Armed men in hospitals, harassing patients; health facilities used to identify and apprehend enemies; clinics abandoned and hospitals destroyed. Overwhelmed emergency services, where medical staff are in terror of reprisals for having provided care for a patient; ambulances blocked from accessing the wounded, or held up for hours at checkpoints; entrenched animosities and divisions denying certain groups of people the medical assistance they need.

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Executive Summary

(Extract)

Wheat and rice prices mostly fall around the region

Strong production generally kept domestic prices around the region stable or drove them slightly down for wheat, wheat flour and rice, except in India and Myanmar where government procurement programmes pushed prices higher. Overall, however, prices were mostly higher than at the same time last year, according to FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS).

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Strong biosecurity measures needed to contain bird flu Implementing strong biosecurity measures coupled with good hygiene are required to contain the spread of the H7N9 strain of avian influenza virus, Hiroyuki Konuma, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific told a press conference in Bangkok on April 11. The virus had infected 82 people and killed 17 in China by April 19.

Food security levels are generally better than a year earlier in East Africa and the Sahel, with most areas facing either IPC phase 1 ‘minimal’ or phase 2 ‘stressed’ conditions, thanks to favorable agro-climatic conditions in 2012.

98% of all displacement in 2012 was related to climate- and weather-related events, with flood disasters in India and Nigeria accounting for 41% of global displacement in 2012.

Some critics say that ending polio has become Bill Gates' "white whale." Why not just settle for the huge drop in polio cases that we've seen over the past decade and then spend money on other things that kill so many more kids, like diarrhea and malnutrition?

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This Manual is a guide for those tasked with responding to post-disaster housing reconstruction needs. It details the various processes, tasks, and interventions involved in the design and management of such programs. It uses Pakistan’s post-earthquake Rural Housing Reconstruction Program (RHRP) as a case study, and draws on the experience and lessons from that to derive recommendations for future post-disaster housing reconstruction programs.

Presentation at the Transitions and Solutions Roundtable, organized by UNHCR and UNDP, Amsterdam, April 18-19, 2013.