Occasional Paper #33, Relief and Development: The Struggle for Synergy, by Ian Smillie.

Letter from Charles MacCormack, Save the Children, February 16, 1999.

Dear Ian:

I was pleased to receive the copy of "Relief and Development: The Struggle for Synergy." This document definitely makes a significant contribution to the field of relief and development studies.

I believe your analogy about the automobile assembly plant captures the heart of the problem–there is no overall plan and no one is in charge of these efforts. This means that the different parties create interventions that make sense in isolation, but that lack coherence at the strategic level.

I hope that future conferences and analyses might have more recommendations about this issue. As you suggest in your book, there are unlikely to be breakthroughs in humanitarian response and the relationship between relief and development with humanitarian response until there is a more strategic plan for addressing the issues you raise.

Thank you for your leadership in this field, and congratulations on your important contribution to the literature.

Sincere Regards,

Charles MacCormack