Updates

Your gateway to all content to date. Search and/or drill down with filters to narrow down the content.

3,741 updates found
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Fuerzas Armadas y Acción Humanitaria: Debates y Propuestos

Report
— Instituto de Estudios sobre Conflictos y Acción Humanitaria
Download PDF (1.24 MB)
El tema de estudio se ha ido convirtiendo en los últimos años en una cuestión objeto de polmicas e interpretaciones contrapuestas y por ello este informe trata de analizarlo en profundidad proponiendo
algunas iniciativas para el caso español.

El documento se estructura del siguiente modo. Tras una introducción que contextualiza y sitúa el problema, el segundo capítulo analiza el origen de la relación de las fuerzas armadas con las cuestiones humanitarias y el cómo ha ido evolucionando a lo largo de los tiempos hasta llegar a una situación actual en la que se plantean nuevos
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Accountability and Peace Agreements - Mapping Trends from 1980 to 2006

Report
— Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue
Download PDF (314.04 KB)
The Negotiating Justice project was launched in October 2005. Its aim is to improve the practice of mediators, mediation teams and others involved in peace processes by strengthening their understanding of the mechanisms that have been incorporated in peace agreements in an effort to achieve greater justice. This report is part of that project. It analyses peace processes since 1980 and maps the ways in which peace agreements have incorporated mechanisms for dealing with justice issues.

The findings presented in this report
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Food Assistance Programming in the Context of HIV

Report
— World Food Programme
Download PDF (1.55 MB)
There is increased acknowledgment in the development community of the links between food insecurity and HIV, and the corresponding need to integrate food and nutritional support into a comprehensive response to the epidemic. In areas of high HIV prevalence, many food assistance agencies have recognized the need to adjust conventional food assistance interventions to respond to vulnerabilities related to HIV's impact on individuals, households and communities.

Efforts to effectively respond to food insecurity and HIV are hindered by the lack of both documented, sector-based
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Real Time Evaluation of UNHCR's IDP Operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Report
— UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Download PDF (198.26 KB)
In January 2007 UNHCR issued a document entitled 'Policy Framework and Implementation Strategy: UNHCR's role in support of an enhanced humanitarian response to situations of internal displacement. The primary purpose of this document was to set out the key considerations and principles guiding UNHCR's engagement with IDPs in the context of the UN's humanitarian reform process, and in particular, within the new institutional arrangements known as the 'cluster approach'. This evaluation report is one of a series which seeks to analyse UNHCR's
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Determining the Best Interests of Unaccompanied and Separated Children: Lessons from Guinea

Report
— International Rescue Committee
Download PDF (598.66 KB)
"Determing the Best Interests of Unaccompanied and Separated Children: Lessons from Guinea" provides some practical recommendations for the establishment and implementation of Best Interest Determinations (BID) mechanisms for separated children, based on the BID process in Guinea for Sierra Leonean separated children.

In most refugee situations the majority of separated and unaccompanied children are reunified with their families. However, a number of children always remain for whom tracing is unsuccessful
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Redesigning the ReliefWeb: The Redesign Process of the Humanitarian Community's Main Information Management System Provides a Model and Lessons for Others Contemplating a Website Redesign.

Report
— Information Management Journal
Download PDF (526.81 KB)
By Sebastian Naidoo, Managing Editor, ReliefWeb
At the Core this article:

- Provides an overview of the importance of systematized and timely information management for humanitarian response

- Examines the process of "mental modeling" as a user-centric device for redesigning the ReliefWeb system

- Identifies best practices and lessons learned from the site's redesign
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
CRED Crunch Newsletter - Sep 2007

Report
— Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters
Download PDF (239.78 KB)
During the last three months the world, once again, has been heavily affected by major natural disasters. The exceptional floods, particularly devastating fires and hurricanes in July and August are still fresh in our minds.

Since EM-DAT is not a day-to-day database and the process of data validation and quality control remains lengthy, we would like to remind you that the 2007 first semester figures presented in this issue only represent a first outline which is subject to change in the future.

The 2007 first semester figures show
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Central Emergency Response Fund: Interim Review

Report
— UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Download PDF (523.2 KB)
The report reflects the results of an independent interim review of the grant component of the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) carried out by two international consultants between March and July 2007. The purpose of the review was to explore how the CERF, as a humanitarian financing tool, is contributing towards effectively promoting a more timely, predictable, equitable, effective and accountable humanitarian response.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:

To learn more about OCHA's activities, please visit http://unocha.org/.

Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
After the Wave: A Pilot Project to Develop Mental Health Services in Ampara District, Sri Lanka Post-Tsunami

Report
— Journal of Humanitarian Assistance
Download PDF (636.71 KB)
Of the many countries hit by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka was also one of the worst affected. Forty-thousand people were killed, many were severely injured, and approximately one in every thirty Sri Lankans lost their homes. After the tsunami, mental health needs in Sri Lanka increased due to: a) exposure to extreme stressors and b) increased poverty. Exposure to extreme stressors and increased poverty after mass disasters are risk factors for social and mental health problems, including common mental health disorders. WHO predicts that 5-10% of people
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Towards Effective Programming for WASH in Schools - A Manual on Scaling up Programmes for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Schools

Report
— International Rescue Committee
Download PDF (2.47 MB)
This manual is an update of the earlier, popular manual entitled "Towards Better Programming: A manual on school sanitation and hygiene education", published by UNICEF and the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre in 1998. It contains many examples, most of which are drawn from a UNICEF-IRC pilot study for School Sanitation and Hygiene Education (SSHE) carried out in six countries (Burkina Faso, Colombia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and Zambia). This pilot programme took place from 1999-2003, with a post-intervention assessment in 2006.
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Defusing Disaster Reducing the Risk: Calamity is Unnatural

Report
— IFRC
Download PDF (340.98 KB)
Disaster is unnatural and risk reduction measures diminish the odds of it occurring by doing everything possible before the event to protect life, limit damage and strengthen a vulnerable community's ability to bounce back quickly from adversity. The solutions may lie in simple things like educating children on what to do in emergencies, or planting trees on unstable hillsides to stop those releasing landslides. The more complex include early warning systems, coastal protection, earthquake-safe construction and urban planning.

Whatever they are, thousands of lives
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Evaluation of WFP's Strengthening Emergency Needs Assessment Implementation Plan

Report
— World Food Programme
Download PDF (923.29 KB)
In 2004, WFP formulated a three-year Strengthening Emergency Needs Assessment Implementation Plan to improve needs assessments. This evaluation reviews the first two years of implementation.

The conclusion is that the initiative is appropriate, if ambitious. In conjunction with work elsewhere in WFP, it has enhanced needs assessment capacities and improved the quality and credibility of assessments. It has quickly improved institutional transparency and accountability and demonstrated the importance of improved analysis
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Implementation of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (A/62/320)

Report
— UN General Assembly
Download PDF (102.11 KB)
The number of disasters and the scale of their impacts continue to grow, driven largely by the increasing vulnerability to natural hazards, but also by the effects of climate change, threatening the lives and livelihoods of ever more millions of people and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. There is growing urgency to increase efforts to implement the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters. The world is not on track to achieve the aim of a substantive reduction in disaster losses by 2015.
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Dealing with the Past in Post-Conflict Societies: Ten Years after the Peace Accords in Guatemala and Bosnia - Herzegovina, Swisspeace Annual Conference 2006

Report
— Swiss Peace Foundation
Download PDF (870.87 KB)
Dealing with a legacy of human rights violations is one of the most difficult challenges facing any society in the aftermath of violent conflict. A decade after internationally mediated peace agreements ended wars in Guatemala and Bosnia and Herzegovina, both countries continue to struggle with a culture of impunity and violence. What lessons can be learned about the effectiveness of transitional justice mechanisms in dealing with the past? Why set up truth commissions in one context and tribunals in another? How does a society learn to live with the memory of genocide
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Real Time Evaluation of UNHCR's IDP Operation in Somalia

Report
— UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Download PDF (163.21 KB)
This real-time evaluation (RTE) report is one in a series which seeks to analyze and assess UNHCR's initial experience in the implementation of the Cluster Approach, with the aim of identifying lessons learned and effective practices which may be drawn upon as that approach is rolled out to other ongoing humanitarian emergencies. The evaluation process also provided an early opportunity to review field operations in the light of the IDP Policy Framework referred to above, together with UNHCR's policy paper on "The Protection of IDPs and the Role of UNHCR",
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
IOM Research Compendium 2005-2007

Report
— International Organization for Migration
Download PDF (346.94 KB)
The IOM Research Compendium is an organization-wide compilation of research projects as well as projects and programmes with research component. It contains over 100 projects managed by IOM field missions and IOM headquarters undertaken during 2005 and 2006 (including projects that are under development for 2007), covering more than 35 different thematic areas.

The purpose of this compendium is to provide an overview of current research activities conducted through various IOM projects. It is also intended as a working tool for external and internal
International Organization for Migration:

Copyright © IOM. All rights reserved.

Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Feinstein International Center: 2007 Annual Report

Report
— Tufts University
Download PDF (764.12 KB)
The year 2006/7 has been one of consolidation for the Feinstein International Center after major changes were implemented in the preceding year.

Our partnerships with African universities and research groups continue, as do those with western aid agencies. We have started a new partnership with Transparency International on a research program into the prevalence and effects of corruption in the humanitarian aid business.

Throughout the year, Center faculty have been sought out by UN agencies, NGOs, and government aid departments
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
The Eight Point Agenda: Practical, Positive Outcomes for Girls and Women in Crisis

Report
— UN Development Programme
Download PDF (45.4 KB)
The Agenda resulted from a Gender Experts Meeting and Strategy Session at the London School of Economics, convened by the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery in September 2006. The event brought together a diverse mix of academicians, development practitioners, representatives from NGOs and other UNDP partners. During the meeting, UNDP staff worked with experts to agree on the most appropriate approach for the Bureau to make a significant contribution to gender equality.
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
Addressing Internal Displacement in Peace Processes, Peace Agreements and Peace-Building

Report
— Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement
Download PDF (303.35 KB)
The aim of this report is to consider how the issue of internal displacement can best be integrated into peace processes, peace agreements and peace-building.

Internally displaced persons have rights grounded in international human rights law and international humanitarian law; and states in post-conflict situations have an obligation to protect those rights.

Resolving displacement is inextricably linked with achieving peace, especially where the scale of displacement is significant. Helping displaced populations to return and reintegrate
Toggle text
01 Sep 2007

World
The Road From Oslo: Emerging International Efforts on Cluster Munitions

Report
— Acronym Institute
Download PDF (210.63 KB)
A detailed analysis of recent progress in raising awareness of the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions and getting multilateral negotiations underway on a prohibition treaty in the Oslo Process, and talks in the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

Informing humanitarians worldwide.

A service provided by OCHA

ReliefWeb has been the leading online source for reliable and timely humanitarian information on global crises and disasters since 1996.
Learn more about ReliefWeb

From the Blog

Do you need access to ReliefWeb on your smartphone?

It’s official, ReliefWeb Mobile is ready to go. After months of conceptualising, developing and testing, ReliefWeb Mobile is our first “ Labs ” project to graduate into a ready-to-use mobile...

Connect With ReliefWeb

Related Sites

Submit Content

Share information through ReliefWeb to better inform humanitarians worldwide.

How to submit content

Tools