Category: Humanitarian Aid

Where Australian charities will be forced to cut programs

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Charity

Countries losing aid projects

Care Australia PNG, Timor Leste, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Tanzania, Malawi, Ethiopia, West Bank (Palestinian Territories)
ActionAid Afghanistan, Uganda, Kenya
Oxfam Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Timor Leste, Vanuatu, Bangladesh, South Africa
World Vision Kenya, Senegal, South Sudan, Uganda, India, Laos, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Peru, West Bank (Palestinian Territories)
Plan International Indonesia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Uganda, Cambodia, Timor Leste, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar
ChildFund PNG, Timor Leste, Laos and Sri Lanka

 [see following article for background]

Australian charities forced to scale back international programs after funding cuts

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Australia’s largest international charities are cancelling or scaling back critical programs in the world’s poorest countries ahead of next month’s budget.

“The whole of the aid sector is hanging on the edge, waiting nervously for the May budget when it will be revealed exactly which parts of the aid budget will be cut – a bit like a doomsday clock,” ActionAid Australia’s Holly Miller said. “It’s widely accepted that everything is on the table – nothing in the aid program is safe.”

ActionAid has slashed projects in Afghanistan, is likely to cut programs in Uganda and Kenya in the coming year, and will close entirely by 2016.

Care Australia says its very successful maternal and infant health project in Papua New Guinea, which reaches 22,000 people, is in the firing line. Other likely hits include programs in Cambodia and Malawi affecting more than 20,000 people. “We had long-term commitments from the Australian Government and we made commitments to communities in these poor countries,” Care Australia chief executive Dr Julia Newton-Howes said.

ChildFund Australia‘s Nigel Spence said it was hard to feel confident that there would not be further cuts given the broken promises that have already occurred. ChildFund scaled back 17 programs last year, predominantly in PNG and South-East Asia.

Oxfam Australia, which lost almost $1 million in government funding last year, was forced to cut back on projects in PNG and Indonesia.

[Australia Broadcasting Corporation]

UN seeks $274 million in Yemen humanitarian appeal

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The United Nations launched an appeal for almost $275m to aid 7.5 million people in Yemen over the next three months, as fighting intensifies in the south and air strikes continue in 18 of the country’s 22 provinces.

About 150,000 people have been displaced, 50 percent more than the previous UN estimate, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said on Friday, citing local sources.

The agency said health facilities had reported 767 deaths from March 19 to April 13, almost certainly an underestimate.

“Thousands of families have now fled their homes as a result of the fighting and air strikes,” the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Johannes Van Der Klaauw, said in a statement. “Ordinary families are struggling to access health care, water, food and fuel – basic requirements for their survival.”

The fighting had destroyed, damaged or disrupted at least five hospitals, 15 schools, Yemen’s three main airports, two bridges, two factories and four mosques, as well as markets, power stations and water and sanitation facilities, OCHA said.

“Public water services covering 1 million people are at serious risk of collapse,” the UN appeal document said. “Hospitals are overwhelmed with casualties, including people who have been direct victims of violence and those suffering severe burns from explosions.”

[Al Jazeera]

 

International aid agencies call for sanctions on Israel over Gaza stalemate

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Dozens of aid agencies have called for international sanctions on Israel over its continued illegal blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip and the fact that six months after its deadly and devastating assault, there has been virtually no reconstruction in the territory.

The report, “Charting a New Course: Overcoming the stalemate in Gaza,” signed by 46 international nongovernmental organizations working in Palestine, says that Israel must lift the blockade and allow free movement between the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip or face punitive consequences.

It also names the deadbeat states – including Turkey, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – that have failed to deliver on the reconstruction aid they promised for Gaza.

The report’s signatories, including Oxfam, Save the Children, KinderUSA, Medical Aid for Palestinians, The Carter Center, Norwegian People’s Aid and Médecins du Monde Switzerland, also call for a suspension of arms transfers to Israel and revocation of arms export licenses.

“Operation Protective Edge – the codename used by Israel for the 51-day military operation and the associated conflict between Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups – has inflicted unprecedented destruction and human suffering in Gaza,” the report states. “Six months after the donor conference, little tangible change has taken place on the ground in Gaza and living conditions for women, girls, men and boys continues to worsen,” it adds.

More than 100,000 people whose homes Israel destroyed remain without permanent shelter.

[The Electronic Intifada]

Vanuatu in the wake of Cyclone Pam

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Vanuatu’s government has launched a flash appeal to help thousands of people in urgent need of humanitarian aid in the wake of Cyclone Pam. Jotham Napat, chairman of the National Disaster Management Committee (NDMC), said more than 166,000 people had been affected by the cyclone, with 110,000 left without access to safe drinking water.

He told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat his country would need $US29.9 million to respond to the humanitarian crisis over the next three months. “The cyclone damaged around 63 per cent of the health facilities and has disrupted health service delivery.

International aid has been pouring into Vanuatu in the 10 days since Cyclone Pam devastated the country, but the United Nations also said more was needed.

UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination team leader Sebastian Rhodes Stampa said more than $US10 million in contributions from donors had been recorded. Mr Rhodes Stampa said emergency food and shelter and the restoration of basic health provisions on even the remotest of islands would be a priority. “But also, it’s critical that we get the children back in school, we return communities to a sense of normality as soon as possible, as well as providing for their most urgent needs,” he said.

The World Food Program is taking a leading role in supplying the food aid.

[Australia Broadcasting Corporation]

Academy for humanitarian relief launched

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The world’s first academy for humanitarian relief has been launched, aimed at training 100,000 aid workers from over 50 countries in organizing rapid responses to disasters and emergencies.

The Humanitarian Leadership Academy, launched Monday, is a response to the growing number of humanitarian crises around the world, driven by climate change and conflict, combined with a severe and worsening shortage of people with the skills necessary to coordinate the large-scale response required in the critical first days to prevent mass casualties.

The HLA is being set up by a global consortium of aid organizations with initial £20m funding from the UK Department for International Development, out of a target of £50m. The Save the Children charity has paid the startup costing and is hosting the academy’s hub in London.

Further centers will open in Kenya and the Philippines later this year, and by 2020 the plan is to have ten training centers around the world, which would offer both classroom and virtual training for the surrounding regions, in mobilizing the rapid response in resources and manpower needed in the wake of a disaster.

Jan Egeland, a former UN head of humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, will be the academy’s first chairman. He said the initiative “may revolutionize the entire humanitarian sector”.

Last year witnessed a record number of severe global humanitarian emergencies and the highest number of refugees the world has seen since the second world war. 50 million people were forced to flee their countries.

[Read full Guardian article]

Media obsession with ISIS takes focus away from Syria’s humanitarian crisis

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76,000 civilians were killed in Syria during 2014, the worst year since its civil war began in 2011.

The Failing Syria report, recently published by a global coalition of British aid agencies and charities, accuses international powers – particularly the 15-member Security Council – of failing to deliver on pledges to protect innocent victims of the fighting.

Yasmine Nahlawi, from Manchester-based Syrian organization Rethink Rebuild, believed the rise of jihadist groups like ISIS and the ensuing media war has seemingly deflected attention away from the country’s ongoing crisis. “The obsession with ISIS by both the media and policy makers has not only taken the focus away from the growing humanitarian crisis, but has also distorted our perception of the conflict itself,” she said.

Several key resolutions passed last year called for an end to attacks on civilians, an increase in aid, for the UN to be allowed to operate in Syria without seeking permission from authorities in Damascus. However, the report indicates a failure to deliver on all of these promises:

  • People are not protected: 2014 was the deadliest year of the conflict so far.
  • Aid access has stagnated: 4.8 million people who require aid now reside in areas the UN deems ‘hard to reach’. This is a million more than in 2013.
  • Needs have increased: 5.6 million children require aid, a 31% increase from the previous year.
  • The humanitarian response in comparison with needs has declined drastically: in 2013, 71% of the necessarily funding required to aid civilians inside Syria, along with refugees in neighboring countries, were provided. In 2014, this had dropped to 57%.

[Mancunian Matters]

Statistics on the increasing number of attacks on humanitarian aid workers

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2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Number of incidents 63 63 74 107 123 165 155 130 152 170 264
Total aid worker victims 143 125 172 240 220 278 296 254 309 277 474
Total killed 87 56 53 87 88 128 109 72 86 70 155
Total injured 49 46 96 87 87 91 94 84 126 115 178
Total kidnapped* 7 23 23 66 45 59 93 98 97 92 141
International victims 27 24 15 26 34 51 75 46 29 49 57
National victims 116 101 157 214 186 227 221 208 280 228 417
UN staff 31 11 27 61 39 65 102 44 91 60 110
International NGO staff 69 69 112 110 132 157 129 148 141 86 136
LNGO and RCS staff 35 43 28 55 35 46 55 47 77 105 206
ICRC staff 8 1 3 10 4 5 9 10 5 3 14
Security risks in places like Syria and Iraq are so high that NGOs often have to operate remotely. That means the UN and other groups rely heavily on local humanitarian organizations to operate in conflict zones. The local aid workers are often the ones most at risk — not the Americans and Europeans who tend to capture the headlines when something goes wrong on a particular aid mission.
Key for organization type
  • UN: United Nations
  • INGO: International non-governmental organization
  • LNGO and NRCS: Local non-governmental organization or National Red Cross / Red Crescent Society
  • ICRC: International Committee of the Red Cross
  • IFRC: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

[Source: aidworkersecurity.org]

Innovation in the humanitarian field

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In the ’90s, an NGO called Potters for Peace started to work with local potters in Central America to develop ceramic water filters that are thought to remove 99.88% of water borne disease agents. They are now produced at over 50 independent factories in more than 30 countries.

A more high-tech solution for the same problem, is the LifeSaver Cube, a water filtration product born in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami. It can carry up to 5L of water which is filtered and sterilized through the use of an inbuilt hand pump. LifeSaver Systems, based in the UK, is a private company; but the national Department for International Development and Oxfam were consulted during the development of the product, another example of how a for-profit organization can work together with the third sector to reach a common goal.

Other fascinating examples of collaboration between the private sector, the academia, governments and NGOs, have more to do with process innovation. The Cash Learning Partnership, for instance, formed by the British Red Cross, Save the Children, Oxfam GB and other partners, aims to promote appropriate, timely and quality cash and voucher programming in humanitarian response. Credit card company Visa is providing technical support.

Generally speaking, the inclusion of private organizations within the humanitarian system, could help foster a more entrepreneurial approach in a sector which has traditionally been risk averse. But, of course, it’s much easier to say this, than feed it into practice.

Oxford scholars Alexander Betts and Louise Bloom write, “innovation is already and irreversibly part of the humanitarian system.” The hope is that in the future, by creating shared definitions and principles, identifying good practices, and lifting barriers to ethical innovation, reseachers say, humanitarian actors will be more prepared to meet the challenges of our increasingly troubled world.

[Forbes]

Japan a leader in disaster relief

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Japan has pledged to provide $4 billion over the next four years to reduce the number and the suffering of disaster victims worldwide.

“Disaster risk reduction is the most important challenge for both developed and developing countries. For developing countries in particular,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Mr. Abe said, speaking at the third annual United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan.

Japan’s critical role in pushing progress on disaster risk reduction and management lies partly in own long history as an aid recipient and in coping with earthquakes and tsunamis, such as the recent tidal wave that struck the country’s Pacific coast in 2011, and the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in 2013.

Japan’s history in dealing with disasters has given it a “sensitivity and understanding in its engagement with other recipient countries that is based on first-hand experience,” according to the London-based Overseas Development Institute.

The East Asian nation has long been a leader in efforts to reduce disaster risk, having contributed about 27 percent of the world’s $13.5 billion total disaster risk reduction aid between 1991 and 2010, the Institute reported.

[Christian Science Monitor]