The development community should seek to bridge the divide between relief work in developed and developing countries, the CEO of Direct Relief has said — and dropping the jargon that can often drive development work is a good place to start.

I don’t see much difference between international development and what we call social support spending in the United States. You are trying to mobilize resources and put them exactly in the place where people need help.

Direct Relief is unusual in that it offers the same kind of emergency medical response “irrespective of place,” whether it be in northern California in the United States during the recent wildfires that have displaced approximately 100,000 people, or in West Africa following the deadly Ebola outbreak in 2014.

Read the source article on relief work by Amy Lieberman at Devex International Development