Category: Humanitarian Aid

Humanitarian aid for war-torn Central African Republic

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The United Nations has allocated over $13 million dollars for the immediate distribution of life-saving assistance targeting those affected by the ongoing violence in the Central African Republic (CAR), the Organization’s relief arm reported today.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN’s Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF), has released $13.2 million to help support local aid agencies deliver clean water, education, healthcare, livelihoods support, nutrition, protection, and shelter to people displaced by violence, returnees, refugees and vulnerable host communities.

“Thanks to donors who have contributed in 2015, this CHF allocation allows humanitarian partners to continue helping thousands of displaced people and host families,” said Aurélien Agbénonci, the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator in the African country. “However, it is only three per cent of the $415 million we still need by the end of the year if we are to save more lives and reach all people in acute need in 2015.”

More than two years of civil war and sectarian violence have displaced thousands of people in CAR amid ongoing clashes between the mainly Muslim Séléka alliance and anti-Balaka militia, which are mostly Christian. In addition, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) continues to operate in the south-eastern part of the country.

The UN estimates that some 450,000 people remain displaced inside the country while thousands of others have sought asylum across the borders. OCHA confirmed, however, that overall some 2.7 million people in the CAR remain in direct need of “urgent humanitarian assistance.”

[UN News Centre]

International Red Cross says Yemen is ‘crumbling’ under humanitarian crisis

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Yemen is “crumbling” under a deepening humanitarian crisis after months of civil war, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday.

Peter Maurer, the head of the Geneva-based humanitarian organization, said “The humanitarian situation is nothing short of catastrophic,” and called for all parties to negotiate a peace deal. “Medicines can’t get in so patient care is falling apart. Fuel shortages mean equipment doesn’t work. This cannot go on. Yemen is crumbling. As a matter of urgency, there must be free movement of goods into and across the country.”

Fighting between Iran-allied Houthi forces and pro-government militias has raged since March when the Houthis advanced towards the port of Aden.Iran denies that is supplying the Shiite Houthis with military aid.

A Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out air strikes since March in a bid to help pro-government forces restore President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi, in exile in Riyadh, to power.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says that nearly 4,000 people have been killed and 1.3 million forced to flee their homes during the conflict.

[EuroNews]

Youngest refugees bear brunt of Syrian war woes

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Gathered on the desert floor, the Askar family chants prayers for their 1-year-old daughter Jawahir, who died of malnutrition and is buried beneath the sands of their informal refugee camp far from their Syrian hometown. Her father Mohammed Askar recounts, “I wish the circumstances were different and I could have saved my daughter, but we are poor and powerless and we have only God with us.”

Of the 4 million refugees who fled Syria’s grinding civil war, it is the conflict’s youngest exiles, like Jawahir, who often bear the brunt of its woes. More than 10,000 children have died in the four-year conflict, while over 2.8 million in and out of the country don’t go to school, according to the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF. Many suffer emotional problems from their experiences, while others get pressed into working to support their families, who struggle to have enough to eat.

Aid agencies have asked for $4.5 billion for 2015 to help refugees, but have been forced to slash support programs because of large funding gaps, which had a devastating effect on the amount of food aid coming.

“We survived the barrel bombs in Syria but I’m afraid we won’t survive the lack of health and food,” Kutana al-Hamadi  says.

[AP]

Angelina Jolie Pitt on humanitarian trip to Myanmar

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On a humanitarian tour of Southeast Asia, special envoy for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Angelina Jolie Pitt is giving a voice to the people of Myanmar (formerly Burma). The actress met with Rohingya community representatives in Yangon on Friday, who spoke with her about the difficult conditions of life in Rakhine State. 

The Rohingya are a Muslim minority group who have suffered waves of ethnic violence and oppression. In 2012, two outbreaks of conflict left almost 200 dead and about 140,000 displaced, according to the Myanmar Times. Many still remain in camps for internally displaced persons.

“The situation for the displaced inside this country is extremely serious,” Jolie Pitt said. “One man I met expressed his concerns by saying he was afraid that in years to come his community would be found only in history books – and that the lack of medicine and healthcare is a top priority,” she adds.

Jolie Pitt, who’s been following the situation since her first visit to Myanmar refugees in Thailand in 2002, is offering to help the government bring medical assistance to people in the Rakhine and Kachin States.

She also met with first-time female voters in Myanmar, during a trip to the “She Leads” program in Yangon. The women showed her how they check online if they and their family members are registered to vote, ahead of crucial elections in November 2015.

[People]  

Improving Humanitarian Aid

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Excerpts of a Foreign Aid interview with David Millibrand,  President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee

I think that the best thing that you can say about humanitarian aid around the world is it’s genuinely saving lives. … And I think that the premium on that kind of life saving in the midst of conflict; international agencies employing local people and making the difference between life and death by addressing, above all, health needs, water and sanitation needs is the most heroic and the most humbling thing to see. And the truth is that nongovernmental organizations are being pushed into the front line as more countries, 30, 35 countries around the world, are consumed by increasingly violent, increasingly chaotic, increasingly lawless conflict.

So, the upside of the story is that in the midst of chaos and conflict, there is some fantastic work being done. The downside is, or the challenge is, not just that there’s more and more need for this kind of international humanitarian work, 60 million people now, according to the UN, displaced by conflict and disaster by the end of last year, but their needs are changing. They’re more urban rather than in refugee camps. They’re long term rather than short term. They’re in the midst of armed opposition groups, not countries fighting according to certain Geneva Conventions and other rules.

So, the challenge for the humanitarian sector is to reach more people, but it’s also to reach them in a more fulfilling and deeper way, so that we’re doing more than just keeping them alive.

If you think about the change that’s happened in international development since the inauguration of the Millennium Development Goals 15 years ago, the revolution there has been the application of top-grade social science … that have taught us best practice in vaccination, in education, in water and sanitation.     Read more   

Countries with booming economies still need foreign aid

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Excerpts from Bill Gates:  When world leaders recently gathered in Ethiopia] one important issue that didn’t draw much attention … is how we treat countries that have built strong enough economies to lift themselves out of extreme poverty, but which still have a lot of people who are barely getting by.

The system of development finance currently used by many donor governments and international financial institutions allocates funding to countries based in significant part on their average income per person. As economic growth moves countries like India and Nigeria into the “middle-income tier,” they become ineligible for many of the grants and low-interest loans used to fund basic infrastructure and essential services. The problem with this is that huge pockets of poverty still exist in many of the countries facing a cutoff of funds. In fact, more than 70% of the world’s poorest people live in countries defined as “middle income” by the World Bank.

Clearly, a nation’s access to the most favorable financing for development should taper off as the level of personal income grows. But if we make countries with high levels of inequality and poverty ineligible for aid too soon, it will become increasingly difficult for them to continue on a path of economic growth.

Based on current trends, our foundation estimates that countries such as India, Ghana, Nigeria, and Vietnam could lose between 18% and 40% of their funding from donor countries and multilateral aid programs. Cuts of this magnitude would have a severe impact on basic health and social programs that rely on donor funding to operate.

If we are intent on helping the world’s poorest lift themselves out of poverty, we need to ensure that development assistance reaches people in need, regardless of where they live. The classification of countries based mainly on average income should be updated to incorporate other measures centered on improving the human condition such as better access to health services and education. And we need to think about the right incentives and approach for a thoughtful and smooth transition for each country to reach self-sufficiency. Read more  

The Humanitarian’s Dilemma

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Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been working for more than 15 years in the occupied Palestinian territories. Our medical and psychological programs give a window into the daily reality for Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. It is a journey that reveals the devastation of the policies of occupation, whether through blockades and bombardments or through walls and nighttime raids.

One form of psychological violence experienced by our patients is the constant threat of loved ones being locked away indefinitely, without charge.

In the town of Majdal Bani Fadil, six children are living by themselves: Both parents were arrested in the past year, an uncle explained when I visited their home with one of our psychological assessment teams in late April. Their mother was taken away in the middle of the night 12 months ago, he told me, and says that she has been held without sentencing ever since.

The children not only saw her dragged away, but they also have no idea when she will return. Now the eldest daughter cannot focus on her studies, the middle son is prone to violent outbursts, and the middle daughter is often found crying in her parents’ old room. “They don’t have hope,” the uncle said.

MSF sees how this sort of administrative detention–through which people can be held indefinitely without charges–heightens the psychological violence inflicted on Palestinian children. The presence of the Israeli army and its use of force are the main cause of the psychological trauma of our patients in the West Bank. A review of the main triggers resulting in our patients’ need for psychological treatment showed that just over half (52 percent) of them describe violent IDF search operations inside their homes, 42 percent say one or more family members is currently incarcerated, and 35 percent report being affected by indirect violence such as shootings or incursion operations by the IDF.

Unsurprisingly, children suffer the worst effects. Half of the 254 patients who received care in 2014 were younger than 15, and 25 percent were younger than 10. Fifty percent of the children we see say they have trouble sleeping, 34 percent report anxiety, 28 percent have trouble concentrating, and 21 percent report bed-wetting.

Even our most seasoned psychologists are shocked by the levels of trauma.

[Jason Cone writing in “Foreign Policy”]

Double food crisis: malnutrition and obesity

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The world is entering an era of global food insecurity which is already leading to the “double burden” of both obesity and malnutrition occurring side by side within countries and even within the same families, a leading food expert has warned.

It will become increasingly common to see obese parents in some developing countries raising underweight and stunted children because high-calorie food is cheaper and more readily available than the nutritious food needed for healthy growth, said Alan Dangour of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“It’s not the fault of the mother, it’s the fault of the food system where the mother cannot afford to buy nutritious food such as dairy, eggs and fruit and is predominantly feeding her child a diet that is rich in calories, such as oil and cereal-based carbohydrates,” Dr Dangour said. “That diet will not be sufficient for the child to grow. It will stop the child from being hungry but it will also stop the child from growing properly,” he said.

[The Independent]

Building Blocks, Bangalore, India

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The Building Blocks program in Bangalore, India, provides a well-rounded kindergarten education for over 450 slum children who would otherwise not be able to attend school due to economics.

At its 6 schools located near slums in Bangalore, dedicated teachers employ an array of multi-sensory early learning techniques to introduce the basics of English reading and writing, arithmetic, social science, the arts, motor-skill development and character building. After two years in the program, most of the children are able to successfully pass the entrance exams to enter good English-medium primary schools.

Each K4-K5 school throughout Bangalore has an average of 75 students, and is strategically located near a slum neighborhood, facilitating regular school attendance and good parent-teacher rapport. For the students—all between the ages of 3-5, who mostly live in homes with no electricity, running water, or toilet—the school is not just about learning to read, write and count. The children learn basic hygiene and brush their teeth for the first time, and for most, looking at colorful books or using crayons and paintbrushes is a novelty.      Read more  

The psychological and medical consequences of the Palestinian occupation

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With the one-year anniversary of the latest (but likely not the last) war in Gaza, all countries–the United States and European Union members in particular–that condone and help extend the occupation of the Palestinian territories, whether by subsidizing it through humanitarian or military aid or by giving political cover to its policies and practices, must confront their responsibility for the suffering of Palestinians.

Stepping out of a car in the West Bank town of Kafr Qaddum, I was greeted by … the Abu Ehab family–whose two-story house is on a slope just below the road we drove in on. Their walls do little to protect them from the exchange of tear gas, burning tires, and hurled rocks. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops frequently move around the Abu Ehab family’s property during nighttime search operations; at times, they enter the house.

The smell comes from “skunk,” the sewage-smelling liquid that the IDF uses to soak Palestinians and foreign protesters who gather weekly on this ashen road. It is so pungent that the family’s eldest son now vomits at the sight of food. The military also uses flashbang grenades to counter the demonstrations. After one detonated too close to the family’s home, the eldest daughter lost hearing in one ear.

“She used to not be able to finish a sentence without crying,” the psychologist with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) who has been counseling the girl’s mother tells me. “Now, she can talk about her fears without breaking down.”

This is how MSF, as a medical humanitarian organization, measures the progress of those we assist in the occupied Palestinian territories. For the past 15 years, our programs in the West Bank and Gaza have focused mainly on mental health, but my colleagues at times feel like they can only give patients a thicker coat of psychological armor against the daily trauma of their lives. These patients are parents of teenagers being held in Israeli or Palestinian prisons, children with one or both parents in detention, families on the front lines of settler-Palestinian violence or intra-Palestinian violence, and those affected by nighttime IDF search operations or other military actions.

What our staff sees, day in and day out, are the medical consequences of the occupation. But while we can treat some of our patients’ symptoms, we can’t alter the underlying causes of their suffering. And as the suffering has become normalized, we have been questioning the wisdom of our presence. This is the humanitarian’s dilemma: how to alleviate the suffering of a population while not enabling the powers at the root of the pain.

[Jason Cone writing in “Foreign Policy”]