Speaking to humanitarian aid workers from around the world taking part in Fordham’s International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance (IDHA) Program at the Lincoln Center campus, Sanchez-Teran described Chad as a failing state based on its political, economic and social situation. He told the gathering that not only is the country led by someone who seized power in a military coup, it is involved in a regional war with Sudan and the Central African Republic, numerous tribal wars and a civil war. And the country is now home to more than 235,000 Sudanese refugees and 172,000 internally displaced people in camps throughout the country.

Moreover, the country has the lowest rate of education in Africa, Sanchez-Teran said, ranking 100 out of 102 developing countries in the Human Poverty Index, and the Transparency International Index listed it as the most corrupt nation in the world in the 2005. “You can’t get much worse than being a Chadian,” he said.

Sanchez-Teran was critical of France and United States and their involvement in the Chadian crisis. He said that the United States gave Chad $2.2 million in military aid in 2006 to fight international terrorism. “The problem is not the amount, the problem is the message you send to the government and to the people,” said Sanchez-Teran. “What arrive there are weapons and soldiers, not the humanitarian reports.”

Sanchez-Teran was also critical of the international aid community, which he said has failed in Chad. “We should have answered better,” he said, citing many examples where the aid community was not able to work together to assist refugees and those displaced by the violence. “We have not done our work. … I don’t think we are doing our best.”

The month-long IIHA diploma program, which draws students from organizations throughout the world, is designed to help aid professionals function more effectively in times of “complex emergencies,” including wars and natural disasters.

Moderated by Larry Hollingworth, IIHA’s director of humanitarian programs, the session will feature a lecture on Chad by Gonzalo Sanchez-Teran, a Jesuit Relief Services’ (JRS) project director who coordinates educational projects in the Goz Beida and other camps for internally displaced persons in the central African country, and a plenary session on Darfur as part of the institute’s International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance Program.

Aid officials have called the humanitarian crisis in eastern Chad no less severe than the one in Darfur. Estimates place the number of refugees from Sudan and the Central African Republic in Chad’s eastern and southern border areas at more than 280,000.

The plenary session on Darfur will feature aid workers from organizations throughout the world who will discuss efforts to provide assistance in one of the world’s most unstable regions. The four-year-old crisis in Darfur has claimed the lives of some 200,000 people as rural villagers have come under attack by Arab militias, known as janjaweed, which many observers believe are armed by the Sudanese government.

The monthlong diploma program at Fordham, which draws students from organizations throughout the world, helps aid professionals function more effectively in times of “complex emergencies,” including wars and natural disasters. The program, which enrolled 38 humanitarian aid professionals from 25 countries this year, is run by the IIHA.