Humanitarian action in Africa, what is it and what should it entail?

AfriCan Geopardy

In this month's episode, we have Mamadou Sow, the Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Southern Africa - Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In previous episodes, we aimed to introduce the subject to our audience before handing over to our guest. However, we have not followed this protocol this time because we believe that humanitarian action is one of those hard to define concepts and means different things to different people. As Mr Sow aptly captured, the first contributors to humanitarian action are communities, many of whom use their social networks to support people in times of conflict/during displacements; disparent from what can be deduced from a google search of "humanitarian action". The conversation about humanitarian action brought to the fore the need for African government to do all that they can to silence the guns, because according to Mr Sow that is the only way the continent can make progress. Mr Sow makes many recommendations on how the #AfriCan continent can turn the tide on conflict, including calling on the leaders to "be bold and consider political solutions". Listen. Share. Subscribe.