Displaying items by tag: Capacity-building

Over the past five years, Community-based Therapeutic Care (CTC) has carved a niche for itself as an effective and sustainable way of providing selective feeding services in emergencies. From its first implementation in Ethiopia in 2001, CTC has sought to break away from traditional centre-based, inpatient treatment of severe acute malnutrition. The results so far have been very positive; CTC programmes in Malawi, Ethiopia and South Sudan have consistently shown high coverage, high recovery and low defaulter rates. Much of this success can be attributed to the active role that beneficiary communities have played in the planning, implementation and handing-over…

In the context of the US ‘global war on terror’ (GWOT), the issue of cultural proximity has become an increasingly pressing question for humanitarians. In countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, Western NGOs employing large numbers of expatriate staff have been assessing whether their Western ‘face’ acts as a barrier to humanitarian intervention. The solutions considered have been either to send Muslim expatriates to Muslim contexts, or to form more partnerships with Muslim NGOs (sometimes local, sometimes international). Agencies have certainly been encouraged in both approaches by Muslim NGOs in the UK, which argue that Muslims are best at conveying…

Vietnam’s Mekong Delta area suffers from annual flooding, which is typically slow-onset, and inundates large areas. Floodwaters stay for up to two months before slowly receding. The Vietnamese government’s disaster-management strategy for the areas has been to live with these floods. Residential clusters have been developed near highways and river dykes, and families living in low-lying villages are being relocated to these areas. However, many of these residential clusters lack important water and sanitation (watsan) facilities. To address these needs, Oxfam GB and the Dong Thap Province People’s Committee implemented a watsan public health promotion project in Dong Thap Province…

In recent years, there have been several studies of micro-finance in post-conflict situations. However, very little attention has been paid to micro-finance (or micro-credit) in refugee camps. This article describes a micro-enterprise programme in refugee camps in Guinea, implemented by the American Refugee Committee (ARC). It is based on an evaluation of the programme carried out in April 2004, which focused on two camps, Laine and Kola, located in Guinea’s Nzérèkoré region. As part of the evaluation, a survey was conducted among 120 beneficiaries of the programme, and among a control group of 80 non-beneficiaries. Laine camp was established in…

Interaction’s Disaster Response Training Database (DRTD) has been redesigned and expanded. The DRTD is a continuing effort by Interaction’s Humanitarian Policy and Practice Committee to address the increasing need for professionalism in the humanitarian community. It is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Among the database’s features is a user-friendly interface with detailed instructions and an online user’s guide. Users can find contact information for training providers and can browse listings by course or institution title. Courses are also searchable by keyword, geographic location and applicable sectors. The DRTD includes information on more than 500 courses offered at over…

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has published a ‘Camp Management Toolkit’. Designed to complement existing guidelines and minimum standards for camp design and construction and technical aspects of camp activities, it takes a holistic approach to camp management, from negotiating camp settings through to closure of a camp. The Camp Management Toolkit was developed by NRC’s Camp Management Project, an inter-agency effort to improve the management of camps for the displaced. The shortcomings and frequent lack of coherence in camp management, particularly with respect to camps for internally displaced people, has been evident for some time. As a response, a…

In a recent lessons-learned meeting on the Bam earthquake in Iran, a polite and respectful colleague from the Iranian Ministry of Health related his frustration at international NGO coordination in the early days of the emergency. He said that, at the same time as he was desperately trying to set up field hospitals and bury the dead, representatives from over 100 international NGOs had individually requested meetings with him. He appreciated their help, he said, but some organisations wanted to ask him about the siting of rural clinics when he was still trying to arrange emergency medical evacuations. Was there…

Humanitarian aid organisations need the press. Good coverage can help with fundraising, smooth the way to cooperation with host governments and raise staff morale. Journalists need humanitarian organisations to provide on-the-ground expertise and resources, and the raw material of their stories. It is therefore surprising how little each side understands the other: • NGO press officers complain that few journalists know about chronic, long-term problems such as HIV/AIDS in Africa or the comeback of malaria. Journalists say that they do know about these issues, but need better reasons to run stories on chronic issues today, rather than at some point…

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are fast becoming the dominant method of tackling large, complicated and expensive public health problems in post-conflict and unstable settings such as Afghanistan and Iraq. They are seen as ‘win-win’ arrangements in which diverse actors – with often varied, sometimes conflicting, motivations – work together to contribute to health development. In principle, there is no reason why a PPP should not be effective, provided it is established on the premise of a ‘partnership’. In the quest for a standard definition of partnership in a PPP, there are signs of convergence on common elements: the mutual recognition of…

Local NGOs in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) became involved in humanitarian assistance in the wake of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Subsequent crises – wars in Congo and Burundi, massive population displacement, violent ethnic conflict and the volcanic eruption in Goma in January 2002 – only increased the need for local NGOs in South and North Kivu to develop their capabilities in humanitarian aid. Today, ten years on from the genocide, humanitarian assistance has become a key area of activity for local NGOs in eastern Congo. This article looks at some of the key…