Displaying items by tag: Donors/governments

Major humanitarian crises in the past decade have prompted unprecedented amounts of private donations: the tsunami that caused widespread devastation across the Indian Ocean in December 2004 saw US$3.9 billion raised in private aid; the response to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti generated at least US$1.2 billion in contributions from the general public; US$450 million was channelled in response to the 2010 floods in Pakistan; and at least US$578 million went to Japan following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. While global private support to specific large-scale emergencies is relatively easy to gauge, it remains unclear how much private…

Strengthening Policy and Practice: meeting the challenges of working in complex environments is designed to draw on the experience and practice of participants, working in development, humanitarian aid or peacebuilding to influence internal policies and programmatic approaches. The course will identify how organisations can strive to balance their organisational mandate with the demands of working in complex and rapidly changing political contexts. Course aims The course will enable participants to contribute to developing constructive organisational and programmatic policies that will guide practical responses in the development, humanitarian and peacebuilding fields. It will draw on the experience of participants and tutors…

The Middle East is an atypical context for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The increasing complexity of humanitarian action, particularly the blurring of the lines between humanitarian and military actors and the increasing use of humanitarian language to justify wars, have made it even more difficult for MSF to negotiate independent operational space. This is especially so in some countries in the Middle East. Moreover, we are unaccustomed to working in middle-income countries where addressing non-communicable diseases is the priority. Although MSF is used to responding to acute crises, the Middle East suffers mostly from the chronic consequences of conflict. In…

The Dadaab refugee complex in north-east Kenya was established in 1991. Originally designed to accommodate 90,000 refugees, the camps now hold over five times their intended capacity, making Dadaab the third-largest population centre in Kenya after Nairobi and Mombasa. The region is remote and harsh, with temperatures of up to 48 degrees Celsius in the dry season and extreme flooding in the rainy season. The main Dadaab complex consists of the ‘older’ Dagahaley, Hagadera and Ifo refugee camps, with three further sites, Ifo East and Ifo West (combined they are known as Ifo 2) and Kambioos. These sites are being…

Counter-terrorism laws and other measures are having a significant impact on humanitarian action in Somalia. Research by the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) suggests that they have increased operating costs, slowed down administrative functions and operational response, curtailed funding and undermined humanitarian partnerships. They have also prevented access and altered the quality and coordination of assistance, making it more difficult for humanitarian actors to operate in accordance with the principles of neutrality and impartiality. Counter-terrorism legislation The development of counter-terrorism legislation and measures relating to Somalia must be seen in the context of global counter-terrorism efforts. Although there is no legal…

Given the increasing scale and severity of humanitarian crises, the need for new approaches and innovations is greater than ever. DFID is committed to supporting innovation and the improving ways of responding to humanitarian crises around the world. DFID undertakes its own research and analysis of humanitarian innovation to establish where the gaps are and support crucial and underfunded areas of innovation wherever possible. Two of our key policy commitments are to work toward making humanitarian research and innovation central to DFID’s research and evidence work, and secondly, to use innovative techniques and technologies more routinely in humanitarian and disaster…

(Opinions stated here do not necessarily reflect those of the Humanitarian Practice Network or the Humanitarian Policy Group, ODI) Over the past few days, Somalia has made a noticeable return to the front pages of the media. The United Nations no longer hesitates to talk about famine in southern Somalia. Once again, shocking images of starving, skeletal children are to be seen everywhere in the media and are focusing the public’s attention on the fate of the deprived populations of the Horn of Africa. Even as a new international humanitarian operation gets under way to save the starving, it is…

One of the more exciting innovations in the response to humanitarian crises of recent years has been the use of cash.  Across the humanitarian sector there is growing recognition that cash and voucher transfers can support people affected by disasters in ways that maintain human dignity, provide access to food and shelter and help rebuild or protect livelihoods. The question is no longer whether cash is an appropriate way to meet the needs of people engulfed in crisis, but how organisations, donors and governments can use cash transfers to best effect.This edition of Good Practice Review is intended primarily for…

Le tremblement de terre d’Haïti introduisit un nouvel environnement d’information humanitaire : un environnement permettant un accès sans précédant aux données primaires, un usage croissant d’ une nouvelle technologie de communication de l’information (Information Communication Technology/ICT) et l’émergence de trois communautés d’intérêt souplement liées et centrées près du gouvernement des EU, les Nations Unies et la communauté internationale et un groupe nouveau (les Volontaires ICT) qui comprend des universitaires virtuellement connectés, des humanitaires, des fondations d’entreprise et des professionnels ICT.  Les trois communautés collectèrent, échangèrent et appliquèrent d’énormes quantités d’informations numériques rendues disponibles sur toute une gamme de portails, de plateformes…

Action Against Hunger (ACF USA) has been working in Uganda since 1980, with operations in Karamoja and Northern Uganda. ACF’s food security and livelihood operation in Otuke District (former Lira District) has changed since 2005, in line with the changing context from displacement to return to reconstruction over the last five years. In particular, as needs have diversified and markets have been re-established, ACF has increasingly turned to market-based and cash-based interventions, as shown in Table 1. This article focuses on the LEARN-1[1] project implemented by ACF in Otuke District from February 2009 to January 2010. The project was designed…