Mobilizing for International Disaster Relief: Comparing U.S. and EU Approaches to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake

In the face of an increased incidence of complex natural disasters around the world, the international donor community plays a critical role in mobilizing support to fragile and weak states, lacking adequate emergency response capacities, infrastructure, and health service. The United States and the European Union are two of the most important players in these efforts, both in terms of supporting the UN system and by providing resources and personnel at disaster sites. But to date, few studies have assessed what challenges and opportunities the U.S. and the EU face when mobilizing for international disaster relief. This article sets out to fill this gap by studying the response to the January 2010 Haiti earthquake. In so doing, this article draws on three categories of capacities: “public leadership,” “inter-agency coordination,” and “civil-military cooperation,” to identify common challenges and opportunities in response capacities and in order to generate recommendations for strengthening transatlantic disaster responses in the future.

[1]  Sharon Wiharta,et al.  The Effectiveness of Foreign Military Assets in Natural Disaster Response , 2008 .

[2]  Martijn Gough.  Climate change , 2009, Canadian Medical Association Journal.

[3]  P. '. Hart,et al.  Symbols, Rituals and Power: The Lost Dimensions of Crisis Management , 1993 .

[4]  E. Stern,et al.  The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure , 2005 .

[5]  Johan Eriksson,et al.  The Internal—External Security Nexus , 2009 .

[6]  Taylor B. Seybolt.  Humanitarian Military Intervention: The Conditions for Success and Failure , 2007 .

[7]  Donald F. Kettl,et al.  Contingent Coordination , 2003 .

[8]  R. Howse,et al.  The Federal Vision: Legitimacy and Levels of Governance in the United States and the European Union , 2002 .

[9]  L. Donaldson,et al.  Coping with Crises: The Management of Disasters, Riots and Terrorism , 1989 .

[10]  Steven Putansu,et al.  Defense Management: U.S. Southern Command Demonstrates Interagency Collaboration, but Its Haiti Disaster Response Revealed Challenges Conducting a Large Military Operation , 2010 .

[11]  Magnus Ekengren,et al.  Solidarity or Sovereignty? EU Cooperation in Civil Protection , 2006 .

[12]  M. Schain,et al.  Comparative federalism : the European Union and the United States in comparative perspective , 2006 .

[13]  Laura Zanotti.  Cacophonies of Aid, Failed State Building and NGOs in Haiti: setting the stage for disaster, envisioning the future , 2010, Third world quarterly.

[14]  Daniel S. Hamilton,et al.  Humanitarian assistance : improving U.S.-European cooperation , 2009 .

[15]  Diane Andrews Henningfeld.  The Haiti Earthquake , 2012 .

[16]  Louise K. Comfort,et al.  Designing resilience : preparing for extreme events , 2010 .

[17]  Abhijit Bhattacharjee,et al.  Evaluation of OCHA Response to the Haiti Earthquake: Final report , 2012 .

[18]  Lynn Lawry,et al.  Civil-military collaboration in the initial medical response to the earthquake in Haiti. , 2010, The New England journal of medicine.

[19]  Claes T. Nilsson,et al.  The Community Mechanism for Civil Protection and the European Union Solidarity Fund , 2009 .

[20]  Rhoda Margesson,et al.  Haiti Earthquake: Crisis and Response , 2010 .