Displaying items by tag: Governance

The Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia was set up in 2005 by the government as part of a strategy to address chronic food insecurity. The PSNP provides cash or food to people who have predictable food needs in a way that  enables them to improve their own livelihoods – and therefore become more resilient to the effects of shocks in the future. However, there are times when a shock results in transitory food insecurity, the scale of which is beyond the mainstream PSNP to address. This requires additional temporary support. In this event extra funding comes from the…

Forty heads of state convene in London this week for a conference on Africa’s biggest headache: Somalia. For Britain and the other countries represented at the conference, Somalia is a security problem, a ‘failed state’, a haven for terrorists and pirates, a threat to the well-being of the Global North. But the main threat that misgovernment in Somalia represents is to Somalis themselves, constantly at risk of famine and displacement. Although Britain responded generously to the famine that ravaged Somalia last year, there was no mention of the humanitarian crisis when the Prime Minister announced the conference, which is focused…

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…

The Haiti earthquake ushered in a new humanitarian information environment: one with unprecedented availability of raw data, the growing usage of new information communication technology (ICT), and the emergence of three loosely-connected communities of interest centred around the US government, the United Nations and the international community and a new group (ICT Volunteers) comprised of virtually-connected academics, humanitarians, corporate foundations and ICT professionals. All three communities collected, shared and acted upon enormous amounts of digital information made available on a variety of web portals, platforms and new social networking media, such as Short Message Service (SMS) feeds, Twitter and Facebook.…

Over one million people live in Karamoja, a region found in the north Eastern part of Uganda. To a visitor passing through from the capital city Kampala, Karamoja may look like any other region in Uganda but appearances can be deceptive. The region is characterised by the worst humanitarian and development indicators in Uganda. The problem of underdevelopment in Karamoja is often characterised as a ‘cultural’ problem, however, this needs to be understood within the delicate livelihood systems that operate within the region. The people of Karamoja have traditionally based their livelihood on agro-pastoralism. Like many other pastoral societies in…

In the two decades prior to President Alvaro Uribe’s election in 2001, illicit crop production in Colombia grew from 3,500 to 144,000 hectares, representing an annual increase of 25.6%, with Colombia producing more than 70% of the world’s cocaine. This trend was coupled with a worsening of the armed conflict, which according to Uribe was due to guerrillas’ involvement in the drug trade. Drug-trafficking was deemed to constitute one of the main sources of funding for Colombia’s guerrilla groups; according to government figures, between 1991 and 1996 $470 million was raised from the illegal sale of narcotics, representing 41% of…

At 2:28pm on 12 May 2008, a powerful earthquake struck China’s Sichuan Province. Some 87,500 people were killed, 45.5m affected and 14.4m displaced. Economic losses were estimated at $86 billion, with 21m buildings damaged. According to a recent DFID report, the earthquake drove an estimated 10m people below the poverty line, with overall poverty in badly affected areas increasing from 11% to 35% of the population. Despite the extent of the devastation, this earthquake was not China’s first experience with natural disaster. In fact, four of the ten most destructive earthquakes on record have occurred in the country, giving China…

For decades, Ethiopia has been inextricably linked in the world’s eyes with famine and disaster. The country is often characterised as dependent on foreigners, its people lazy, its government obstructionist. In fact, however, successive Ethiopian governments have actively engaged in disaster risk management (DRM). Political will is not lacking: disasters remain at the heart of Ethiopian politics. This article sketches out the history of Ethiopian governments’ responses to disasters, charting the complex relationship between a strong state with a long, proud history of sovereignty and increasingly assertive donor and INGO communities. Ethiopia’s assertive sovereignty lies in its historical self-consciousness as…

Zimbabwe is facing an extraordinary and multidimensional crisis. An estimated three million Zimbabweans have crossed the Limpopo river into South Africa as a matter of survival; more than three-quarters of the remaining population of nine million face serious food shortages; maternal mortality has tripled since the mid-1990s; a cholera epidemic has infected over 90,000 people, killing over 4,000; one in five adults are HIV positive, and one person dies every four minutes from AIDS; 94% of the population is officially unemployed; and thousands were beaten and intimidated by government security and paramilitary forces during last year’s elections. Political instability and…

This edition of Humanitarian Exchange features articles on the role of the affected state in humanitarian action. Focusing on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, articles on Indonesia and China explore the extent to which the willingness and capacity of these states to manage disaster response has developed in line with economic growth, political stability and experience. The surprisingly positive role the military has played in supporting state-led disaster response, particularly in China, is highlighted, and the perception that only international relief agencies can save lives and alleviate suffering challenged. Other articles explore the recent history…