Devex: Q&A: Religious identity, genocide, and humanitarian impartiality
“… ‘For the first time we’re really talking about and acknowledging that a person’s ethnic or religious identity contributes to their vulnerability … That is something of an evolution in the conversation around humanitarian principles and the way we at USAID and others in the U.S. government try to do our work around development assistance,’ [Hallam Ferguson, USAID senior deputy assistant administrator in the Middle East bureau,] said at a ministerial side event at the Family Research Council, a Christian activist group known for opposing homosexuality. The humanitarian principle of impartiality requires that assistance be distributed solely on the basis of need, with no discrimination based on nationality, race, gender, religious belief, class, or political opinions. Devex spoke to Ferguson about how this conversation is evolving inside USAID…” (Igoe, 9/16).