Displaying items by tag: Natural disasters

Famine and drought pose a regular threat in Eritrea, along with the rest of the Horn of Africa. Consecutive years of drought, high food prices and the global economic downturn all suggest that hunger and malnutrition levels are high. However, unlike in neighbouring countries no reliable national nutrition statistics are available to show this. There have been no comprehensive nutrition surveys since 2005, and World Food Programme (WFP) general food distributions have been suspended since 2006. The activities of international NGOs are restricted. In August 2008, CAFOD was alerted to a poor rainy season by its local partner in Eritrea,…

Post-disaster shelter programmes aim to meet urgent and immediate housing needs. Although evaluations have highlighted short-term benefits and have helped to improve programme design and shelter options, little attention has been paid to the longer-term socio-economic impact of these interventions. Following an initiative of the Netherlands Red Cross (NLRC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), two long-term studies on post-disaster shelter programmes were conducted in collaboration with Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands. The first considers the long-term socio-economic impact of a shelter programme implemented in 1999–2001 in Vietnam. The second covers…

  Aid agencies are increasingly concerned with addressing disaster risk reduction in situations of conflict or chronic political instability. However, the interplay between disaster and conflict and the specific impact on people’s livelihoods are still poorly understood. What impact does chronic conflict have on social relations and on people’s livelihoods, and do recurrent disasters further contribute to tensions and divisions, or do they offer opportunities to strengthen social cohesion? To find an answer to this question, we need a better understanding of what affected people do, what survival strategies they adopt and what kind of assistance would be relevant and…

States are increasingly contributing military assets in humanitarian emergencies. As a result, the humanitarian community has paid growing attention to civil–military relations, culminating in a series of guidelines and research activity and more frequent interaction on the ground. Most of this work has focused on complex emergencies. The subject is undoubtedly more contentious in conflict settings, where blurring the lines between humanitarian and military actors can compromise neutrality and independence, restricting humanitarian access and increasing security risks. It is also relevant in responses to natural disasters, for two reasons.  First, many recent large-scale disasters have occurred in contexts of ongoing…

Humanitarian agencies rely heavily on the media to raise awareness of crises and generate income. For the media, however, the driving force is the search for a story. Despite levels of death and destruction far outstripping the acute crises which seize the headlines, chronic emergencies such as civil wars and ongoing famines are neither immediate nor spectacular enough to warrant extensive coverage. Millions have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), making the conflict there the deadliest since the Second World War, dwarfing the combined death-tolls of all the other high-profile natural disasters and acts of terrorism of the…

The spark for a debate Earlier this year, the Overseas Development Institute published a Working Paper called Humanitarian governance in the new millennium: An Ethiopian case study. The paper was later summarised in an HPN article, which featured in the June edition of Humanitarian Exchange Magazine. Though the article provides a valuable perspective on how humanitarian action and disaster management has changed in Ethiopia over recent decades, it misses an opportunity to provide a fuller analysis of the diversity and evolution of actors working in the humanitarian field. It also fails to present contrasting perceptions and discourse, which could help…

This edition of Humanitarian Exchangefeatures 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 of…

Since the beginning of the decade, Sri Lanka has undergone a number of traumatic events that make the country a particularly challenging environment for humanitarian workers. As the long civil war nears its end, what type of political environment are aid workers likely to encounter in their attempts to help affected civilian populations? What are the legacies of the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and three decades of war on civilian administrative structures? To answer these questions, it is essential to understand the convoluted relationship between the government and the Tamil rebellion in the conflict-affected regions of this long-suffering nation.…

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…

The tsunami that struck Aceh, at the western tip of the Indonesian archipelago, in 2004 killed an estimated 167,700 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more. The human tragedy of this and other disasters in Indonesia was also a test of the Indonesian state’s ability to respond. Compared to many countries affected by humanitarian crisis, Indonesia has significant state capacity for response and coordination, through civilian and military means. The impact of the Indian Ocean tsunami initially overwhelmed state capacity, while the 2006 earthquake in Yogyakarta showed how a well-organised local government could mount an effective response. Both experiences gave…