Humanitarianism is an active belief in the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotional reasons. One aspect involves voluntary emergency aid overlapping with human rights advocacy, actions taken by governments, development assistance, and domestic philanthropy. Other critical issues include correlation with religious beliefs, motivation of aid between altruism and social control, market affinity, imperialism and neo-colonialism, gender and class relations, and humanitarian agencies. A practitioner is known as a humanitarian.
Humanitarianism is an informal ideology of practice; it is "the doctrine that people's duty is to promote human welfare."
Humanitarianism is based on a view that all human beings deserve respect and dignity and should be treated as such. Therefore, humanitarians work towards advancing the well-being of humanity as a whole. It is the antithesis of the "us vs. them" mentality that characterizes tribalism and ethnic nationalism. Humanitarians abhor slavery, violation of basic and human rights, and discrimination on the basis of features such as skin colour, religion, ancestry, or place of birth. Humanitarianism drives people to save lives, alleviate suffering, and promote human dignity in the middle of human-made or natural disasters. Humanitarianism is embraced by movements and people across the political spectrum. The informal ideology can be summed up by a quote from Albert Schweitzer: "Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose."
Jean Pictet, in his commentary on The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross, argues for the universal characteristics of humanitarianism:
The wellspring of the principle of humanity is in the essence of social morality which can be summed up in a single sentence, Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Centré sur les formes d'habitat des plus pauvres dans les pays du Sud et les contextes de crises dues à des catastrophes naturelles ou à des conflits, en particulier les architectures d'urgence (bidon
Humanitarian aid is material and logistic assistance to people who need help. It is usually short-term help until the long-term help by the government and other institutions replaces it. Among the people in need are the homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars, and famines. Humanitarian relief efforts are provided for humanitarian purposes and include natural disasters and human-made disasters. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity.
International humanitarian law (IHL), also referred to as the laws of armed conflict, is the law that regulates the conduct of war (jus in bello). It is a branch of international law that seeks to limit the effects of armed conflict by protecting persons who are not participating in hostilities and by restricting and regulating the means and methods of warfare available to combatants. International humanitarian law is inspired by considerations of humanity and the mitigation of human suffering.
A catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest department, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded. An estimated three million people were affected by the quake. Death toll estimates range from 100,000 to about 160,000 to Haitian government figures from 220,000 to 316,000, although these latter figures are a matter of some dispute.
The first MOOC about responsible use of technology for humanitarians. Learn about technology and identify risks and opportunities when designing digital solutions.
Delves into the challenges of post-disaster reconstruction, emphasizing the 'do-no-harm' approach and the importance of local involvement.
Introduces Development Engineering as a new field focusing on sustainable solutions, innovation, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Trust in the use of sensitive data is not nearly widespread. Even though there is no shortage in tools and methods to address the digitisation of our society and industries, the acquisition and access to non-open data represent the greatest challenge. In t ...
Locating populations in rural areas of developing countries has attracted the attention of humanitarian mapping projects since it is important to plan actions that affect vulnerable areas. Recent efforts have tackled this problem as the detection of buildi ...
2021
, , ,
Humanitarian organisations have an interest in improving the sustainability of buildings that support the assistance provided to people affected by conflict and disaster. Yet, usual means of assessing building sustainability - e.g., labels such as LEED and ...