The capacity and willingness to act: Two constitutive elements of strategy design

Wolf-Dieter Eberwein and Sven Chojnacki

No P 99-303, Discussion Papers, Research Group International Politics from WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Abstract: Given the amount of suffering in the world, do we have the capacity to provide the necessary humanitarian assistance? Assuming that this is the case: are both the governments and the populations willing to carry that burden in the future as they have done in the past? In order to answer these interrelated questions accurately, we suggest the concept of capacity and willingness as two constitutive elements of strategy design and we will sketch the framework in which these strategies should be embedded. We assume, that both the capacity and willingness to act in order to prevent and mitigate humanitarian disasters vary with respect to the different risks enumerated. Accordingly, it is required to identify different types of disasters and the specific risks associated with them. Following this survey strategies and their two components, capacity and willingness, will be discussed by combining them with the types of risks identified. This leads directly to identify the actors which should or could implement the strategies. Lessons learned from past experience reveal that even though the capacity to act is possibly underestimated the willingness to act is overestimated as far as the governmental actors are concerned.

Date: 1999
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