Taking Sides or Saving Lives: Existential Choices for the Humanitarian Enterprise in Iraq - Humanitarian Agenda 2015 Iraq Country Study

Iraq places the frailties and fault-lines of the humanitarian enterprise in stark relief. Perhaps more than any other highly politicized context, Iraq has fuelled a defensiveness and sense of existential threat among many in the humanitarian profession. And yet, while Iraqis have paid long and dearly for the flaws in the international humanitarian apparatus, evidence from ground-level suggests that pronouncements of the demise of principled humanitarian action are premature. Iraq may provide the strongest affirmation yet of the endurance of the Dunantist ethos and of the principled practice of humanitarianism.

This country study on Iraq was conducted between late October 2006 and May 2007 as part of the Humanitarian Agenda 2015: Principles, Power and Perceptions project of the Feinstein International Center, Tufts University. It is based primarily on field research conducted in and around Iraq in November and December 2006. Its purpose is to convey findings about perceptions of humanitarian action among Iraqis at the community level, and among humanitarian actors in the region. The report feeds evidence from Iraq into the broader efforts of the project to discern the major challenges facing the humanitarian enterprise worldwide over the coming decade.