Missionaries of the Southern Baptist Convention (USA)were committed to providing humanitarian aid and comfort on both sides of the civil war in Nigeria. My father, who was trained as a medic in WWII, was one of three missionaries who stayed in Biafra working closely with a medical doctor, Dr. Bill Norman, to provide medical care and food to civilians displaced by the fighting from August, 1967- August, 1968. They left Biafra on a relief flight flown by Count Von Rosen and were relieved by Dr. Bryant Durham, who worked primarily at Annabelle airstrip coordinating WCC efforts on the ground. Based on oral interviews with these men and on several hundred letters reporting their decisions, moral dilemmas, and personal hardships, this paper analyzes the rationale, personnel, and structure of Southern Baptist relief efforts in Biafra at the height of the civil war. These sources provide views from the "frontline" that allow Southern Baptist efforts to be placed within the larger context of the history and politics of humanitarian aid in African conflicts.

In 1966, President Kenneth Kaunda invited Israeli planners to establish a series of cooperative settlements in the Copperbelt Region of Zambia. These cooperatives were to be patterned along the lines of the Israeli moshav, and include clusters of cooperative settlements outside the mining towns of the Copperbelt. Israeli agricultural experts arrived to the Kafuba and Kafulafuta settlements, where they divided settlers into clearly demarcated plots. Farmers built their houses and planted vegetable gardens, and Israeli experts taught new techniques in poultry farming and dairy production. Within three years, these cooperative farms became the main suppliers of eggs and dairy to the expanding urban populations of the Copperbelt. President Kaunda was immensely pleased with the success of the initiative, as previous efforts to establish cooperatives in Zambia had failed. The moshav model was declared the key to his vision for democratic socialism known as "humanism," and plans were made for expansion. But before this could be realised, Kaunda abruptly severed ties with Israel in the wake of the October 1973 War. The Israelis were expelled from Zambia, and the moshav program came to an abrupt end. This paper will examine the evolution of ties between Israel and Zambia through the history of Israeli aid schemes in Zambia. We will examine the political and ideological currents that gave rise to the cooperation between the two countries, as well as the complex and varied circumstances that lead to its demise.

The role of humanitarian aid workers in Angolan decolonization has not drawn much attention. A transnational network of North American and Canadian Protestant missionaries sent doctors and aid workers to assist the thousands of Angolans who fled from Portuguese control at the advent of the war for independence in 1961. Aid workers viewed themselves as morally obligated to help Angolans victimized by colonialism, even as they claimed to be apolitical humanitarians. Although Angolan refugees sometimes tried to break rules for assistance set by aid workers, the biggest difficulty for aid workers came from political divisions among exiled political leaders. This essay examines how the ostensibly apolitical role of missionaries allowed them to solicit aid from various Protestant and secular donors, as well as how aid workers found themselves caught in struggles between Angolan resistance Holden Roberto and his critics. Aid workers also tried to mediate between Angolan refugees with Congolese employers and the Congolese government.

Development researchers have long believed that developed states use their power to provide Aid or other forms of external assistance such as private philanthropy, assistance of Non-Governmental Organisations, and other financing to developing nations to achieve global economic and political stability. Development scholars (including geographers) have largely attributed this to a sense of responsibility. Many have assumed this assistance to travel in one direction, i.e. from Global North to Global South, thus overlooking modalities of care and hospitality among individuals within countries of the Global South. In this paper, I posit that looking at everyday modes of assistance at the urban community level would challenge scholars to re-think ways in which place matters in development. Analysing qualitative data gathered in two neighbourhoods in Maputo, Mozambique, this study is an investigation of proximity. I argue that closeness of people in community relationships matters in three ways: (i) the everyday practices of assistance in these communities are modes of resistance to an oppressive state; (ii) forms of assistance serve as expressions of local (as opposed to national) identity; and (iii) religious institutions play a significant role in fostering public discourse, rather than motivating assistance. In speaking more specifically about how proximity matters, this study contributes to the growing realisation that development must come from within.