One in four Iraqi children directly impacted by conflict

More than four million children have been impacted by extreme violence in Iraq, many robbed of their childhood and forced to fight on the frontlines, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on 19 January 2018.

“Last year alone, 270 children were killed,” said UNICEF Regional Director Geert Cappelaere following a recent visit. “Some will bear the physical and psychological scars for life due to exposure to unprecedented brutality,” he added, pointing out that over one million children were forced to leave their homes.

Violence is not only killing and maiming children; it is destroying schools, hospitals, homes and roads. Poverty and conflict have interrupted the education for three million children across Iraq. Some have never been inside a classroom.

“In one of the schools that UNICEF recently rehabilitated in the western parts of Mosul, I joined 12-year-old Noor in class. She told me how her family stayed in the city even during the peak of the fighting. She spoke of her fear when she was taking shelter. She lost three years of schooling and is now working hard to catch up, learning English with other boys and girls,” said Cappelaere.

“The children of Iraq, like all children around, the world have the right to learn and aspire to a better tomorrow. The children of today are tomorrow’s teachers, doctors, engineers and scientists. Investing in them now is an investment in Iraq’s future,” he underscored.

[UN]

UN Migration Agency appeals for $1.4B to help 80 million people in 50 countries

IOM, the UN Migration Agency, is appealing for nearly USD 1.4 billion to address the needs of over 80 million people in 50 countries in 2018.

These funds will support people displaced within the borders of their own countries, migrants, refugees and the communities that host them, people returning to their areas of origin and people experiencing or recovering from conflict and natural disasters.

“In terms of internal displacement alone, due to conflict and natural disasters, over 31 million people were newly displaced in 2016 adding to the millions already living in long-term protracted displacement,” Said Mohammed Abdiker, IOM Director of Operations and Emergencies, from the Organization’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

“Whether displaced by drought in Somalia, returning home to a recently liberated neighborhood in Mosul or a member of the local community in Cox’s Bazar, where over 800,000 Rohingya refugees have settled, millions of people are in need not only of emergency assistance and protection but of innovative support that helps them get back on their feet, more resilient than they were before. This is IOM’s goal for 2018,” said Abdiker.

The countries covered include: Afghanistan, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Federated States of Micronesia, Georgia, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Madagascar, Mauritania, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Yemen and Zimbabwe.

[IOM]

UN needs over $1.5bn for Democratic Republic of Congo

The United Nations this year will seek more than $1.5bn to respond to the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), UN migration agency’s chief envoy to the country, Jean-Philippe Chauzy said, warning the country was at a “breaking point”.

The African giant has been plagued by near-relentless instability since independence from Belgium in 1960.

The total humanitarian appeal for 2018 is $1.68bn, more than double the amount requested last year, he added. “If we don’t get that level of funding people will die,” Chauzy said.

WFP’s country chief in the DRC, Claude Jibidar, warned that “a major famine” could hit the troubled province Kasai unless donor support increases.

Another crisis unfolding in the DRC is in the country’s east, where armed groups are active in North Kivu and South Kivu, two huge provinces which border Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.

[AFP]

Three humanitarian aid opportunities

As 2018 begins, the challenges of humanitarian crises are momentous. Overcoming them will require creativity. But there are reasons for optimism.

1. More locally-led and contextual responses – The chorus of voices advocating the value of and need for locally-led humanitarian response is growing, and local, national and regional actors are increasing in strength and profile.
2. The role of data, technology and evidence – Humanitarian agencies are deploying technology to improve aid delivery and using data to improve our analysis of humanitarian crises. A recent US Institute of Peace report for example points to the transformative potential of renewable energy technologies allowing humanitarian actors to use solar energy instead of diesel fuel.
3. Reforming humanitarianism – Creative new models and approaches are appearing, many drawing inspiration from outside the humanitarian sector. An upcoming report from the Humanitarian Policy Group will detail a series of alternatives: from a networked approach allowing aid recipients and providers – whether international, local or individual – to interact directly based on collaboration rather than control, to a cooperative, social economy model that uses humanitarian supply chains to generate economic opportunities for communities in crisis situations.

   [Overseas Development Institute]

Haiti: Eight years after the earthquake

Eight years ago a devastating earthquake struck Haiti killing 200,000 people, including 102 United Nations personnel. More than 300,000 were injured and over 1.5 million Haitians were displaced.

Haiti’s path to recovery has been particularly difficult, also considering the country’s challenges as a Small Island Developing State: extremely vulnerable to debt, unemployment, climate change and sea level rise.

But Haitians have also shown tremendous resilience after the earthquake and every year subsequently as they face a new hurricane season. Many continue to face multiple challenges, including displacement, food insecurity and lack of access to clean water and sanitation, and country still needs international support as Haitians pave their own way towards sustainable development. Results include:

• The Unite Nation Development Programme (UNDP) has partnered with the people of Haiti to build back better after the earthquake and after several hurricanes in the past eight years.
• Over 300,000 Haitians were temporarily employed—40 percent of them women—to remove debris, recycle material, and help rebuild their communities
• All debris was removed
• Over 2,300 km2 were protected, 400 hectares reforested

[UNDP]

Iraqis returning home outnumber displaced for first time since 2013

The number of Iraqis returning to their area of origin has surpassed those internally displaced for the first time since December 2013, when the country became engulfed in conflict with the Islamic State in Iraq (ISIL), the United Nations migration agency said Friday.

“Iraqis who remain displaced are among the most vulnerable, as they face obstacles to return, including damage or destruction of their home and local infrastructure, financial limitations and other constraints,” said Gerard Waite, chief of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) mission in Iraq.

On December 9, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced Iraq’s victory over ISIL and by the end of the year, IOM had identified 3.2 million people who had returned back to their place of origin – while a staggering 2.6 million remained displaced.

[UN News Centre]

Seeds of hope for working women in rural areas

In Nganda, a rural community in remote Senegal close to the Gambian border, restaurant owner Aissatou Tisse is carving out a reputation for tasty homemade, locally grown food.

About 100km away in the village of Niakhar, handicapped Daba Dione feeds her family by raising chickens on a modest smallholding. Thanks to a training course in veterinary health, she is routinely consulted by neighbors about their own poultry. “Today, I’ve even forgotten the difficulties of the past,” Dione told AFP.

The two have benefited from schemes that seek both to support women’s empowerment and fight poverty in rural Africa, where male dominance, backbreaking labor and misery go hand in hand.

UN agencies like International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), both based in Rome, manage projects to help empower rural women, who account for at least 43% of agricultural laborers worldwide, according to an FAO report.

Why women? Women are more inclined than men to spend their revenue on food and education.

[Read full AFP article]

Improved seeds and better access to water a winning combination for Indian farmers

Hundreds of farmers from across 15 villages have arrived at Kisan Mela (Farmer’s Fest) organized by USAID. As names are called one-by-one, farmers queue to get their bags, each containing five kilograms of high-yielding rice seeds.

Munda collects his bag and rejoins his group, his face beaming with a smile that’s unstoppable. “I have heard so much about these seeds. Farmers in villages near mine have doubled their crop production since they got these. And even the drought last year did not affect them. It is my turn now,” he says.

Munda, like every farmer in Jharkhand, is trapped in a vicious and complex agricultural quagmire. The state has a mountain topography, which means that the land here is rocky, uneven and less fertile. Munda barely produces enough to feed his family beyond six months. Even though Jharkhand receives monsoon rains twice the national average, the state’s sloping geography means that 90 percent of the rainwater quickly washes away, leaving the farmers distressed with severe water shortage and periodic droughts.

To break this cycle of extreme poverty and food insecurity, USAID organized the first Farmer’s Fest in June 2015, selecting farming families from villages to receive high-yielding rice seeds along with training in modern sowing and farming methods.

But seeds alone couldn’t do the magic. “In India, farming is still rain-fed and rain-dependent. To cultivate a good crop, farmers need assured access to water during the months of shortage. That is why we began building dobhas or small ponds,” says a local USAID official. A dobha is a low-cost rainwater harvesting technique where a 10-by-10 foot pit is dug to trap the rain water.

Whereas before a farmer might produce barely 150 to 200 kilograms of rice a year, after utilizing the higher-yielding rice seeds and dobha irrigation technique, production can shoot up to 450 kilograms in only a year.

[USAID]