Entries by Mark Duffield

The politicisation of aid has made helping others increasingly dangerous. The fortified aid compound is now ubiquitous throughout the global borderland. It has become the signature architecture, for example, of the UN integrated mission. In examining these developments, the paper first looks at the potential for UN field-security training to normalise risk-aversion and the necessity, even desirability, of defensive living. Using the example of Sudan, the wider implications of aid bunkering, including its overlaps with…

In early 2008, UNHCR launched consultations with its Executive Committee (ExCom) on a new Policy Framework and Implementation Strategy regarding UNHCR’s role in support of the return and reintegration of displaced populations. This updated reintegration policy includes a commitment by the agency to undertake “both real-time and retrospective evaluations of its major reintegration programmes”. In line with this commitment, UNHCR’s Policy Development and Evaluation Service (PDES), in consultation with the Africa Bureau, commissioned an evaluation…

The paper is concerned with the unintended consequences of aid as a relation of governance: in this case, the failure of aid agencies to improve the lot of displaced Southerners living in North Sudan during the past civil war. Given the ongoing displacement of South Sudanese to Sudan some aspects of this article might again be relevant. Link to publication

This research deals with the wide range of (unintended) consequences of humanitarian aid in Sudan during the Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS). It investigates, among other things, the relationship between humanitarian aid and displacement. Found in the Sudan Open Archive. Visit here.