Mark Snelling
Mark Snelling is a freelance writer based in London. Since he launched his journalism career in Hong Kong in the early 1990s, he has worked both as a foreign correspondent and an Information Delegate for various components of the Red Cross Movement, covering humanitarian emergencies across Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. He now combines journalism with work on psychological trauma and has begun training as a psychotherapist at the Westminster Pastoral Foundation in London.
Trying (again) to make aid work
Anyone who kicks around the aid business long enough will eventually learn to speak the right kind of language. You know you've made it when phrases like "community participation", "donor accountability" and "needs assessment" start tripping lightly off the tongue. Two events this week offer proof, if any were needed, of how depressingly far we still are from understanding what this kind of language really means. ...
Sticky wicket for Amnesty in Sri Lanka
I am terrible at cricket, always have been. I can't play it and I'm not terribly keen on watching it. Working in Sri Lanka a few years ago, that was something I kept to myself. Cricket is close to a national religion there, its players are idolised and the fortunes of its team are headline news. As pretty much a universal obsession, it also transcends the ethnic divisions that have torn the country apart during more than two decades of civil war. ...
Enough is enough, says Darfur report
If they ever dole out prizes for ambitiously titled research papers, my vote for top spot goes to "The Answer to Darfur". It would be hard to think of a bolder assertion; "The Meaning of Life", possibly, or maybe "How Relationships Work". Nevertheless, it's the headline of a strategy paper just released by ENOUGH, a joint initiative of the respected Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group and the Center for American Progress, a U.S.-based research and educational institute. ...
Sri Lanka's kidnap shame
When I lived and worked in eastern Sri Lanka a few years ago, my most heartbreaking encounters by far were with mothers whose children had been kidnapped. According to Amnesty International, armed groups are now infiltrating camps set up to house the thousands that have fled the recent upsurge in fighting in Batticaloa district. Offering relief goods, presumably to lull people into a false sense of security, they are then abducting residents, particularly young people. ...
Should countries that kill journalists receive aid?
A landmark inquiry by the International News Safety Institute (INSI), Killing the Messenger , raises pressing questions for the international humanitarian and development donor community. As Andrew Stroehlein details in his blog, the inquiry report reveals that three out of every four reporters killed in the line of duty over the past 10 years have died in peace time, reporting news in their own country. More often than not, that means journalists who asked one too many questions about corruption. ...
Previous entries | Next entries
