Humanitarian Exchange articles tagged:Vulnerable groups

From Iran to western China, Central Asia is suffering its worst drought in decades. One of the states hardest-hit has been Afghanistan; poor and conflict-ridden, it is also the least able to cope Afghanistan is in its third year of severe drought, compounding the effects of conflict and international isolation. Precarious security conditions and problems of access make needs difficult to assess, but it is clear that the food crisis in much of the country has become acute. Millions of Afghans have little or no access to food, and require international humanitarian food aid. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands more have been forced from their homes, congregating in camps in Afghanistan or across…

Jennifer F. Klot directed Graça Machel’s secretariat for the UN Study on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children. She has worked with international nongovernmental organisations, private foundations and multilateral agencies in the area of human rights, youth development, women’s rights, and development planning in both the United States and in Africa. “The report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children is testimony to the millions of children who have been killed, injured and permanently disabled as a result of armed conflicts. It is testimony to countless others who have been forced to witness and take part in horrifying…

Evidence of the particular vulnerabilities of LGBTI people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) has been documented in several emergency and disaster situations. For example, men who have sex with men (MSM) in Haiti were denied food aid after the 2008 earthquake because ration schemes were targeted only at women, and these men had no women registered in their residences; transgender people reported being denied entry to IDP camps after the floods in Pakistan because they did not possess proper government ID that matched their appearance; and aravanis (feminine, male-bodied, gender-variant people) routinely faced discrimination in access to housing, medical…

The IDP Vulnerability Assessment and Profiling (IVAP) project was launched in Pakistan in 2010 to enable agencies to provide humanitarian assistance in a more impartial and targeted manner. Responding to needs arising out of a protracted conflict, humanitarian agencies in Pakistan’s north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province were preparing to provide aid to hundreds of thousands of conflict IDPs for a third consecutive year. Effective targeting of beneficiaries – particularly in a period when financial resources were steadily decreasing – required humanitarian agencies to locate and identify those directly affected by the conflict, broadly understand their priority needs and then analyse…

The Household Economy Approach (HEA) is widely used as a framework for understanding food security, livelihoods and poverty. The framework also has the potential to inform social protection programming by improving understanding of the context in intervention areas, and enhancing targeting and coverage. In the Sahel, HEA has been used successfully for social protection programming in Niger and Mali in the form of safety nets based on regular cash transfers. Save the Children piloted safety nets in the Niger district of Tessaoua from 2008 to 2009 using HEA as a targeting and monitoring tool. The programme reached around 26,000 of…

Niger is a landlocked country in the Sahelian zone of West Africa. Ranked 186 out of 187 countries on the UN Development Programme (UNDP)’s Human Development Index, Niger faces extreme poverty and vulnerability caused by climatic factors and recurrent food crises. These crises have triggered large humanitarian responses involving food aid, nutrition interventions and cash transfers. These interventions, while important, have not addressed underlying issues of chronic vulnerability, which might be better tackled through social safety nets and social protection programming. This article examines the piloting of social safety nets in Niger, using cash transfers combined with the promotion of…

The response to the earthquake in Haiti in January 2010 was rapid and multi-sectoral, bringing together UN agencies, international military forces and government and non-governmental actors. Physical rehabilitation (primarily physiotherapy, occupational therapy and prosthetics and orthotics) provided vital assistance to the large numbers of people injured during the earthquake. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) adopted in 2008 requires states to ensure that people with disabilities have access to mobility devices, and to ensure the protection and safety of disabled people in situations of risk, including armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies and natural disasters. This article discusses…

Approximately 12.5% of the world’s population is aged 60 and above. In some countries, urban migration, high HIV prevalence, low birth rate, conflict and economic migration have resulted in significantly higher proportions of older people. Furthermore, demographic change means that the number of older people affected by crises and disasters is growing fast. By 2050, the number of people aged 60 and over will have tripled, reaching 2 billion. More than 80% of over-60s will be living in developing countries, where disasters are more likely and people have fewer resources to deal with their effects. In 2012, with funding from…

Faith-Based Communities (FBCs) provide 40% to 50% of healthcare in developing countries and contribute greatly to HIV responses. One in five organisations working on HIV programmes are faith-based. Yet, during large-scale emergency responses, humanitarian actors have not realised the potential of FBCs to undertake HIV programming, nor have they utilised it by supporting or partnering with them. This may be due to humanitarian organisations’ preconceived ideas about FBCs’ capacity and their approaches to HIV services.A collaborative study between ODI, World Vision and Tearfund in 2009 aimed at understanding the role of Christian FBCs in responses to HIV in humanitarian settings,…

The Haitian earthquake in 2010 displaced thousands of people, forcing them into overcrowded spontaneous settlements. Women and girls in particular are at risk of violence in the camps, including sexual violence. This is a huge problem.In the first two months after the earthquake, the Commission of Women Victims for Victims (KOFAVIV)[1] logged 230 incidents of rape in just 15 camps in Port‐au‐Prince. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported 68 cases of rape in one month (April) at just one of its clinics in Port‐au‐Prince. The actual figures are likely to be substantially higher given significant under-reporting. A lack of adequate lighting…