April 26th, 2012
Do take time to read a fascinating interview with Elinor Ostrom published on Irin News where she argues that small scale, bottom-up changes in behaviour are going to be the prime way to save the planet from the horrors of runaway climate change.
Ostrom’s life work is in the study of the Commons – resources like land, the air, oceans and rivers that we hold in common and that are used (and can be degraded) by all. She won the Nobel Prize for Economics for this work in 2009, shortly before the disaster of COP15 at Copenhagen demonstrated both the importance of the Commons and the difficulty of getting global agreement on how these resources should be managed.
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Tags: China, Climate change, Copenhagen, Global warming, India, Ostrom, Tragedy of the Commons
April 20th, 2012
We’ve followed the upheavals between Sudan and South Sudan from time to time in this blog, and for some time – George Clooney notwithstanding – it has been hard to argue with the view put by Simon Tisdall in The Guardian yesterday that “Sudan burns – and the world yawns”.
This has been a disaster waiting to happen ever since the North’s unexpectedly muted response to the referendum in the South in January 2011. Trouble was expected then, and again when South Sudan officially became Africa’s newest country in July last year. But very little happened and the world began to look away.
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Tags: Oil, South Kordofan, South Sudan, Sudan
March 15th, 2012
Credit where credit is due – DFID this week announced that it was providing additional assistance to families in Mali and Niger affected by conflict and drought.
Britain will target support for 22,000 people, including those who have fled their homes in conflict-affected areas, in Mali and Niger with food, seeds, tools and livestock. A further 60,000 people facing hunger in other parts of Mali and Niger will be fed for the next six months through funding to the World Food Programme.
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Tags: Andrew Mitchell, Chad, DFID, Drought, Famine, Mali, natural disasters, Niger, Sahel, Save the Children, WFP
March 12th, 2012
Two appeal ads for funds to help respond to the food crisis in the Sahel appeared in The Observer yesterday. Each ad took a very different approach and it would be interesting to know which pulled in more cash.
It’s noteworthy that the ads come from the partners who, in January this year, produced the report ‘A Dangerous Delay: The cost of late response to early warnings in the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa’.
Oxfam: Direct appeal
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Tags: Drought, Famine, Global warming, natural disasters, Oxfam, Sahel, Save the Children
March 9th, 2012
In terrifying echoes of some of the warnings issued before the drought in the Horn of Africa turned into a famine, Oxfam is today demanding urgent action in the Sahel region of West Africa to stop a drought there turning into a humanitarian disaster that could affect up to 13 million people.
Oxfam’s warnings follow those already issued by European Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva in December 2011. And in January this year $230 million was said to be needed to avoid disaster in the region, now Oxfam is launching a £23 million emergency appeal that it says will enable it to help one million people there.
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Tags: Burkina Faso, Chad, Drought, EU, Famine, Horn of Africa, Humanitarian Response Index, Mali, Mauretania, Niger, Oxfam, Sahel, Senegal
March 8th, 2012
It gives us no pleasure to report on the Humanitarian Response Index 2011 (HRI) which was published this week by DARA – an independent organisation committed to improving the quality and effectiveness of aid for vulnerable populations suffering from conflict, disasters and climate change.
Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya
Let’s start with Conclusion number three:
THE GENERALISED DISREGARD BY DONORS FOR TACKLING PREVENTION, RISK REDUCTION AND RECOVERY IN WAYS THAT BUILD CAPACITY AND RESILIENCE IS INEXCUSABLE.
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Tags: Australia, Climate change, DARA, Drought, earthquake, Famine, Floods, Germany, Global warming, Humanitarian Response Index, Indian Ocean Tsunami, natural disasters, UK
February 25th, 2012
Across Africa there are a number of small wars going on that do not even get the attention (and that belatedly) of Somalia – ‘honoured’ this week by a one-day international conference in London with David Cameron and Hillary Clinton in attendance.
Just one of these is the ongoing struggle in South Kordofan between the Sudanese government and largely Nubian rebels – the latter allegedly backed by the black Christian government of South Sudan.
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Tags: David Cameron, Famine, Hillary Clinton, Somalia, South Kordofan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria
February 21st, 2012
It’s a while since we have talked about our progress on this blog. But as part of preparing our Annual Report, we’ve been working out how many people have been helped by African-made goods sourced through Advance Aid. Through the emergency relief goods deployed to Dadaab camp in 2011 – emergency kits for World Vision International (WVI) and jerry cans for Catholic Relief Services (CRS) – Advance Aid assisted an estimated 29,400 people.
Kits for distribution at Dadaab
And with the goods already pre-positioned in Nairobi and other points around Kenya we have provided the means to assist a further 85,500 people in 2012. And as 2012 has only just begun, these numbers can only rise as additional orders are gained.
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Tags: Catholic Relief Services, Dadaab, emergency kits, jerry cans, Kenya, Local manufacturing, Nairobi, natural disasters, tarpaulins, World Vision
February 18th, 2012
As if East Africa didn’t have enough to worry about, unrecognised states that have themselves half broken away from failing states are now falling victim to internal squabbling and threats of secession.
So Reuters is reporting that the breakaway territory of Somaliland is battling its own secessionists who are, in effect, threatening to break away from a breakaway. Somaliland declared its independence from Somalia in 1991 but it is a sign of the weakness of the government in Mogadishu that this state of affairs – an independence declaration within the boundaries of a recognized state – has been allowed to go unchallenged for more than 20 years.
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Tags: Baroness Amos, OCHA, Puntland, Somalia, Somaliland
February 17th, 2012
Just over a year ago the whole world was fearful of war, death and displacement in Sudan. The referendum in early January had gone off remarkably smoothly and the South was set to secede, but still there was fear of war at any time between January and July – when South Sudan was due to become Africa’s newest state.
All of that went off pretty smoothly, with limited disruption. The world breathed a sigh of relief. But now the border tensions between Sudan and South Sudan, not to mention the troubled question of oil, has seen war break out, with heavy fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states that has driven more than 130,000 Sudanese refugees into Ethiopia and South Sudan.
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Tags: Blue Nile, Ethiopia, Famine, Sahel, Somalia, South Kordofan, South Sudan, Sudan, UN, UNHCR
