How can organizations like the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Red Cross become more effective in their vital and laudable mission? How can multinational corporations contribute meaningfully to global issues like climate change, poverty reduction and equitable economic growth? What enables enterprises to grow and develop in challenging settings like the aftermath of a devastating Tsunami?
These questions are all related to humanitarian work psychology and have so far been largely overlooked by global development policy and policy makers. A first roundtable was organised in Geneva to discuss the relevance and needs to form a new area of study, namely, humanitarian work psychology in order to effectively address the needs of the humanitarian workers.