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CRASH BLOG

OFF THE CUFF is a participative blog run by the Crash. Its purpose is to expose the diversity of experiences and opinions that exist among humanitarian aid practitioners. Online comments as well as direct contributions are more than welcome. 

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Views expressed on this blog are those of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of Médecins Sans Frontières

young men during a medical visit
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ATHA Podcast: Michaël Neuman about "Saving Lives and Staying Alive"

In "Saving Lives and Staying Alive: Humanitarian Security in the Age of Risk Management" Michaël Neuman and his colleague Fabrice Weissman analyze some of the drivers of professionalization in the context of humanitarian security and its subsequent impact on humanitarian practices through a collection of MSF case studies.

Queue pour la vaccination au camp de réfugiés Yida
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The numbness of numbers

We welcome Abby Stoddard, Katherine Haver and Adele Harmer's response to our critical article on the production and the use of security data in the humanitarian sector and to our book in general. In a field that has been very much lacking debate, if not controversies, we're extremely glad to see a various range of readers engaging in the discussion. 

The logistical teams proceed to the reorganisation of the Donka Ebola treatment center site
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Is aid work really more dangerous than ever? Flawed studies won’t tell us

Since the 1990s and the rise of conflicts in West Africa, Somalia, Chechnya, the former Yugoslavia and Africa's Great Lakes region, humanitarian organisations have been warning of greater insecurity for their staff. These observations are bolstered by surveys aimed at objectively quantifying violence against humanitarian workers.

Le centre médical d'Ebola à FreeTown en Sierra Leone
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The response to the Ebola epidemic: negligence, improvisation and authoritarianism

If MSF has held a preponderant position in the response to the Ebola crisis, it owes it just as much to its intervention capacities as to its capacity for criticism. The following article by Jean-Hervé Bradol embodies perfectly the latter in pointing to the issues that appeared on the occasion of this epidemic.

Boats transporting migrants are abandonned in Pozzallo port
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Boats

This post tells of the 'Boat for the Vietnam' episode, the MSF Search and Rescue operations to be launched in the Mediterranean and the notable absence of the Australian section of MSF from any debate on refugee policy in that country.