment   Overview and thoughts Australian academics Matthew Clarke and Brett Parris recently published Working Paper 001 for the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership at Deakin University. They take us up to 35,000 feet and offer nothing less than what they immodestly call “new principles” to guide humanitarian work. Thoughtful critiques … Continue reading Reactions to “Vale the Humanitarian Principles: New principles for a new environment”