from occurring when the situation in Somalia had reached a critical point as the U.N. and the U.S were unable to efficiently deal with the crisis. Critics of the humanitarian assistance argue that “Ultimately the intervention caused harm to the Somali people”. 217 A more effective form of relief that would have perhaps proved positive towards the Somalian hunger crisis, would have been cash packages over food aid. As cash can act as a positive injection into the local economy, encouraging business networks between traders, it does not act as a form of competition to farmers; which the foreign food aid did. 218 Although a benefit of food aid over cash aid is that it is more equal in terms of gender, as the women in African culture generally handle the food whilst the males handle the cash, therefore cash packages can potentially only be used to serve male interests. 219 This leads to the next issue that arises when humanitarian assistance is provided to emergency situations. The aid becomes a target from warring factions as it represents economic wealth and political power in a conflict, which can be used to one’s advantage acting as leverage; because people who engage in war will always seek to control it. David Smock stated that warring factions gain access to these supplies through thievery or imposing taxes 220 , taking either the aid itself or cash payments to allow aid agencies to 217 Ibid. 218 Martin Whiteside, 'Realistic rehabilitation', Development in Practice , ii, 6 (1996), 121–128. 219 Ibid. 220 David R Smock, 'Humanitarian assistance and conflict in Africa' 2003.
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