“A Europe that protects” to add six-fold increase of border guards

“A Europe that protects” was the tagline of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s State of the Union speech this week, in which he announced plans for an additional 10,000 border guards. This is a massive six-fold increase on the current brigade of 1,600 border guards.

But if it means tighter control and policing of Europe’s borders, then let’s not forget Europe’s other responsibility to ‘protect’, enshrined in the 1951 International Refugee Convention to which all European governments are signatories. This commits governments to provide asylum to people fleeing persecution in their own countries. It also commits governments not to forcibly return people to countries where their lives may be in danger, otherwise known as the ‘principle of non-refoulement’.

Here is a case in point. Many Sudanese arriving irregularly in Europe – usually on flimsy boats attempting to cross the Mediterranean – are Darfuris fleeing persecution in their own country. Those living in refugee camps and student activists are particularly targeted, forcing many young Darfuri men to leave. In search of safety and a secure future, most take a well-worn route to Libya. These days, however, ‘work in Libya’ often means bonded labor.

Political instability and/or conflict in countries neighboring Sudan – such as South Sudan and Egypt – means they have few alternatives when seeking sanctuary from their own country.

So what does Juncker’s ‘Europe that protects’ mean for this group?

[Overseas Development Institute]

Breaking barriers for Rohingya refugee women

Since August 2017, over 700,000 Rohingya people have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh seeking safety and lifesaving assistance. While safe from the unimaginable atrocities they suffered in Myanmar, refugees managed to find shelter in improvised and overcrowded refugee camps such as Cox’s Bazar. Rohingya women in particular face additional challenges: insecurity, violence, very limited mobility or ability to speak up and influence decisions in their communities. Oxfam support these women and girls to proactively overcoming these barriers through the following approaches:

Clothes and tailoring vouchers – As the camp situation forces many women (particularly those from female-headed households) to move outside the ‘home’, it is important to ensure they have access to the clothing that helps them feel safe and dignified. Oxfam is providing families with a tailoring voucher using local vendors from the host community.

Women refugees co-design hygiene facilities – The lack of enough latrines in a big overcrowded camp like Cox’s Bazar is a big issue, especially for women, which leads to very poor hygiene practices, lack of privacy and unsafety, increasing the risk of sexual abuse and harassment. Apart from building more latrines and hygiene facilities, Oxfam has collaborated with architecture students to work with Rohingya refugee women to design toilets and laundry areas that afford more safety and privacy and truly meet their needs. “Women told us it’s important for them not to feel stared at when entering or leaving the toilets. We want to make the routes into the toilets and washing facilities less obvious and more private so that women feel more comfortable to use these facilities” says Freya Emerson, one of the architects.

Solar lighting in the communities – Lack of privacy and fear of assault contribute greatly to women remaining in their shelters. When asked whether they felt safe walking alone in the camp, 29% of women said ‘no’, compared with 5% of men. Furthermore, over a third of women did not feel they had safe access to a water point, bathing facility or latrines. Apart from providing portable solar lamps to the families, Oxfam helped design a solar lighting community-based program in Cox’s Bazar.

And as part of our humanitarian response, we are working with local organizations and communities to tackle wider issues such as early marriage, gender-based violence and men and women’s traditional roles, through women’s groups and musical performances.
[Oxfam International]

UN report on global hunger

New evidence continues to signal that the number of hungry people in the world is growing, reaching 821 million in 2017 or one in every nine people, according to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018 released today.

Hunger has been on the rise over the past three years, returning to levels from a decade ago. This reversal in progress sends a clear warning that more must be done and urgently if the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger is to be achieved by 2030.

The situation is worsening in South America and most regions of Africa, while the decreasing trend in undernourishment that characterized Asia seems to be slowing down significantly.

The annual UN report found that climate variability affecting rainfall patterns and agricultural seasons, and climate extremes such as droughts and floods, are among the key drivers behind the rise in hunger, together with conflict and economic slowdowns.

“If we are to achieve a world without hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030, it is imperative that we accelerate and scale up actions to strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of food systems and people’s livelihoods in response to climate variability and extremes,” the heads of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) warned said.

[FAO]

Humanitarian catastrophe feared as Syria war reaches final rebel stronghold

As the Syrian government prepares to launch an offensive on Idlib province, humanitarians are on edge. Estimating the area may hold as many as three million people, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said he is “deeply concerned about the growing risks of a humanitarian catastrophe”, calling on Russia, Iran, and Turkey to seek a last-minute deal to avoid violence, while UN envoy Staffan de Mistura is offering to personally escort civilians out of the warzone.

With the border with Turkey sealed, hundreds of thousands of civilian may have nowhere to run if the tanks come rolling in. “The only thing people are talking about now is the coming battle,” said Rajaai Bourhan, a former business student who now ekes out a living as a freelance journalist in northwestern Syria. Speaking to IRIN from Idlib last week, he described a city hostage to circumstances outside its control.

For years, Sunni rebel groups have controlled Idlib. The surrounding area is mostly under al-Assad’s control. As one of few remaining opposition sanctuaries and an entry point for cross-border aid, Idlib has seen its population swell with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Syrians like Bourhan.

Two thirds of the estimated 3 million population of Idlib are said to be in need of some sort of humanitarian assistance, and “these people are extremely vulnerable”, said Linda Tom, a Damascus-based spokeswoman for OCHA, the UN’s emergency aid coordination body.

Pawel Krzysiek, head of communications for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Syria, said that fighting in Idlib “will put thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, on the move.”

Turkey already hosts 3.5 million Syrian refugees, according to UNHCR statistics, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is under pressure from the Turkish public and the EU to secure his borders.

[IRIN]

The future of humanitarian water provision is solar

For World Water Week, Oxfam Engineering Adviser Brian McSorley reflects on the achievements of the Global Solar Water Initiative and the potential of solar water pumps to transform lives:

Solar power offers so many possibilities for development and humanitarian aid, from lighting, to internet connectivity and water provision. Why rely on diesel fuel -which is expensive, difficult to source in remote areas, to power a generator, which is a complex piece of mechanics, that frequently breaks down with skilled expertise and spare parts hard to find?

Less than six years ago (2012), Oxfam installed the first solar water pumping system in Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya. At the time Dadaab was already 20 years old and recognised as the largest refugee camp in the world with a population of nearly half a million people.

Since then, a two-person team has visited 55 camps and communities, conducted training workshops in eight countries and addressed technical queries from 80 organizations, across five continents.

By analyzing 140 different water schemes, we have found that switching to solar will pay for itself within four years, and in some circumstances, solar is cheaper than a diesel generator from day one.

Over the life time of these systems solar will be 40-90% cheaper.

[ReliefWeb]

Something to encourage your heart

Things are bad in the world and it feels like it’s getting worse, right?

—Wrong! Step-by-step, year-by-year, things are improving for billions of people worldwide!

1. Over the past 20 years, the proportion of the global population living in extreme poverty has halved. This progress is absolutely revolutionary!
2. The percentage of people worldwide who are undernourished has dropped from 28% (1970) to 11% in (2016).
3. In 1950, the child mortality rate was 15%. (i.e. 97 million children were born and 14.4 million children died.) In 2016, the child mortality rate was down to 3%! (i.e.141 million children were born and 4.2 million died.) So we can rejoice there’s more than 10 million less dead babies per year than a relatively short time ago!
4. Child deaths per thousand in Saudi Arabia have dropped from 242 to 35, in just 33 years. Countries like Sweden took 77 years to reach this same achievement.

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