Humanitarian aid has long been dominated by a classical paradigm based on ethics around humanitarian principles, centred on international humanitarian UN agencies and NGOs. In recent years this has been paralleled by a resilience paradigm, focused more on local people and institutions as the first responders to crisis. Whereas classical humanitarianism is rooted in the notion of exceptionalism, resilience humanitarianism starts from the idea of crisis as the new normality.
Thea Hilhorst, Professor of Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction, Erasmus University
In this Sussex Development Lecture Thea Hilhorst discusses these paradigms and the different images they evoke about crises, local institutions and the recipients of aid.
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