ABSTRACT
The introduction chapter provides a historical background on the development of international humanitarian crisis management. It starts with the discussion on how the end of the Cold War necessitated collective engagement of the international community in addressing humanitarian crisis. The presence of a great variety of actors with different visions makes present day humanitarian crisis management particularly challenging. In the interest of improving crisis management, two major themes demanded attention: (1) humanitarian coordination and (2) humanitarian-development nexus. The coordination and nexus strategies in responding to bridge ‘the gaps’ led to various institutional reforms in UN system and development of new concepts, funding instruments and institutional arrangements within donors. Despite all these transformations, the entire process of humanitarian actions remains largely unmanaged. The book intends to provide a more evidence-based study on the relationship between humanitarianism and development at the center of the needs for reform in crisis management. The research is based on the concepts of ‘continuum’ and ‘crisis management’, with a focus on bilateral donors, and covers both cases of natural disasters and violent conflicts. The chapter concludes with the intention to contribute to the global discussions on the need to move beyond humanitarian-development nexus.
