Questions about how best to shrink the gap between humanitarian relief and development are nothing new.
Twenty years ago, when Izumi Nakamitsu, who is now the director of the United Nations Development Program’s Crisis Response Unit still worked at the U.N. refugee agency, people were asking the same question. Nakamitsu credits her old boss, U.N. High Commissioner Sadako Ogata, with first bringing up the issue of the gap between relief and development in the mid-1990s.
“Twenty years later I came back to this issue, and that means you guys still have not solved it,” Nakamitsu said.
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About the author
Michael Igoe@AlterIgoe
Michael Igoe is a Senior Reporter with Devex, based in Washington, D.C. He covers U.S. foreign aid, global health, climate change, and development finance. Prior to joining Devex, Michael researched water management and climate change adaptation in post-Soviet Central Asia, where he also wrote for EurasiaNet. Michael earned his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College, where he majored in Russian, and his master’s degree from the University of Montana, where he studied international conservation and development.
