Protests at schools run by UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees

At 700 UNRWA schools across the Middle East, thousands of students flew and carried kites to send a message of hope, demanding that all the schools run by the Agency remain open, in spite of the financial crisis confronting UNRWA.

More than 500,000 students took part in kite flying events in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank, where the Agency provides a daily education to 525,000 children.

This ambitious initiative comes in advance of an Extraordinary Ministerial Conference in Rome on 15 March convened by Jordan, Sweden and Egypt to bridge UNRWA’s funding shortfall for 2018 of 446 million US$.

UNRWA has described this as the worst financial crisis in its seventy- year history.

[Aid News]

Civilians pay heavy toll as Syrian conflict enters its 8th year

“The last seven years feel like 20,” says Fatmeh, a 23 year-old Syrian refugee living in Lebanon, referring to the war in her home country that is dragging into its eighth year. Fatmeh is one of millions of Syrians who have been left homeless — inside and outside their country — as the conflict wreaks havoc throughout Syria. Civilians pay the heaviest price, as they are killed, wounded and displaced daily.

One-quarter of Syria’s pre-war population has crossed the border, and inside the country more than 6 million people have been displaced. Around 100 people, on average, have been killed each day since the start of the conflict in 2011. Hundreds of thousands are living under siege, in places like Eastern Ghouta, where entire families have been going without food or clean water for weeks now, a few miles from Syria’s capital Damascus.

As the conflict enters its eighth year, women have been hit hard. With the Syrian army and its allies, as well as non-state armed groups, fighting on the ground and unprecedented violence in the country, many women have lost a husband, son or brother to the war. This has shifted the customary male role of heading the household to many women in Syria, who are increasingly assuming both the role of breadwinner and caregiver. According to the UN, one in three households in Syria is headed by a woman. Women and girls constitute more than half of the 13.1 million people who are in need in Syria.

[CARE]

China floods Africa with needed assistance, stoking US concern

With Beijing’s astonishing investments in ports, roads and railways throughout Africa, the US warns, come dependency, exploitation and intrusion on nations’ basic sovereignty.

“We are not in any way attempting to keep Chinese investment dollars out of Africa. They are badly needed,” US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said this week in the Ethiopian capital. “However, we think it’s important that African countries carefully consider the terms.”

Tillerson and other US officials say Chinese firms, unlike American ones, don’t abide by anti-bribery laws, fueling Africa’s pervasive problems with corruption. And if countries run into financial trouble, they often lose control over their own infrastructure by defaulting to a lender that historically has not always been forgiving. Some African countries now owe sums double that of their annual economic output, the US has said, with most debt owed to China.

China, unlike the United States, is showing up on the continent with a generous checkbook in hand. Given the unpredictability involved in investing in poorer countries, China is often the only one willing to take the risk. And African nations realize that China’s investments don’t come with the same nagging about human rights and good governance that often accompanies US assistance.

The eye-popping investments through China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, believed to run into the trillions of dollars, form just one part of the Asian power’s bid to promote a new global system that puts Beijing at the center. Equally alarming to the US are China’s military designs.

There are obvious reasons why the United States would want to cast itself and its companies as a more favorable alternative to China, the geopolitical rival and economic competitor whose influence is also on the rise in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.

[AP]

Rural women are essential to the struggle against hunger

Rural women make up more than a quarter of the world’s population and 43 percent of the world’s agricultural labor force.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, according to 2010 data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), women’s make up between 12 and 25 percent of the economically active population in agriculture, depending on the different areas.

Julio Berdegué, FAO representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, told IPS that “rural and indigenous communities have a crucial role to play in food security, first of all for their own peoples. The persistence of hunger is very high in indigenous populations. In many countries it doubles, triples or quadruples the national averages. If indigenous communities are not central actors, there is no way to solve hunger in those places.”

“The empowerment of indigenous women is part of the agenda in the fight against rural poverty, poverty and hunger in indigenous communities,” he said.

The UN Women agency warns, however, that “in practically all development measures, rural women are lagging behind rural men or urban women, as a consequence of deep-rooted gender inequalities and discrimination.”

“Less than 20 percent of the people in the world who own land are women, and although the global wage difference between women and men stands at 23 percent, in rural areas it can reach up to 40 percent,” it stated, to illustrate.

[Inter Press Service]

Monsoon season could wreak havoc in Bangladesh refugee camps

Since August 25, 2017, nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled targeted violence and persecution in Myanmar to take refuge in makeshift shelters in camps in Bangladesh. The refugees ended up in densely crowded and overpopulated makeshift settlements in the southern district of Cox’s Bazar. Their shelters are mostly made of plastic and bamboo, packed closely together and with inadequate water and sanitation conditions.

All factors combined—the sheer size of the population, the densely crowded conditions, the inadequate shelter, and the apparently very low immunization status—create a perfect storm for the public health situation.

Something I am concerned about is fresh emergencies within the current emergency. For example, the upcoming rainy season, with the monsoon and tropical storms in an area that is prone to heavy cyclones, presents an obvious greater potential for waterborne diseases such as acute watery diarrhea, which is a significant concern.

Furthermore, there are very few settlements that can be accessed by vehicle—a lot of them still can only be reached on foot.

[Doctors Without Borders]

Getting Lebanon’s water flowing

The Syrian conflict has displaced at least 1.5 million people to Lebanon, putting pressure on water services and resources. Humanitarian agencies and the national government have drawn on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators to gather new data on access to water and water quality, to be able to respond more effectively to the water crisis.

UN-Habitat estimates that demand on water services has increased by 30 per cent since the crisis began. 3.7 million people – both Lebanese and Syrian are in need of water. The water crisis affecting Lebanon predates the arrival of the Syrian refugees. Decades of civil unrest and under-investment, followed by episodes of conflict driven by regional and sectarian tensions, have splintered towns and cities, damaging the country’s existing water infrastructure that delivers water to towns, cities and households.

Although Lebanon is rich in water compared to Jordan, Israel and Syria, the amount of renewable water in the region has dropped from 1,000 cubic metres a year per person – considered the threshold of water poverty – to around 700m³ per person since the refugees arrived.

Humanitarian agencies, national government and water utilities have been working to respond to the infrastructural and water resource challenges that underpin the crisis. UNICEF has been working with the MoEW to collect and support data collection on access to water linked to the new SDG indicator on quality.

[International Institute for Environment and Development]

Somalia ‘not out of the woods yet’ on drought relief efforts

Despite Somalia experiencing over five failed rain cycles, drought-related famine was averted through the efforts of Somalis and their international partners.

The top United Nations humanitarian official in Somalia has commended the drought relief and recovery efforts of the authorities in the northern state of Puntland, while cautioning that the current humanitarian crisis is far from over.

The UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Peter de Clercq, said “We are not out of the woods yet by any stretch of the imagination.”

There are still 5.4 million people in Somalia needing life-saving humanitarian assistance. Work is being done in all regions to build and sustain resilience in all communities.

[UN News]