Showing posts from category humanitarian.
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SOUTHCOM Takes Disaster Response to Google
›United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) has publicly released a Google Earth-based mapping system, 3D User Defined Operational Pictures (UDOP) (Google Earth plug-in required), aiming to help emergency personnel and donors better respond to humanitarian crises.
Currently, UDOP maps are available for responses in Haiti and Chile. Data layers uploaded by SOUTHCOM and others can be toggled on and off and depict an array of information, from earthquake intensity maps to a 3D model of Haiti’s collapsed presidential palace. Other layers mark:
Although intriguing, the mapping system currently has major shortcomings: much of the information provided is out of date rather than in real time, and while some maps include information such as the structural integrity of buildings, patient capacities of hospitals, and brief status updates on site activities, others offer little more than approximate locations and names.- Locations and statuses of hospitals;
- Collapsed or blockaded sections of major roadways;
- Helipads and airstrips;
- Food and water distribution centers;
- IDP shelters; and
- Areas of gang activity.
Haiti and Chile, however, were only the first tests of the UDOP system. Given that the distinction between real-time and frozen data is blurred during days immediately following a disaster (the period for which UDOP is designed and most needed) and that the donor and humanitarian assistance communities will likely develop greater familiarity and comfort with the system over time, UDOP’s current flaws may simply reflect the system’s recent adoption.
For more on Google’s contributions to environmental work and human security, check out our previous post on educational climate change “tours” in Google Earth. -
The Plight of Urban Refugees in Nairobi
›“The Traditional image of life in tented sprawling camps no longer tells the full refugee story.”– Hidden and Exposed: Urban Refugees in Nairobi, Kenya
Coinciding with the end of UN-HABITAT’s 5th World Urban Forum, a new report and associated video, Hidden and Exposed: Urban Refugees in Nairobi, Kenya, have been released by the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
Hidden and Exposed removes the cloak of migration stereotypes and provides an unfiltered look at urban migrants’ struggle for daily survival. Focusing on seven neighborhoods with high refugee concentrations in Nairobi, the authors — through qualitative interviews and secondary data — found a unique, challenging urban environment for thousands of refugees. Aid and development groups often overlook these urban refugees, instead favoring work with traditional established camps on the urban periphery.
The HPG found that Nairobi’s 46,000 registered refugees represent a diverse mix of ethnic groups and nationalities, all trying to secure economic independence and security. While much research has been devoted to the traditional concept of displaced migrants in centralized ex-urban camps, such as Dadaab in Eastern Kenya, urban dwellers are just as vulnerable to insecurity, poverty, and harassment. With nebulous legal rights, facing discrimination and protected by only fragile support systems, the refugee community in Nairobi finds itself in a precarious situation.
In light of the challenges, the research team at HPG offered three basic recommendations as initial steps:
1. Protection:
2. Livelihoods:- Address confusion over legal rights to prevent issues of police harassment and community violence.
- Target a subset of donor funds for training local police forces and government agencies.
- Establish partnerships between the UNHCR and the Kenyan government to improve the latter’s Refugee Status Determination System.
- Funnel humanitarian and development aid toward legal aid services while also using innovative strategies to increase dialogue between urban refugees and the surrounding Kenyan communities.
3. Service Delivery:- Carry out surveys to better understand the Nairobi urban economy, including the informal sector.
- Support the government of Kenya in their efforts to help urban refugees to become self-reliant.
- Recognize the transition of refugees from sequestered camps to urban areas and develop an effective response.
- Secure Kenyan government permission for the issuance of work permits for refugees.
Fleeing conflict and attracted by the possibility of better jobs, services, or security, thousands of refugees have sought new lives in Nairobi. Yet the reality for many urban migrants is an existence burdened with inadequate assistance, a precarious legal status, and economic and physical insecurity. Through the implementation of these recommendations, HPG hopes to draw attention to these hidden refugees, and offer them the hope of improved livelihoods and effective security.- Design aid models to address the unique challenges faced by urban refugees in Nairobi.
- Ensure coordinated and comprehensive services, in conjunction with the Kenyan government and international organizations, to address the needs of the urban refugees and the surrounding communities, with particular attention granted to refugee women and girls.
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Megatrends: Embracing Complexity in Today’s Population and Migration Challenges
›March 29, 2010 // By Geoffrey D. Dabelko
Foreign Policy’s Elizabeth Dickinson recently sat down with UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres for a wide-ranging interview on the global refugee crisis. Yet a strong theme emerges across the continents: The complexity of today’s conflicts belies either easy or quick solutions.
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‘Wilson Center on the Hill:’ Haiti’s Long Road Ahead
›March 25, 2010 // By Wilson Center StaffNearly two months after the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Port-au Prince, Haiti, the country still needs assistance to provide basic healthcare and shelter, in addition to rebuilding Haiti’s economy, government, and institutions. As the international community and NGOs make the transition from emergency disaster relief to long-term reconstruction and capacity-building efforts, donor coordination and long-term commitment are crucial. Recently, on Capitol Hill, a panel of experts organized by Wilson Center on the Hill and the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program discussed Haiti’s continuing problems and challenges.
Patience Necessary
Johanna Mendelson Forman, a senior associate for the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, stressed that progress in Haiti will take time—perhaps five years to rebuild and 10 years to see positive economic growth. This timeline is often frustrating for donors—including Congress and U.S. citizens—who want to see immediate results, she noted. Nevertheless, Mendelson Forman discounted the myth that “because Haiti is a weak state it is not a sovereign state,” and emphasized that developing and strengthening the Haitian government remains necessary.
She observed that the post-earthquake efforts in Haiti have been different from previous United Nations interventions, particularly in terms of the Latin American community’s involvement. Brazil, for example, is leading relief operations. Other Latin American countries—including Haiti’s neighbor, the Dominican Republic—have committed to promoting a stable and secure Haiti. Here Mendelson Forman noted a new partnership initiated by the Dominican and Haitian governments. “[Dominican officials] understand that they are doomed if Haiti is doomed,” she said. “As members of the international community, it is our job to foster that reconciliation.”
Costs Are Rising
Andrew Philip Powell, a regional economic advisor in the Caribbean Country Department at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), said that while the IDB initially estimated damage from the earthquake at about $8 billion, the complete destruction of the government and commerce centered in Port-au-Prince could push that number much higher. The IDB and partner organizations are currently conducting a Post-Disaster Needs Assessment that will ultimately identify the official damages and ballpark the cost of reconstruction.
Powell stated that Haiti is “not starting from a blank slate,” citing a development strategy agreed upon in April 2009 by the Haitian government and international donors. In keeping with the strategy, he emphasized the need for effective coordination between donors and the Haitian government. At the same time, he said it is vital to encourage population dispersion by shifting government agencies and private-sector jobs to other parts of the country. Haiti needs roads and communication networks outside of the capital area, as well as export processing zones in outlying regions, to increase the economic opportunities outside of Port-au-Prince, he said.
However, with the large amounts of aid flowing into the country, Powell warned donors and Haitian officials to remain on the lookout for “Dutch disease”—a decline in the manufacturing sector following a sharp increase in natural resource prices, foreign assistance, or foreign direct investment. Its occurrence could increase Haiti’s dependency on aid in the future.
Challenges for Healthcare
Sheri Fink, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and senior fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, offered her perspective on Haiti’s continuing health crisis based on two trips to the country in the earthquake’s aftermath. There are signs of hope, including some normalcy and commerce returning to the camps, she noted, but problems in the health sector as a whole are increasing. As field hospitals put in place after the earthquake close, “there is a fear among Haitians that attention is starting to turn elsewhere,” she said.
According to Fink, “the work is far from done” in Haiti, a sentiment she said is shared by many departing health workers. The hospitals left standing are not prepared to deal with the influx of patients arriving at their doors following the closure of field hospitals, and government health workers are currently working without pay.
Fink also pointed out the risk of long-term earthquake-related health problems, including injuries suffered during aftershocks or from falling debris, inflamed chronic diseases, horrible conditions and lack of basic health services in camps, and the “looming nightmare” of infectious disease epidemics.
Fink called for more international involvement to avert a widening of the health crisis. “We’ve made a big commitment and to follow-up on the investment, to make it mean something; let’s not be satisfied with just bringing things back to where they were,” she said.
By Sarah Huston and David Klaus of Wilson Center on the Hill at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Photo: Courtesy Flickr user United Nations Development Programme -
U.S. Policy on Post-Conflict Health Reconstruction
›December 8, 2009 // By Calyn OstrowskiStabilizing and rebuilding state infrastructure in post-conflict settings has been increasingly recognized as critical to aiding the population and preventing renewed conflict. The United States has increasingly invested in rebuilding health systems, and in some cases assisting in the delivery of health services for the first time.
While global health concerns have recently received significant attention, as witnessed by President Obama’s Global Health Initiative, the importance of health system reconstruction to stabilization efforts remains unevenly recognized. On November 10, 2009, experts met at the Global Health Council’s Humanitarian Health Caucus to discuss investing in health services in the wake of war and the challenges of funding this investment.
“Deconstruction from violence extends beyond the time of war and often leads to severe damage of health infrastructure, decreased health workers, food shortages, and diseases…resulting in increased morbidity and mortality from causes that are not directly related to combat,” shared Leonard Rubenstein, a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Rubenstein argued that while relieving suffering in post-conflict settings should be a sufficient reason to include health reconstruction in U.S. foreign policy, policymakers narrowly define rationales for engagement based on claims that investments increase peace and improve the image of the U.S. government.
Investing in Health Systems Builds State Legitimacy
The evidence for investing in health systems to deter future conflict is limited and this approach is dangerous, according to Rubenstein, because it distorts spending decisions and fails to consider comprehensive capacity development strategies. Additionally, the Department of Defense’s approach of “winning the hearts and minds” is too short-term and neither linked to “system-building activities that are effective and sustainable…nor consistent with advancing the health of the population,” he said.
Instead, Rubenstein recommended that the United States invest in health systems after conflict because it advances state legitimacy. Although additional evidence is necessary, Rubenstein maintains that the promotion of state legitimacy enhances the perception that the government is responding to their long-term needs and encourages local ownership and accountability. Developing health systems in post-conflict settings is complex and cannot be done quickly, he noted, and thus increased financial and human resource capacities will be essential.
Coordination and Transition Funding
“We need to recognize that the U.S. is not the only funder, as there are many stakeholders involved,” argued Stephen Commins, strategy manager for fragile states at the International Medical Corps. Commins argued that there is a “desperate need to coordinate donor funding … both within and across government systems, as well as an increased need for transparent donor tracking systems.”
As countries come out of conflict and start to gain government legitimacy, they need increased support to stabilize conflict and avoid collapse. Transition funding for health systems needs to support both short and long-term efforts, maintained Commins, but unfortunately the donors driving these timelines are often driven by self-interest, not the rights of the individual living in conflict.
Without a transparent donor tracking system, it is hard to demonstrate actual monetary disbursements versus commitments, so Commins called for a system that tracks allocations and spending in real time. These are not our countries, he argued, and responding to health systems in post-conflict settings should be tailored to the country’s needs, not the donor’s. He also called for increased research that describes, over time, the costs for rebuilding and transitioning from international NGO-driven systems to self-sustained governments.
Rebuilding Health Systems in Sudan
George Kijana, health coordinator in southern Sudan for the International Rescue Committee, discussed reasons for why Sudan’s health system remains poor five years after conflict. According to Kijana, the government in Southern Sudan has not been held accountable by its donors, leading to a breakdown in infrastructure and a lower quality of health workers.
Additionally, a majority of the available health data comes from non-state actors that are not easily accessible. Kijana shared that in order for Sudan to move forward, more research and data are needed to help target long-term capacity building projects, as well as short-term interventions that address infant and maternal mortality. While progress is slow, he pointed out encouraging signs of progress, as the Ministry of Health now recognizes their weaknesses and positively engages with its development partners such as the United Nations.
Photo: Romanian Patrol administers medical treatment to Afghan communities, courtesy of Flickr user lafrancevi.
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Is the White Ribbon the New Black? Making Maternal Health Fashionable
›Celebrity philanthropists such as Bono, Angelina Jolie, and George Clooney have shined their star power on global issues like AIDS, genocide, and refugees. In last month’s Vogue, supermodel Christy Turlington turned the light on one of the most overlooked problems: maternal mortality.
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Copenhagen’s Chance to Reduce Poverty and Improve Human Security
›The climate community is under increasing pressure to help the developing world, especially those at the “bottom of the pyramid.” The people who did the least to cause climate change will suffer its effects the most.
A critical part of the solution to this problem will be enhancing market-based incentives for climate-friendly behavior. The projects that generate credits for sale in the carbon markets vary widely in scale. However, the most successful have focused on large, localized sites, such as the smoke stack of a single plant. These “centimeter-wide, kilometer-deep” projects are easy to monitor and verify.
In contrast, most projects that benefit the poor are “a kilometer wide, a centimeter deep,” with each family across a large territory producing a small emissions reduction. Monitoring and tracking these community-based projects is usually cost-prohibitive.
DRC: Reducing Emissions and Improving Security
A Mercy Corps project in the refugee camps in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) seeks to improve the security of women and children while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions.
In the war-ravaged province of North Kivu, the total number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) exceeds 850,000. Demand for resources, particularly fuel wood, vastly exceeds the available supply. To collect wood, women and children have to leave the relative safety of the refugee camps, making them vulnerable to sexual assault and child abduction by rebel groups and the army. Mercy Corps surveys indicate that nine percent of women in camps have been raped or otherwise assaulted.
Mercy Corps installs fuel-efficient stoves that reduce the need for dangerous trips into the forest. A commercial carbon broker develops carbon credits from the reduction in emissions that arises from the use of stoves instead of open fires. The upfront funding from the broker supplements a UNHCR grant supporting the project, and serves to help more than 20,000 families in one of the most dangerous places on Earth.
This extreme example is one of relatively few carbon projects generating revenue that benefits vulnerable people. Yet if this kind of project can be successful in the DRC, larger projects in safer countries may be able to generate massive emissions reductions. The Copenhagen conference needs to set the stage for these types of market incentives for better climate behavior.
Raising a REDD Flag
A relatively new, UN-backed initiative known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) seeks to compensate forest-rich countries for protecting or regenerating their forests. However, REDD may have the unintended consequences that further erode the human rights of marginalized people dependent on those forests.
For decades, tropical forests have been logged legally and illegally by states and private companies, without any input from or compensation to indigenous forest communities, who, in many cases, were displaced or worse.
REDD thus raises a troubling question: If countries can generate carbon revenues through REDD, to whom do the revenues belong, and how will they be allocated? Many forestry ministries have a long history of corruption and mismanagement. There are already signs of ministries competing over putative REDD funds. And high-level discussions in only a few countries have included the role of communities and civil society in implementing REDD and distributing revenues.
The Copenhagen conference will be a critical milestone in the global fight to address climate change. Yet it raises significant and far-reaching questions concerning economic development and human rights of the world’s most vulnerable citizens that must not be swept under the rug.
Jim Jarvie is director of climate change, environment, and natural resources at Mercy Corps. In a recent video interview, he spoke to ECSP about how humanitarian groups are responding to new climate challenges.
Photo: Stoves that are more fuel-efficient not only help curb rapid deforestation, but help women spend less time gathering wood in dangerous areas. Courtesy Dee Goluba/Mercy Corps. -
AFRICOM Steps Into the Spotlight
›May 26, 2009 // By Rachel WeisshaarDid you notice the rash of AFRICOM coverage last week? The Washington Post and the Washington Times (as well as the military’s own Stars and Stripes) published articles on the U.S. military’s newest combatant command and its attempts at military-to-military cooperation and hearts-and-minds diplomacy in Africa.
As part of a seven-month operation the military is calling the Africa Partnership Station, the USS Nashville is attempting to help stabilize the waters off of West Africa, which are plagued by illegal fishing, drug trafficking, and illegal migration, as well as robberies and kidnappings in the Niger Delta. According to the International Maritime Bureau, these waters are now the second-most dangerous in the world, after Somalia’s.
The Post aptly noted that the Nashville’s “mission appears to be as much about wooing Africa as about teaching maritime security.” Each time the Nashville docks, military doctors offer free checkups, and sailors repair local buildings and train host-country soldiers. This low-profile approach seems designed to allay Africans’ earlier fears of U.S. colonialism, which forced the U.S. military to headquarter AFRICOM in Germany instead of Africa.Why the sudden surge in publicity for AFRICOM, when it’s been doing these kinds of outreach and confidence-building activities for more than a year? Perhaps President Obama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and others in the new administration see AFRICOM as an example of a foreign policy that places as much emphasis on diplomacy and development as on defense. Indeed, even Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, who was appointed by former President Bush, has called for a rebalancing of the instruments of U.S. power; in 2007, he said, “We must focus our energies beyond the guns and steel of the military, beyond just our brave soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen. We must also focus our energies on the other elements of national power that will be so crucial in the coming years.”
Photos: Top—Portugal Navy Lieutenant Commander Antonio Mourinha and a Gabonese Sailor inspect a holding bay for fish after boarding an illegal fishing vessel during Africa Partnership Station (
Stabilizing and rebuilding state infrastructure in post-conflict settings has been increasingly recognized as critical to aiding the population and preventing renewed conflict. The United States has increasingly invested in rebuilding health systems, and in some cases assisting in the delivery of health services for the first time.
The climate community is under increasing pressure to help the developing world, especially those at the 
Did you notice the rash of 
Why the sudden surge in publicity for AFRICOM, when it’s been doing these kinds of outreach and confidence-building activities for more than a year? Perhaps President Obama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and others in the new administration see AFRICOM as an example of a foreign policy that places as much emphasis on diplomacy and development as on defense. Indeed, even 
