Humanitarian Exchange articles tagged:Development

The Burmese refugee camps on the Thai–Burma border are characterised as a protracted refugee situation.[1] The nine camps spread across four provinces have been in existence since the mid-1980s, and have a collective population of approximately 135,000 people.[2] The ethnic conflict precipitating much of the forced migration continues unabated in Burma, with at least 3,000 people fleeing to Thailand in 2009.[3] Until 1998, there was no formal protection programming in the camps. UNHCR was barred from entering them, and NGOs were prohibited from implementing programmes focusing on refugee rights. Camp residents faced (and still face) an array of threats from…

The South-East Asian nation of Timor-Leste declared independence on 20 May 2002 after three years of UN administration following the end of the Indonesian occupation in 1999. Four years later, in 2006, serious civil conflict broke out when sections of the Timorese army (known as ‘Petitioners’) protested against alleged discrimination by officers from areas of eastern Timor-Leste. Subsequent clashes, which also included the police and wider society, resulted in the displacement of approximately 150,000 people. The Cluster System was officially introduced in Timor-Leste in March 2009 to better coordinate the response to the conflict and also to plan for potential…

As a humanitarian crisis, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 is comparable to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. In Aceh in Indonesia, the most affected area, 230,000 people died and half a million were made homeless. By comparison in Haiti, roughly 200,000 people died and a million were made homeless. Indonesia had competent central government, but reconstruction in affected areas in Aceh was made more difficult by ongoing insurgencies there. While Haiti had no insurgency at the time of the earthquake, it suffered from weak governance, a near-total lack of governmental services and the inheritance of repeated insurgencies and dictatorships.…

In recent years, developing national capacity and building effective partnerships with national and local actors have moved up the humanitarian policy agenda. Yet the rhetoric around sustainability and local ownership rarely reflects operational practice on the ground, making it difficult to identify not only the obstacles to such initiatives, but also the factors that enable their progress. Protracted emergencies raise a particular set of issues about how best to support national and local priorities in the transition from international to national and local aid coordination structures. Drawing on HPG research carried out in Gulu and Pader districts in Northern Uganda…

  Over the past decade, humanitarian operations have become increasingly complex, with multiple actors, new roles for the military, new and evolving standards and guidelines, new terminologies, new products, a variety of coordination platforms, changing donor roles, challenges in accessing populations in need and chronic conflicts and anomalous climate patterns leaving communities more vulnerable than ever. These developments have generally not been matched by sufficient practical training to equip those engaged in delivering humanitarian relief and assistance with the skills they need to do their jobs. Projected future challenges may well create fresh new complexities.[1] The skills needed for disaster…

This article summarises the findings of a learning initiative by the Global WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene promotion) Cluster, led by Action Against Hunger (ACF-UK). It provides a synthesis of good practices, lessons learned and recommendations for the roll-out of the cluster approach in the WASH sector. The analysis draws on performance reviews carried out by the Global Cluster Learning Project, self-evaluations, independent evaluations and internal and peer reviews. Progress towards achieving the cluster approach’s objectives – improved leadership, accountability, predictability and partnership – is also analysed, although there is insufficient evidence to draw conclusions about the impact of the…

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)’s approach to delivering aid is based on obtaining ‘acceptance’ of its work from the population, authorities and communities concerned. Acceptance here means that MSF seeks a social contract whereby its presence is respected by all parties to a conflict, including civilians, who all understand and accept that MSF’s humanitarian identity is central to its operations, and that MSF is there to assist those in need of emergency medical care. In practice, this approach is more complicated than it first appears. A lack of awareness of how we are perceived is proving to be a growing impediment…

One in every six people on the planet currently experiences the kind of living conditions depicted in the recent film Slumdog Millionaire, set in the sprawling slums of Mumbai. Forecasts by UN Habitat and others suggest that slum communities like those shown in the film will double in size to two billion people by 2025, accounting for one in four of the world’s population, making slums the fastest-growing form of human settlement and a key facet of global urbanisation. With urban centres projected to double in size to four billion people by 2025, the equivalent of a city of nearly…

First rolled out following the earthquake in Pakistan and Kashmir in October 2005, the Humanitarian Reform process sought to address gaps in the international response to humanitarian crises, and to improve timeliness, effectiveness and predictability. The reform’s approach was three-pronged: first, the introduction of clusters to better coordinate sectoral responses and identify a lead agency which would provide predictable leadership and coordination and act as the provider of last resort; second, to improve the availability of quick-response funding through the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), established in March 2006; and third, to improve humanitarian leadership by strengthening the role and…

Promoting development in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) is becoming increasingly difficult in the face of an ongoing conflict that affects every aspect of Palestinian social and economic life. The prolonged political crisis has contributed to the destruction of the social fabric and has worsened the economic prospects of all Palestinians, plunging many into ever-deeper poverty. The 1948 war, the regional wars of 1967 and 1973, the 1987 and 2000 uprisings and the 2008–2009 Israeli incursion into Gaza have caused repeated displacement and turned many into long-term refugees. In recent years, the territory has been fragmented following the internal Palestinian…