BRC International Bulletin

This blog has moved!

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:32:00 +0000

After three years on Blogger, the blog has made it to RedRoom.

Follow the link above to access it and log in, if prompted to do so, using your normal RedRoom username and password.

If you're not staff at British Red Cross, leave a comment on this post and I can recommend you some alternative reading material...

USG for Humanitarian Aid Sir John Holmes resigns

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:49:00 +0000

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, plans to take over as director of Britain's Ditchley Foundation in September.

SCHR: Updated position paper on civil-military relations

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:37:00 +0000

SCHR have revised and updated their position paper on Civil Military relations, first written in 2001 and updated in 2004, and have produced a very readable survey of the state of the debate. The paper:

'...looks primarily at how SCHR agencies consider relations with armed forces in situations of armed conflict, or natural disasters taking place in contested environments. This paper contributes to the current debate on humanitarian-military relations and fosters a better understanding of the respective roles and the necessity for humanitarian actors to commit to the positions elaborated herein. It is intended to inform and guide the internal policies and practical guidance of SCHR agencies.'

IFRC video: The cluster approach

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:50:00 +0000

Web 101: RSS Feeds

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:31:00 +0000

I know you love this blog. Here you are, after all. You may picture me slaving over a hot laptop all night, scouring the internet for all this fun stuff... but no. In fact, the news is delivered to my laptop as it's published.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. (WhatisRSS)

There are two options for how to use them every day:

Bookmark a feed, either in your bookmarks toolbar or your normal bookmarks folder, so you can glance at the list every now and then, or
Use an RSS feed reader like Feeddemon (PC), NetNewsWire (Mac), Reeder (iPhone) or Viigo (Blackberry). These options allow you to download your feeds ahead of time, browse articles wherever you are, and save any you want to go back to later.

Here's my magic bumper humanitarian policy fun feed to get you started. Enjoy!

WEF proposes 'new vulnerability and protection business model'

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:03:00 +0000

From the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Humanitarian Assistance:

The first requirement of this new business model is a comprehensive risk framework. We often find ourselves having to engage in an enterprise of risk management with incomplete information about how things will unfold. Such uncertainties are only being exacerbated by the impacts of climate change. We must plan to be ready for events for which we cannot plan.
The second requirement is to rework the balance between crisis response and the upstream and downstream issues of prevention and recovery. More resources are needed both to reduce risk in the first place, and reduce the risk of relapse after a crisis occurs.

The default mode of the current humanitarian model in general is external assistance; the default mode of a new vulnerability and protection model should be self-reliance. The third requirement of this new model is to enhance the capacities, readiness and resilience of exposed societies so they can better handle extreme events. Ensuring that civil society and local communities are involved will not only make response efforts faster, but more efficient as their involvement will make it possible to identify and meet the diverse needs of various groups in affected communities, groups differentiated, for example, by gender, age, and social class.

The fourth requirement is to engage the private sector more fully, not just as a source of donations but also as a source of key skills and technologies, during and after crises. We commend the World Economic Forum’s initiative on the private sector in humanitarian relief as well as other efforts to incentivise appropriate and beneficial private-sector investments in risky regions.

The fifth requirement of the business model is to link the humanitarian concern to broader development issues, strengthening social safety nets and supporting resilience. This requirement will necessitate unprecedented collaboration between humanitarian and development actors and interests.

Finally, as cross-border challenges will grow, regional organisations backed by the UN will need to be able to mediate and mitigate these problems as they arise.

Download the full report.

Global Humanitarian Assistance: Update February 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:55:00 +0000

GHA have released an update on their GHA report. The series aims to

present simple and objective statistical information on humanitarian financing for people involved in humanitarian aid policy, programming and performance. The goal is a shared evidence base that people can use in their planning and policy work to ensure better outcomes for the women, men and children whose lives are affected by humanitarian crises.

UPDATED: Tufts/HFP: Humanitarian Horizons - a practitioners guide to the future

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:32:00 +0000

UPDATED 18.02.10: IRIN highlights guidance on responding to urban emergencies:
Other than urban earthquake preparedness, humanitarian agencies have not yet focused on emergency response in urban centres. The authors of the guide offer tips to humanitarian agencies in this new environment:

1) Programming has to shift from being rural-focused, so humanitarians will now have to reach out to urban planners for effective urban programming

2) Build a knowledge base identifying the differences between urban and rural programmes

3) Re-identify and reprioritize groups most at risk

4) Use of technologies such as cell phone banking and microcredit to deliver aid in an urban context

5) Ensure the creation of better linkages between city and town authorities, and strengthen delivery systems

The blurb:

The Guide "is an attempt to help humanitarian aid agencies look a generation into the future to begin making the necessary changes now to their thinking and organization, to ensure that they continue to deliver the right assistance and protection to the right people in the right ways.

The Humanitarian Horizons project is a futures capacity-building initiative intended to assist the humanitarian sector prepare for the complexities of the future by enabling organizations to enhance their anticipatory and adaptive capacities. Launched in October 2008, the project builds on HFP's analyses of changing dimensions of future crisis drivers, and makes more practical the exploratory futures research conducted under the Feinstein Center's 2004 Ambiguity and Change project.'

Read on! at the Tufts website.

CRED: Disaster data for 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:14:00 +0000

In 2009, 328 natural disasters were recorded in the EM-DAT database. They killed more than 10 thousand people, affected nearly 113 million others and caused almost 35 billion US$ of economic damages.

No mega-disasters occurred in 2009, the event ranking highest in death toll being the earthquake in Indonesia on September 30 which killed over 1,100 people, followed by a series of typhoons and floods that caused many deaths, making Asia once again the most affected continent. In fact, six of the top ten countries with the highest number of disaster-related deaths were in Asia. However, when looking at the top 10 countries in terms of number of deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, the Islands of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga topped the list.

Compared to previous years (2000-2008), there is a reduction in 2009 in disaster mortality with 10,443 killed, which is below the annual average of 85,541; as well as the number of affected, with 112.8 million compared to the annual average of 230.4 million. In terms of economic impacts, disasters costs were also below the 93.8 billion 2000-2008 annual average and were mainly attributed to winter storm Klaus which hit France and Spain in January (5.1 billion US$), the L’Aquila earthquake in Italy in April (2.5 billion US$) and a tornado in the United States in February (2.5 billion US$).

ALNAP: posted Guide to Real-time evaluations of humanitarian action

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:34:00 +0000

This pilot guide is intended to help both evaluation managers and team leaders in commissioning, overseeing and conducting real-time evaluations of humanitarian operational responses. Drawing on a synthesis of existing good practices, it is intended as a flexible resource that can be adapted to a variety of contexts.

This guide concentrates on RTEs undertaken in first phase of an emergency response – where the RTE fieldwork takes place within a few months of the start of the response. This is because such RTEs pose particular problems for both the evaluation manager and the evaluation team. RTEs that take place later on in the response are closer to ex-post humanitarian evaluations, but this guide also addresses how such RTEs can feed into ongoing operations.

The focus of this guide is therefore on what is distinctive about humanitarian RTEs. It does not offer advice on evaluation methodologies in general, but on specific aspects of methodology which make RTEs unique and different. Nevertheless some of the advice will apply to all evaluations and not just to RTEs. This is motivated partly by the authors’ observations of areas of weakness in existing evaluations.

Download the guide on the ALNAP website.

IRIN: Afghanistan: A tight squeeze on humanitarian space

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:20:00 +0000

“In the south, south-east and east, isolated reports were received regarding government officials being forced to bribe insurgent commanders in order to facilitate the continued operation of schools and allow for the implementation of certain development projects. This highlights the heightened ability of the insurgents to exert their authority and influence over the implementation of development activities,” the UN Secretary-General said in a report to the Security Council in December 2009.

Laurent Sailard, director of ACBAR, a consortium of over 100 Afghan and foreign NGOs, said aid workers must not make payments to insurgents for security, access or safe passage.

“Buying a passage for humanitarian convoys or access is a bad strategy with long-term negative impacts. Demands could increase, and if not satisfied could lead to increasing threats. It is a never-ending process that always leads to the worst,” he said, adding that aid workers had to ensure access and security through acceptance among local communities and impartial dialogue with belligerent parties."

Movement policy is not to use armed escorts but gain access by negotiating and being accepted by all parties to a conflict.

Read the rest of the article on the IRIN website and read more on the Movement's position here.

Tufts: Humanitarian Horizons: A Practitioners’ Guide to the Future

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:14:00 +0000

The Guide merges the projections of global change highlighted by four earlier research papers, with the futures perspectives of operational agencies. The result is an attempt to help humanitarian aid agencies look a generation into the future to begin making the necessary changes now to their thinking and organization, to ensure that they continue to deliver the right assistance and protection to the right people in the right ways.

Download the Guide from the Tufts website.

FT: Syrian economy risks wilting in severe drought

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:04:00 +0000

A drought in Syria has ‘drastically effected’ 1.3m people in the rural north and north-east of the country, according to a UN report. Despite government attempts to downplay the problem, 40,000-60,000 families have been forced to migrate.

UNHCR: Safeguarding humanitarian space

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:57:00 +0000

Nonetheless, not all humanitarian actors are in agreement that humanitarian space is in fact shrinking. During the Cold War many conflict-affected areas (such as parts of Afghanistan, Angola and Mozambique) were off-limits to aid workers. The diversion and manipulation of aid has also been a perennial feature of the operating landscape. What has changed is the nature of the challenges to principled humanitarian action, underpinned by significant shifts in the global political and security context.

UPDATED for 2010: Humanitarian trends and futures

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:55:00 +0000

The Ministry of Defence's Global Strategic Trends Programme has published their biannual survey. It's pretty pessimistic stuff, but there's a good executive summary.

For completeness, here's last year's list of trend-scanning papers and places that caught our eye:

The Sigma Scan - 'evidence of the future'
Outsights on the 21 drivers for the 21st century
US Global trends report
Jeffrey Sachs in the Guardian on the water wars
Humanitarian Futures Project Global Trends Workbook 2008
Humanitarian trends and dilemmas: Tony Vaux' article in Development in Practice

Updated: ALNAP State of the System report is out

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:40:00 +0000

Bringing together much of the work done by ALNAP since the tsunami, this first pilot report provides a baseline and working methodology which will be built upon and improved in subsequent iterations.

Download the report from the ALNAP website. Although there is an excellent executive summary, a quick run-down of the key points follows in the full post.

Aims of the report: Provide a system-level mapping and assessment of international humanitarian assistance over the last two years according to key criteria. Includes new, previously unavailable descriptive statistics and highlights some new initiatives in policy and practice.

Areas of focus: Operational performance of the ‘formal international humanitarian system’, focussing on emergencies involving international agencies and an appeal for international assistance. Limitations: did not eventually cover national, local and community-based organisations and does not measure beneficiary-level impacts.
Key findings:

the international system has grown in staff size by an average annual rate of 6% over the past decade, and has reached a population of roughly 211,000 humanitarian workers in the field.
In 2008, some $6.6 billion was contributed by donors directly to international emergency response efforts, and the combined humanitarian expenditures of aid organisations on overseas programme activities totalled around $12.8 billion.
In terms of performance, findings indicate an overall positive trend in areas having to do with the internal workings of the humanitarian system – such as coordination mechanisms, funding vehicles and needs assessment tools – while at the same time some fundamental issues, such as leadership and the system’s engagement with and accountability to beneficiaries, remained weak. The findings thus depict a system steadily and incrementally improving its own internal mechanics and technical performance, while remaining deficient in some big picture requirements for effectiveness.

Findings against the OECD DAC review assessment criteria:

Coverage/sufficiency: still insufficient as despite growing sector and rise in funding, needs have also gone up. Nonetheless coverage is improving over time - over 85% of total stated requirements met in 2007 and 2008, compared with 81% in 2006 and only 67% in 2005. Declining in some contexts due to insecurity or host government restrictions. In the most contested environments, insecurity for aid workers has increased markedly.

Relevance/appropriateness: Quality of needs assessments still seen as a weakness, but have improved with a majority of respondents reporting adequate inter-agency needs assessments in their contexts and wider breadth of types of programming improving flexibility. However evaluations and beneficiary consultations show common instances of multiple assessments without sufficient follow-up. Beneficiaries continue to be inadequately consulted and involved in assessments and subsequent programme design. Prioritisation is improved but may be proliferating with too many parallel processes appearing.

Effectiveness: Responses are more timely thanks to significant agency investment in standby capacity and new mechanisms (e.g CERF). Growing attempt to better link humanitarian and development actors with disaster risk reduction (DRR) efforts and to increase investments in DRR. Overall, coordination seen to improve with introduction of Cluster Approach and positive views about the value of clusters outnumbered negative ones. But leadership was a noted weakness - the Humanitarian Coordinator (HC) system needs strengthening. Other coordination trends highlighted included a growing role for regional bodies (e.g. ASEAN) and agency consortia. Monitoring identified as a continuing weakness. HR improvements (in capacity, quality, and professionalism) were encouraging but Many agencies made real efforts to increase investment in operational capacity and quality of human resources. Improvements in professionalism of humanitarian staff noted, but high staff turnover and a need to invest more in national staff development. There are also growing capacities on the part of national governments to meet the needs of their own citizens in times of disaster in many contexts, which requires greater consideration in advance of launching response efforts.

Connectedness: An unmitigated scarcity of investment in local and national capacities was a repeated theme, as were concerns with the top-down tendencies of the system and the risk of undermining local capacities. However, there are also signs of improvement in how international agencies work with local humanitarian actors, with the survey finding a majority of respondents felt efforts at capacity building had increased in the past two to three years. A clear momentum around need for greater downward accountability and participation, and a growing number of examples of investments in feedback and complaint mechanisms and greater transparency, which benefits programmes.

Efficiency: Efficiency issues, including the risks of corruption, continue to be relatively neglected in literature/evaluations of humanitarian action, although Transparency International is developing an anti-corruption toolkit. -Widespread concern about overhead and programme support costs, particularly in relation to new financial mechanisms. People also noted, however, that constant drive to minimise administrative costs was leading to chronic under-investment in key capacities that could serve to improve performance. Arguably too great a focus on driving down admin costs.

Coherence: focus on: i) whether core humanitarian principles, international humanitarian law (IHL) and refugee law were being respected in humanitarian programming - a real challenge with a noted lack of respect for IHL and the principles in many recent conflicts and integrated or 'whole of government' approaches threatening humanitarian space - both requiring renewed advocacy efforts and more principled action by agencies, and ii) consistency in objectives and actions for protection and for advancing the crosscutting issues of illness, age, gender and disability which are hard to keep sight of once 'mainstreamed'. Improved guidance and awareness but confusion about the concept of protection and who has responsibility. There has been criticism of the quality of protection work, including the deployment of inexperienced staff, breaches of confidentiality of affected populations and inconsistent knowledge and application of relevant laws.

If you read one thing this week: excellent summary of Dead Aid

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:06:00 +0000

If anyone, like me, has been curious about the kerfuffle raised by Dambisa Moyo's book on ODA, 'Dead Aid', but not sufficiently time-rich or interested to read the whole thing, then take two minutes to digest this very useful summary. Excellent for bumping up your conference small talk.

iRevolution: The Role of Live Skype Chats in the Disaster Response in Haiti

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:01:00 +0000

Fascinating post for the geekily inclined, or those interested in how we're using Skype in emergencies and general communication.

Ben Ramalingam's new blog: aid on the edge of chaos

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:53:00 +0000

Ben of ALNAP fame now writes a blog in a personal capacity which has grown out of his forthcoming book on complexity science and aid. He kindly flagged this article, which looks at the intersection between natural disasters, and socially constructed patterns of vulnerability. This work can be applied in examining colliding trends and patterns to try to better predict and prepare for disasters.

Enjoy!

Transparency International: Preventing Corruption in humanitarian operations

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:49:00 +0000

Preventing Corruption in Humanitarian Operations: A Handbook of Good Practices offers a menu of best practice tools for preventing and detecting corruption in humanitarian operations that includes ways to track resources, confront extortion and detect aid diversion. The handbook, part of TI’s broader work to stop corruption in humanitarian assistance, covers policies and procedures for transparency, integrity and accountability, and specific corruption risks, such as supply chain management and accounting.

Download the handbook using the links above.

UPDATED 01.02.10 Afghanistan: The London Conference and Yemen meeting

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:15:00 +0000

This post will be updated as new news comes in.

01.02.10: Final bit of analysis from Daniel Gerstle at Change.org
01.02.10: Afghan women urge NATO to remain in Afghanistan long enough to ensure that the Karzai administration will not fall to the Taleban
01.02.10: Fuller statement from the UK Government now available on Reliefweb.
28.01.10: Analysis and predictions of a new settlement which will bring the Taleban into government in Afghanistan. Much disquiet from human rights groups and other commentators at the prospect of rehabilitating perpetrators of human rights abuses.
27.01.10: Reuters reports on the Yemen meeting today, apparently hastily called after a Yemen-based terrorist group claimed responsibility for the failed Christmas US plane bomb. Apparently:

Wednesday's meeting, which brings together the Group of Eight world powers, Yemen's neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, is designed to give a strong signal of support to Yemen, while pushing for economic development and reform. The European Union, United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) will also be represented.

plight of the displaced in Yemen

27.01.10: Seven NGOs reiterate the negative impact of the militarisation of aid in Afghanistan and urge the London Conference to rethink the increasing tendency of international foreign policy to link development and security activities
27.01.10: ICRC urges all parties to work to minimise the impact of conflict in Afghanistan on civilians
26.01.10: IRIN: Humanitarian aid is not something the military can do
26.01.10: ICRC describes Yemen as 'a serious humanitarian crisis in the making'
25.01.10: Don't forget Yemen - an additional meeting will be held on Wednesday. Alertnet looks at possible outcomes of both conferences.
25.01.10: Reuters reports on the draft communique on the future of Afghanistan which includes 'a "framework" for turning the country's security over to Afghan forces' beginning this year, commits Afghanistan to setting up 'an organization to "reach out to insurgents," and the international community to ...channeling more of their aid through the Afghan government and providing debt relief to Kabul.'

Douglas Alexander responds to Madeleine Bunting on the militarisation of aid

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:17:00 +0000

My department has every reason to work in countries affected by conflict – not because aid has been "subordinated to achieve military objectives", or even because "poverty causes conflict", but rather because conflict causes poverty. Half of all children out of school today live in countries affected by conflict, and half of all children who die before the age of five were born in fragile states.

Read more on the Guardian's website. Madeleine Bunting's op-ed is available here.

Resilient global institutions

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:09:00 +0000

A new report, 'Confronting the Long Crisis of Globalisation: Risk, Resilience and International Order', by Alex Evans and David Stevens of Global Dashboard for the Brookings Institute, has been highlighted by the Economist:

The 2010s, it is sometimes said, will be an age of scarcity. The warning signs of change are said to be the food-price spike of 2007-08, the bid by China and others to grab access to oil, iron ore and farmland and the global recession. The main problems of scarcity are water and food shortages, demographic change and state failure. How will that change politics?
...what is needed is not merely institutional tinkering but a different frame of mind. Governments, they say, should think more in terms of reducing risk and increasing resilience to shocks than about boosting sovereign power. This is because they think power may not be the best way for states to defend themselves against a new kind of threat: the sort that comes not from other states but networks of states and non-state actors, or from the unintended consequences of global flows of finance, technology and so on.

The report's conclusions are summarised in a blog post by Alex:

Creating new analytical mechanisms for creating shared awareness about shared risks. E.g. the IPCC provides crucial analysis of the problem of climate change – but there’s no equivalent on the solution.

Improving the ‘bandwidth’ of the G20. E.g. by strengthening Sherpa mechanisms, and building links between the G20 and formal institutions, thus improving the range of policy options going to heads.

Setting up a ‘red team’ in the international system that has the job of exploring risks and challenging policymakers on whether enough is being done to manage them – similar to the Defense Research Advanced Projects Agency in the US, which has the job of “preventing surprise”.

Changing how governments organize and deliver foreign policy. We argue that all governments will need to spend more money on managing global risks, and do more to integrate the different elements of foreign policy (aid, diplomacy, military).

Updated 28.01.10: Ushahidi - social media and the Haiti response

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:42:00 +0000

Updated 28.01.2010: This New Scientist article praises the contribution made by crowdsourced data to search and rescue and needs mapping.

More on social media in humanitarian aid in another post, but wanted to put up a link to this initiative:

Ushahidi use information sourced from emails, texts and tweets to map events such as the recent tensions in Kampala, and the current needs in Haiti. People can text a number from Haiti, or internationally, or report events directly on the Ushahihi website, and volunteers code the responses onto a map. Some reports are verified and some not (the value of crowd-sourced information is a hot debate, as you can read here) but the result is compelling and to many on the ground, useful.

Read more about Ushahidi here, or look at the map as it currently stands here.

Haiti: agency instrospection

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Walker Hudson) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:44:00 +0000

An incisive and thought-provoking post from Tales from the Hood, operational in Haiti:

In the first two weeks it was about visibility while the cameras were rolling. Getting your agency’s sign or T-shirted horde of volunteers in the background or foreground was the media game. But now it’s about reeling in big chunks of the real funding from the real donors. The real feeding frenzy has begun.

...Several NGOs will get their foothold in Haiti and possibly the world by playing their cards right in this emergency response. Many will remember this earthquake response as a time of winning grants and thinking through Civ/Mil issues and handling large quantities of stuff.

Read more on the Tales from the Hood blog.