NEWSLETTER Week of June 20th 2017

Print this article Send this article Font size -16+

NEWSLETTER
Week of June 20th 2017
Subscribe | Visit our website

FOCUS ON

Sovereign Order of Malta | Conference
Armed conflicts have displaced 30 million minors worldwide

On International Children’s Day – celebrated June 1st – the Sovereign Order of Malta and the Embassy of the Czech Republic organized a conference in the Magistral Villa, Rome, for raising awareness on the drama of children who are victims of armed conflicts. This tragic and continually growing phenomenon has to date displaced 30 million children worldwide, exposed to every form of violence, abuse and exploitation. Overall, some 230 million children have had their lives devastated by armed conflicts.Opening the conference, the Order of Malta’s Grand Hospitaller Dominique de La Rochefoucauld-Montbel said that children were the first victims of wars and persecutions; as the crisis regions multiply the number of minors denied a future increases exponentially. One of the first effects of conflicts on children’s lives is the lack of access to education and healthcare, factors that induce many families to abandon their countries of origin for an uncertain future …

The humanitarian system is not just broke, but broken: recommendations for future humanitarian action

06/08/2017 by Professor Paul B. Spiegel. An unprecedented number of humanitarian emergencies of large magnitude and duration is causing the largest number of people in a generation to be forcibly displaced. Yet the existing humanitarian system was created for a different time and is no longer fit for purpose. On the basis of lessons learned from recent crises, particularly the Syrian conflict and the Ebola epidemic, I recommend four sets of actions that would make the humanitarian system relevant for future public health responses: operationalise the concept of centrality of protection; integrate affected persons into national health systems by addressing the humanitarian–development nexus;remake, do not simply revise, leadership and coordination;and make interventions efficient, effective, and sustainable. For these recommendations to be implemented, governments, UN agencies, multilateral organisations, and international non-governmental organisations will need to put aside differences and relinquish authority, influence, and funding.

Malteser International | Iraq: distribution of emergency kits for displaced people

06/06/2017. Malteser International starts distribution of life-saving Non-Food-Item kits to newly displaced persons in Tal Afar district.

On May 31st, Malteser International together with our partner organization Al Mustaqbal Foundation for Development (AMF) started with the first in a series of distributions of Non-Food-Item kits to an expected number of more than 1,500 newly displaced families in areas of Iraq’s Tal Afar district that have only recently become accessible to humanitarian assistance. The first distribution started on Wednesday May 31st, at the informal Tal Jarabia site, where over 1,000 families have temporarily found shelter only a few kilometers from the frontlines.

UNHCR 2016 GLOBAL REPORT

06/12/2017. UNHCR’s Global Report presents a global overview of the work carried out by UNHCR in a given year to protect and improve the lives of tens of millions of forcibly displaced people: refugees, internally displaced people, returnees, stateless people and others of concern.

It highlights that year’s achievements, as well as challenges faced by the organization and its partners in attempting to respond to multiple life-threatening crises and ever-growing humanitarian needs.

‘Enduring dilemmas’ of speaking out – Red Cross director

06/05/2017. Director of Operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Pierre Krahenbuhl, has told Stephen Sackur about the difficulties faced by humanitarian organisations when carrying out their roles in the midst of modern conflicts.

Asked about the dangers of the organisation remaining neutral, Mr Krahenbuhl said there are “enduring dilemmas” for the ICRC to find a balance between publicly denouncing a place of detention or an attack on people and preserving trust between all parties so they can continue to help people.

Safe havens: why cities are crucial to the global refugee crisis

06/06/2017 by Robert Muggah. The world is facing unprecedented levels of population displacement. At least 65 million people are on the move, including 21.3 million refugees and 31 million internally displaced persons since the beginning of 2016. That means that one in every 100 people globally is displaced from their home. The last time humanity came even close to these levels was during the Second World War. There is not just one global refugee crisis, but rather multiple overlapping crises. And it is not the West, but rather North Africa, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia that are especially affected. A new data visualization – EarthTime Lapse – captures the scale and distribution of these crises between 2001-2016. The visualization was recently exhibited at this year’s Annual Meeting in Davos and at TED2017

While it’s easy to be mesmerized by the sheer volume of population movement, it is important to recall that each dot on the screen represents remarkable stories of struggle and survival. What is missing from the visualization is also important: for every cross-border refugee, there are at least two other people who are internally displaced within their own countries as a result of war, terrorism, famine or other causes. What else does the platform reveal?

The Atlas of Environmental Migration

May 2017 by Dina Ionesco, Daria Mokhnacheva, François Gemenne. As climate change and extreme weather events increasingly threaten traditional landscapes and livelihoods of entire communities the need to study its impact on human migration and population displacement has never been greater.

The Atlas of Environmental Migration is the first illustrated publication mapping this complex phenomenon. It clarifies terminology and concepts, draws a typology of migration related to environment and climate change, describes the multiple factors at play, explains the challenges, and highlights the opportunities related to this phenomenon.

Through elaborate maps, diagrams, illustrations, case studies from all over the world based on the most updated international research findings, the Atlas guides the reader from the roots of environmental migration through to governance.

The “New Way of Working”: Bridging aid’s funding divide

06/09/2017 by Louise Redvers. A new UN-led reform policy aims to bridge the gap between humanitarian and development actors. Heard this tune before? Perhaps. But the so-called New Way of Working (NWOW) has, according to its champions, the potential to radically improve how emergency relief programmes are designed and delivered.

Proponents see it as a way to unlock new sources of funding for humanitarian response from multilateral sources who have previously stayed out of crisis settings, for example the World Bank. It is also being tied to new ways of supporting Syrian refugees and host countries, such as the “compacts” designed for Lebanon and Jordan.

AB Gallagher on Holy See’s action to protect Christians and other minorities

05/22/2017. The Holy See’s ‘foreign minister’, Archbishop Paul Gallagher has highlighted the need to protect Christians and other religious minorities facing persecution in different parts of the globe.

The words of the Secretary for Relations with States came on Saturday during an international meeting organised by the ‘Centesimus Annus pro Pontifice’ Foundation.

Participants at the meeting also met with Pope Francis in the Vatican on Saturday morning.

Surveillance for good? Facebook tracks disaster victims

06/08/2017 by Kristy Siegfried.

In the wake of a disaster or even a sudden crisis like last weekend’s extremist attacks on London Bridge, the first place many of us turn for information and reassurance about the safety of our loved ones is social media. While cell phone towers can quickly become overwhelmed for voice calls, it’s often still possible to update your Facebook status or mark yourself as “safe” using Facebook’s Safety Check feature.

But until now, that information has been of little use to those trying to respond. Other than using hashtags to trawl through thousands of individual Twitter and Facebook posts, there has been no way to use social media to rapidly form an accurate picture of where a disaster has hit, how many people have been affected, and where they are fleeing to.