There needs to be more awareness of the plight of Syrian civilians in order to highlight this issue and further get the aid they so desperately need. The hospitals in Syria are struggling to accommodate the growing number of patients that need medical assistance and care.
Audiences the world over are captivated by images of violence. Rolling news runs round-the-clock footage of troops and tanks fighting harsh battles in some of the world's most inhospitable places. This deserves our attention and thank goodness these pictures stir the public and their political leaders to tackle pressing security issues.
After having spoken to fellow colleagues from Justice International, one of Justice for A Better World's charitable organisations, made up of internat...
Some places almost never get the attention they deserve. One of these is the Democratic Republic of Congo. A vast country of some 80 million people, at the heart of Africa. It has struggled since independence in 1960 with a poor colonial legacy, cold war manipulations, venal and incompetent governments, and a succession of wars.
An interesting issue that often arises when addressing human rights and Western intervention in other countries is the following: are we truly helping or are we simply imposing our values on other cultures? Human Rights surely have a universal value but what about different cultures? And what is 'culture', in first place?
Many Syrians I spoke to on a recent visit to Syria hold the UN partially responsible for the deaths of 70, 000 lives in the unfolding humanitarian disaster that is wracking the country. There is an impression that the UN is propping up the regime by working and delivering aid via the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC).
If it is true that money talks, then what it says about the Mali conflict would mean many have been simply priced out of the conversation. The fallout from the conflict has displaced hundreds of thousands of people - about half of whom are children.
Given the dearth of media attention given to Darfur these days, observers could be forgiven for thinking the bombing, looting and raping is over. Yet, the aerial bombardment continues, as does the systematic rape of girls and women, and the destruction of villages seen by the regime as non-Arab.
Like Their Royal Highnesses, I was also in Jordan this week spending time with Syria's exhausted and traumatised refugees. What struck me most about my latest visit was how much worse the situation has become since I was last there in October.
Actor and filmmaker Ben Affleck was honoured for his humanitarian efforts in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo at a ceremony in California on ...
The world did not end today. At least, not for you. Not for me. In places like Syria and Pakistan, individual worlds will come to an end because of hatred, greed and violence.
This focus on the very young is perhaps a natural reflex, yet we mustn't allow it to blind us to the needs of older people. As a doctor myself, and currently president of an international medical humanitarian organisation operating in emergencies around the world, I want to challenge our sense that we should always focus first on the needs of the very young in emergencies.
No one is expecting today's Autumn Statement to bring much in the way of Christmas cheer. However, one good story is the remarkable progress of British aid and what it is achieving for the world's poorest children. A story that is seldom told. A story that the British public should be proud of.
Up to 230,000 Syrians are now estimated to be in Jordan and 500 more are crossing the border every day, stretching the scarce resources of a country that is already battling an economic crisis and cutting fuel subsidies for its own population.
If the government in Burma really wants to preserve its growing democracy and be seen as a stable state, it is going to have to accept and embrace the fact that it is one of Asia's most ethnically diverse countries; and it needs to reassess its citizenship to accommodate this and that must include granting citizenship to the Rohingya people.
We're in the final round of an epic fight. Now is not the time to flinch - now is the time where together we make history.
The hands of the United Nations are stained with blood over its failure to stop the atrocities in Syria, Prime Minister David Cameron has told the int...
R&B superstar Beyonce paid a visit to the United Nations (UN) on Thursday ahead of World Humanitarian Day. The Crazy In Love singer met with Secret...
Thousands of Somalis have been forced to flee an ongoing military offensive in Afgooye Corridor, Southern Somalia. More than 5,000 people have arrived, many on foot and carrying nothing, into overcrowded Mogadishu. I'm standing in Sigale camp, Mogadishu, and the trickle of people struggling in becomes a torrent. Mothers carrying children and their meagre belongings look shattered and collapse under nearby trees.
Millions of people in Yemen are starving and in desperate need of aid humanitarian workers have warned, just days after a suicide bomb attack killed s...
The last few days I have spent scouring the tsunami-devastated coastline of Japan's north-east. From Ishinomaki to Onagawa, Shichigahama to Kesennuma, the landscape has been drastically altered as Japan presses on with the world's costliest disaster recovery till date.
Imagine walking into a minefield before realising you are in deep trouble and help is hours away. Picture yourself in the middle of a crowd that is fast turning into a mob. Visualise your colleague has been shot at by rebels and has a life-threatening bleeding wound.
Besides Hispaniola itself- the second largest island in the Caribbean, Haiti and the Dominican Republic share one more thing in common - their seismic fault lines.
They are out there, always, often the first people to reach. You have seen them feed malnourished children and starving people in the Horn of Africa.
This confusion about spending and impact may in part be down to the fact that the public don't directly feel the impact of overseas development spending.
