Suchergebnisse

The contemporary crises become increasingly complex, accompanied by more hostilities leading the infected societies to witness more unfortunate events, especially when political solutions are absent in war times or internal conflicts. The humanitarian sector, on the other hand, has to mitigate the severe effects of these crises on communities and provide assistance despite lack of funding and data. The action of UNHCR during the conflict in Syria has been taken as a case study due to the complexity of the situation in Syria. Contingency theory has been adopted within this study to investigate how does the humanitarian crisis in Syria impact the structure of UNHCR. Furthermore, contingency planning as a vital element to address emergencies effectively, enabling the organization to absorb shocks entirely or even partly, is adopted to investigate whether the UNHCR's crisis management is efficient or not. The study reveals that UNHCR's emergency preparedness planning is a sophisticated tool in meeting emergencies, particularly when adopting and implementing these plans on the ground and in coordination with the other stakeholders. Emergency preparedness planning has been observed to be an advantage to the organization primarily when the existing hazard or the predicable one is described as very dynamic. The case study discovers that UNHCR experienced extreme conditions in Syria, such as lack or absence of the data, funding gaps, and safety threatening. Despite these challenges, the organization developed an inclusive response action in which it collaborates with the other humanitarian organizations in Syria and involves the local communities to design site-oriented and more accurate plans.

Environmental organizations play an important role in mainstream debates on nature and in shaping our environments. At a time when environmental NGOs are turning to questions of gender-equality and ethnic diversity, we analyze their possibilities to do so. We argue that attempts at ethnic and cultural diversity in environmental organizations cannot be understood without insight into the conceptualizations of nature and the environment that underpin thinking within the organization. Serious attempts at diversity entail confronting some of the core values on nature-cultures driving the organization as well as understanding the dimensions of power such as class, gender, and race that structure its practices. We study what nature means for one such organization, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, and the ways in which thinking about nature dictates organizational practice and sets the boundaries of their work with diversity in their projects on outdoor recreation. We base our analysis on official documents and interviews, analyze how ''diversity'' and ''gender-equality'' are represented in the material and reflect on the interconnections as well as the different trajectories taken by the two issues. Our study shows that the organization's understanding of nature is a central and yet undiscussed determinant of their work with diversity that closes down as much as it opens up the space for greater inclusion of minorities. We argue that for environmental organizations wanting to diversity membership, a discussion of what nature means for people and their relationships to each other and nature is vital to any such efforts.