http://www.owen.org/blog/4 Thoughts on development and beyond Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:50:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.owen.org/blog/4/comment-page-1#comment-6 Brian Barder Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:56:35 +0000 http://www.owen.org/blog/?p=4#comment-6 When long ago, in the 1980s, I was involved as one of a large number of diplomats in the enormous international famine relief effort in Ethiopia, I remember having exactly the same feelings about the literally heroic role of the relief workers out in the field, running feeding and medical camps for the sick and starving, having to keep the camps going with often inadequate supplies, avoiding duplication with other relief bodies, negotiating their way through a minefield of problems with the then communist military government, watching those whom they were trying to help die at their feet in their hundreds every day, and often having to turn away desperate victims of starvation and disease through lack of resources to devote to them or because they were by then beyond all hope of survival, effectively pronouncing a death sentence on them. Many of these fantastic people were in their 20s or early 30s, with a high proportion of young women. They were amazing people and I don't think many of them ever got the recognition they deserved. The contrast with the relatively easy life of diplomats and administrators could hardly have been greater. When long ago, in the 1980s, I was involved as one of a large number of diplomats in the enormous international famine relief effort in Ethiopia, I remember having exactly the same feelings about the literally heroic role of the relief workers out in the field, running feeding and medical camps for the sick and starving, having to keep the camps going with often inadequate supplies, avoiding duplication with other relief bodies, negotiating their way through a minefield of problems with the then communist military government, watching those whom they were trying to help die at their feet in their hundreds every day, and often having to turn away desperate victims of starvation and disease through lack of resources to devote to them or because they were by then beyond all hope of survival, effectively pronouncing a death sentence on them. Many of these fantastic people were in their 20s or early 30s, with a high proportion of young women. They were amazing people and I don’t think many of them ever got the recognition they deserved. The contrast with the relatively easy life of diplomats and administrators could hardly have been greater.

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