Harvard Humanitarian Podcast

On August 1, 2018 the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ministry of Health announced the 10th Ebola virus outbreak since 1976 had been confirmed in the country’s North Kivu Province. Senior Director of Emergency Health at the International Rescue Committee, Michelle Gayer, noted this outbreak has, “the potential to be the worst ever seen in East Africa—and risks being an encore of history we simply cannot afford.”

Health workers face a number of challenges delivering medical and preventative care in this context, exacerbated by high numbers of operational armed groups and rumors that the outbreak is politically fabricated to decrease voter turnout in the country’s upcoming elections. New options for treatment and lessons learned from the 2014 West Africa Ebola crisis can provide insight for aid workers on the frontlines of this latest outbreak. In this episode, Ambassador Sinead Walsh and Dr. Oliver Johnson discuss their new book, "Getting to Zero: A Doctor and a Diplomat on the Ebola Frontline," which explores the shortcomings of the 2014 response, as well as suggestions for improvement in future outbreaks. They are joined by Patrick Vinck, the Director of Research at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, who is currently conducting research on the outbreak in the DRC.

In this episode, we speak with Wendy Betts, Director of the EyeWitness to Atrocities project of the International Bar Association. With growing concerns about impunity for atrocities and other violations of international law in conflict and emergency settings around the world, EyeWitness helping to bring perpetrators of atrocities to justice. The mobile camera app tool can be used to capture verifiable photos or videos related to international atrocity crimes. The tool also captures the metadata needed to ensure that images can be used in investigations or trials, and securely stores the information, while the eyeWitness team works with users to reviews the evidence and connect to investigative or judicial mechanisms. So today on the podcast, we’ll speak with Wendy Betts about how tools like EyeWitness may be used to enhance accountability for international crimes, and promote the protection of civilians and aid workers. We’ll also discuss some of the particular sensitivities around engagement by humanitarian actions in the pursuit of accountability, and ways to mitigate the risk while promoting international humanitarian norms.

In light of recent international negotiations over nuclear disarmament and efforts to respond to the use of chemical and poisonous weapons, we sit down with Dr. Erickson to discuss the health and environmental impacts of conflict and emergencies. Dr. Timothy B. Erickson is an emergency medicine physician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston where he serves as the Chief of Medical Toxicology in the Department of Emergency Medicine, and a faculty member at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He is an expert in environmental toxicology and crisis in climate change, and has active humanitarian health projects in conflict regions of Ukraine and Syria, as well as ongoing health projects in Nepal and India. Dr. Erickson earned his M.D. degree from The Chicago Medical School in 1986, and is a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American College of Medical Toxicology, the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, and the National Geographic Explorers Club.

From the campaign to ban landmines to cluster munitions to the prohibition of nuclear weapons, advocates of humanitarian disarmament have sought to ban or restrict the use of certain indiscriminate and inhumane weapons to reduce civilian harm and suffering in conflict. In this episode, we’ll speak with leading experts and practitioners in the humanitarian disarmament movement. We’ll discuss the humanitarian approach to disarmament, and lessons from particular campaigns, including the Nobel Peace Prize-winning coalitions behind the 2017 Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty and the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, as well ongoing movements to address the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, lethal autonomous weapons systems (“killer robots”), toxic remnants of war, and other remaining challenges for civilian protection in armed conflict.

Yemen has become, according to the United Nations and World Health Organization, the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. Nearly 12 million people are in need of assistance and in 2017, the worst cholera outbreak in recent history affected an estimated 1 million people. The outbreak, though now controlled, and other infectious diseases combine with famine, malnutrition, and the collapse of the country’s water and sanitation sector to threaten millions, while aid access is blocked and aid workers, hospitals, and civilian areas are attacked. As the armed conflict continues and political fissures in Yemen deepen, humanitarian access and protection issues continue to pose enormous challenges.

This panel was recorded during a live event at the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Panelists discussed the complexities of addressing the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen, paying particular focus to the cholera outbreak, as well as the broader issues of sustaining humanitarian access and protection, advocating for respect for human rights, and achieving a political solution to the crisis.

In this episode, we interview Maciej Polkowski, Head of the Health Care in Danger Initiative based in Geneva. Health Care in Danger (HCID) is an initiative of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement aimed at addressing the issue of violence against patients, health workers, medical facilities, and vehicles, and ensuring safe access to and delivery of health care in armed conflict and other emergencies.

Whether used to instill fear, humiliate, or punish; destroy lives, families and communities; or enforce social order and power dynamics, rape and other forms of sexual violence have been widely documented in the Syrian conflict. In this podcast, we speak with leading experts and practitioners about the strategic use of sexual violence as a weapon of war in Syria. We’ll discuss the how sexual violence has been used against women, girls, boys and men in Syria by government forces and armed groups, and what impact it has had on survivors, and their families and communities. We’ll also discuss how humanitarian actors can better assist survivors inside Syria and in situations of displacement, how perpetrators can be held accountable, and the longer term implications for peace.

In this podcast, we speak with leading experts and practitioners about the strategic use sexual violence was a weapon of war in Syria. We’ll discuss the how sexual violence has been used against women, girls, boys and men in Syria by government forces and armed groups, and what impact it has had on survivors, and their families and communities. We’ll also discuss how humanitarian actors can better assist survivors inside Syria and in situations of displacement, how perpetrators can be held accountable, and the longer term implications for peace. Key questions include:

In this episode Meredith Blake interviews Brian Heilman, a senior research officer at Promundo, whose work focuses on eliminating harmful masculine norms, preventing all forms of gender-based violence, and achieving broader gender equality and social justice both in the United States and globally.

Brian is the co-author of the 2017 State of the World's Fathers and 2016 State of America's Fathers reports, the lead author of The Man Box study on harmful effects of rigid mascuoline norms in the U.S., U.K., and Mexico, and a co-author of multiple reports using International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) data. Brian has extensive program and research experience in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, and is deeply engaged in sexual violence prevention educator in Minnesota. He holds a BA in English from Saint John's University and an MA in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.