What Kind of Evidence do we Need to Justify Humanitarian Medical Aid?

What evidence justifies humanitarian medical interventions? What role do human rights have in evidence-based approaches to such interventions? Recently, there has been a call for a more evidence-based approach in humanitarian medical work. Attempts to outline standards for promoting evidence-based humanitarian medicine are underway; the most notable example is the Sphere Project, a collaboration of a large number of humanitarian agencies, which has produced outcome guidelines for humantiarian medical interventions. We argue that it is crucial that decisions that affect humanitarian endeavours take account of human rights, human suffering and social context. We propose a framework for evidence in humanitarian medical intervention that both complements evidence-based approaches and emphasises the centrality of human rights, suffering and social context to all humantiarian work.