Global overview

The International Emergencies and Conflict Team continues to strengthen its work on emergency response, disaster risk reduction (DRR) and conflict.

Asia

* denotes SCP funding

The first half of 2008 saw Asia hit by two severe disasters – the devastating Cyclone Nargis* in Myanmar and the earthquake in China – both of which prompted a speedy and efficient ActionAid response. Country programmes also worked together with IECT on a number of other emergencies including the food crisis in Mizoram*, India, and heavy snow and freezing weather in Afghanistan*, swiftly followed by drought.

Disaster preparedness programmes funded by the EU were consolidated in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Cambodia. A government award for our Disaster Risk Reduction through Schools programme in Cambodia served as testament to our success in this area. Policy work remains strong across the Asia region, a particular highlight being the inclusion of disaster risk reduction work in the Nepalese school curriculum, a result of concerted policy efforts by the AA Nepal Country Programme.

As part of IECT’s ongoing emergencies training programme*, colleagues from Pakistan and Vietnam country programmes participated in week-long training programmes to bolster their capacity to engage in future disasters and respond quickly and effectively.

Afghanistan

Bangladesh

China

India

Myanmar

Nepal

Pakistan

Sri Lanka

Vietnam

Africa

* denotes SCP funding

During the first half of 2008, Africa has been hit by a number of large-scale emergencies. Floods and heavy rains affected Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe during January and February, whilst drought has more recently struck Ethiopia, Kenya and Somaliland.

ActionAid has also been actively involved in responding to a range of humanitarian disasters brought on by conflict across the continent. In Kenya we worked with people affected by the post-election violence in January, and in Cameroon we assisted refuges displaced by conflict in Chad. Our ongoing work on long-term conflict in DRC continues. More recently we have faced challenges working with people displaced by violence in the run up to the presidential elections in Zimbabwe, and people affected by xenophobic violence in South Africa. Our conflict work across these countries has incorporated provision of basic essentials (food, shelter, medicines), peace-building initiatives, livelihoods restoration, protection of women and girls, and psychosocial support.

The West Africa Youth and Conflict Forum held in Nigeria in January brought together key representatives from AA, partners, and sub regional institutions to develop plans and a sub regional strategy on young people and their involvement in conflict.

IECT’s Emergencies Training* "From the Bicycle Lane to the Expressway" was rolled out across a number of African countries, including Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria and Somaliland. The training aims to bolster the fundraising capacity of country programmes in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The training’s success was reflected by a UK Government grant awarded to AA Ghana and CARE as a result of emergency plans drawn up and finalized during the training. The grant will fund a project to implement livelihood support activities and develop disaster preparedness plans in 1000 flood-affected communities in 10 districts of the Northern, Upper West, and Upper East regions of Ghana.

* denotes SCP funding

Fighting between government soldiers and rebels in the Chadian capital N’Djamena in February 2008 lead to 10,000 civilians fleeing into refugee camps in Cameroon. With funding from IECT’s Strategic Crisis Programme*, UNICEF and the British High Commission of Cameroon, AA Cameroon responded immediately to improve the living conditions for refugees in the key areas of health and nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, child protection and education. We provided food and other items (kettles, soap) to refugees in the Maltam areas.

We also worked to ensure the provision of education and recreational activities for refugee children, recruiting and training 30 teachers. We organised workshops on vocational training and violence against girls, and undertook advocacy and protection work (including psychosocial support for vulnerable children).

* denotes SCP funding

In February, an earthquake hit south Kivu province, destroying a number of houses and leaving people without shelter. ActionAid DRC initiated a two-phased emergency response to provide essential items such as pots, plastic basins and paraffin lamps, and to address the psychosocial needs of those affected.

Meanwhile, ongoing conflict in DRC continues to force people into IDP camps and prevent those already displaced from returning to their homes. ActionAid DRC initiated a number of community-based interventions* in eleven camps around Goma, aiming to meet the basic humanitarian needs of those displaced, to address the psychosocial care issues of survivors of violence against women and to ensure protection, linkages and networking with key stakeholders.

To date our programmes have reached nearly 20,000 displaced families – a total of 70,000 people. In the Mugunga II camp we provided 6,000 jerry cans to improve people’s access to water. Mawaza Nyiragahinda, who received a jerry can, noted that "Now it’s about three months I have been in this camp and I was using a small pan to draw water. I’m so happy today because I can now have enough water, even for shower".

We distributed sanitary kits to 12,000 women and adolescents girls, and provided over 3,000 mattresses and 60,000 items of underwear to people in the Mugunga I and II, Bulengo and Bhuhimba camps. We also initiated a series of street dramas to educate women and girls on sexual violence and to strengthen linkages between AA DRC’s mainstream Women’s Rights-Violence Against Women programme and our IDP emergency programme. A number of IDP volunteers have been trained to work on issues regarding violence against women and psychosocial care. Sharing centres have been built, offering women a space to speak about issues that affect them and providing literacy programmes and vocational training in a variety of income-generating activities.

ActionAid DRC staff participated in security training workshops to build their capacity for working in conflict environments and to ensure increased staff safety.

* denotes SCP funding

During the first half of 2008 AA Ethiopia has been engaged in a number of emergency and conflict initiatives. In the Benshangul Gumuz region (Kamashi development area) we have been working with people displaced by conflict, offering logistics support to transport people to resettlement camps, and providing food, utensils and clothes.

Ethiopia has also been hit hard by severe droughts which have resulted in widespread food and water shortages*. In Yabello we responded to the failure of the February/March ‘belg’ rains by assisting with water trucking and rationing. We have also distributed water tankers and maintained water sources such as ponds. In Kombolcha (a long term AA Ethiopia development area), severe food shortages, malnutrition and army worm (African moth) infestations have left thousands in need of basic essentials. AA Ethiopia has assisted 939 severely malnourished people (710 children and 229 mothers) and helped 1850 households to replant crops destroyed by the army worm.

Click here for a case study from Ethiopia

* denotes SCP funding

AA Ghana’s Disaster Risk Reduction through Schools project continues apace. The project is part of a wider UK Government-funded programme operating in 7 countries. In the Upper East region we worked with five communities to carry out Participatory Vulnerability Analysis exercises to identify local hazards and empower people to advocate for more efficient responses to disasters from authorities.

Ethnic conflict in Bakwu in Upper East region and tensions in the northern region Dagbon continue. AA Ghana participated in a meeting of several organizations working on the Bakwu conflict and helped created a comprehensive framework for conflict transformation.

A CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) funded project was implemented to prevent acute malnutrition and contribute to environmental sustainability in communities recovering from flood disaster. Assistance provided through the project included 4 metric tons of food, 800kg of seed and farm implements to poor people including 3,867 women and children out of the 5,540 in the 7 targeted districts in northern Ghana.

A four day emergencies ("Bicycle") training* was held to build the emergency response capacity of AA Ghana staff. The training saw the Country Programme finalise their EARARM (Emergencies Alert Review and Response Mechanism - a document detailing hazards affecting the country and outlines of preparedness and response plans) and broaden their knowledge on ECHO fundraising proposals. The EARARM document went on to help mobilise a grant from the UK Government for a project to implement livelihood support activities (providing revolving funds of livestock, restoring water sources, providing training on good soil management practices) and develop disaster preparedness plans in 1000 flood-affected communities in 10 districts of the Northern, Upper West, and Upper East regions of Ghana.

Click here for case studies from Ghana

* denotes SCP funding

Violence triggered by the contested presidential election result in January this year killed over 1000 people and forced over half a million to flee their homes. ActionAid Kenya responded immediately* in the worst affected areas in Nairobi, Rift Valley, North Eastern, Western and Coast Regions. We established four crisis management centres in Nairobi to provide trauma counselling and first aid and medical services to victims of sexual violence. In the Rift Valley we provided mobile toilets and water purification tablets to people in IDP camps, whilst also supplying food, sanitary towels and soap. Other activities included supporting the construction of three kitchens at the Nakuru Showground IDP camp, supplying agricultural seeds and tools, and distributing cash grants. Our policy work focused on peace-building initiatives, particularly with young people, to call for an end to the violence.

Failed rains and rising food prices pushed millions in Kenya to the brink of survival in June and July this year. With a grant of £30,000 from IECT’s Strategic Crisis Programme AA Kenya is trucking in supplies of water to affected areas, as well as providing food and nutritional supplements for children under 5*.

Click here for a case study from Kenya

* denotes SCP funding

Extensive crop failure resulting from the worst drought in 30 years caused severe food insecurity* and left an estimated 400,000 to 550,000 people requiring immediate humanitarian assistance in August last year. AA Lesotho responded in two of the affected districts, Thaba Tseka and Leribe, providing food packs comprising spinach, mustard, carrots, rape and onions, along with gardening tools including spades and watering cans, to 800 households. We also provided micro-irrigation and capacity-building support to farmers and worked with affected communities to strengthen their resistance to future droughts.

AA Lesotho is currently in the process of proposing a new Development Area, Sehonghong, an area prone to disasters including both heavy snow and drought. In May, key stakeholders from the communities in the Sehonghong area attended an AA Lesotho community-based early warning system training aimed at encouraging adaptation initiatives to reduce the impact of disasters brought about by climate change. Country programme staff also developed an EARARM (Emergencies Alert Review and Response Mechanism - a document detailing hazards affecting the country and outlines of preparedness and response plans) for use when the new DA becomes operational.

Click here for a case study from Lesotho

* denotes SCP funding

The 2007/8 rainy season saw Malawi lashed by heavy storms, with over 150,000 people affected by resulting flooding*. Nsanje region, one of AA Malawi’s project regions, was badly affected. AA Malawi worked with local partners to prioritise food provision, especially for displaced families. A total of almost 400 households were supplied with flour, cooking oil, sugar, beans, fortified porridge flour and salt.

AA Malawi continues work on Disaster Risk Reduction and climate change. In February 2008 we were selected to chair the Malawi Climate Change Network, a group that brings together organizations to develop initiatives for addressing both the immediate impacts of climate change and the need to lobby developed countries for emissions reductions. The network purposes to strengthen capacity of CSOs and NGOs in Malawi to mainstream DRR to enable communities to cope better with climate change.

AA Malawi staff took part in emergencies training facilitated by IECT in March this year. The workshop was successful in achieving a shift in focus on AA Malawi’s emergencies work to encourage longer term planning and the setting aside Country Programme resources for work on disasters.

* denotes SCP funding

During the first half of 2008 AA Nigeria followed up on action plans generated from a number of PVA (Participatory Vulnerability Analysis) exercises conducted in Bayelsa and Ondo States. The focal communities of Iju, Lipanu, Ute-Asolo (Ondo), Biseni, Odi and Oloibiri (Bayelsa) were each provided with 200000 Naira (GBP 850) in seed support for the implementation of their Community Action Plans.

Work on disaster mapping also continues through the EARARM (Emergencies Alert Review and Response Mechanism) exercise. This document enables Country Programmes to analyse hazards affecting the country and outline preparedness and response plans. AA Nigeria has recently updated the country’s EARARM document, focusing specifically on floods, drought, avian flu and conflict. Country Programme staff also visited the local governments of the Lagos, Plateau and Jigawa States to advocate for the incorporation of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) work into local authority plans and policies.

AA Nigeria has also published a number of documents and reports relating to Human Security in emergencies and conflict. These include Wayward Waters - Studies on Climate Change and Urban Flooding in Lagos, Nigeria; Ablaze for Oil - Studies on the Niger Delta Conflict; Middle Belt, Not Killing Belt - Studies on the Nigeria’s Middle Belt Conflict, and Conflict & Niger Delta Reporting: A Tool Kit: A guide for Journalists and other media workers on Conflict Reporting.

In May this year, AA Nigeria Country Programme participated in Emergencies Training* "From the Bicycle Lane to the Expressway", facilitated by IECT. The training forms part of the process of scaling up work on emergencies and emergency response in the country. Participants attended sessions on a number of issues, including defining emergency concepts, AA emergency response practices, Early Response mechanisms, the rights-based approach to emergency response and ECHO proposal writing.

Click here for a case study from Nigeria

* denotes SCP funding

Delayed and poor rains, escalating food prices, deteriorating terms of trade of livestock to commonly consumed food items and a sharp decrease in the value of the local currency in some parts of the country has led to food insecurity and livestock stress for the population.

Failure of rainfall in the last Deyr (Sep. to Nov.) season and delayed Gu’ (Mar. to May) rains subjected hundreds of thousands of pastoralists and their livestock to severe water shortages in March this year. Using a grant of £18,500 from the Strategic Crisis Programme*, topped up with AA Somaliland funds, we deepened 5 shallow wells in two communities of the Togdheer region to increase water yield, and trucked water to nearly 3,500 households suffering from water shortages in the Togdheer and Sanaag regions. We also rehabilitated four shallow wells and three berkads (underground water cisterns) to enable seven communities to harvest rainwater.

In June 2008 funding was secured from a UK trust to implement a project respond to the immediate food requirements of pregnant and breastfeeding women and children in refugee camps in Burao, Todgheer regions, for a period of 3 months. New internally displaced populations have built up in this area as a result of an acute food and livelihood crisis experienced throughout the country. The project aims to prevent severe malnutrition in 250 children under 5 and pregnant and breastfeeding women, and thus reduce the probability of maternal death, low birth weight and impaired infant/foetal development.

On the policy side, AA Somaliland is working with Oxfam NOVIB (Oxfam Netherlands) on the creation of an advocacy network for organizations working on women’s rights, human rights and child protection. The aim is that this will become a Somali-wide advocacy and civil society network.

Click here for a case study from Somaliland

* denotes SCP funding

Many major cities in South Africa were hit by xenophobic violence* following rising tension over competition for jobs. Attacks left 66 people dead and forced over 55,000 into refugee camps. Following rapid assessments conducted by AA South Africa and IECT, we mobilised community volunteers to pack items including blankets, sanitary pads for women and girls, washing bowls and soap for 2000 families in three camps around Gauteng province.

We also organised social movement marches to promote anti-xenophobia and call for an end to the violence. AA South Africa and its partners have designed a response framework that aims to counter further xenophobic attacks in the worst hit Gauteng province which will include workshops on diversity and counter xenophobia training.

* denotes SCP funding

Post-election violence in Kenya at the beginning of 2008 forced over 10,000 people to flee into neighbouring Uganda, where they found themselves living in camps or with Ugandan host families. The situation was further compounded by violence that erupted in the Mt. Elgon district on the Kenya-Uganda border due to activities of a militia outfit; the Saboat Land Defence Forces. With GBP 25,000 funding from the Strategic Crisis Programme (SCP)*, ActionAid Uganda began work in the Kapchorwa and Bukwo districts, targeting 3,100 people, including over 1000 children. We provided maize meal, beans, porridge flour, cooking oil, sanitary pads and mosquito nets to the most vulnerable and organised advocacy meetings to lobby for more aid and encourage leaders to find lasting solutions to the conflict. This included facilitating District leaders and Cross-border MP (Kenya and Uganda) meetings which resulted in the formulation of action plans for meaningful peaceful resolution to the conflict.

ActionAid Uganda also undertook significant conflict-related work during the first half of 2008. Staff engaged in a conflict analysis training and field work to assess the situation of around 25,000 people left homeless/landless as a result of the ongoing land conflict with the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). We also supported 1,189 returnees to resettle in their homes and re-establish their livelihoods after four decades of insecurity and conflict resulting from cattle-rustling in Ngenge sub-county, Kapchorwa district. ActionAid provided machetes and hoes to 200 of these households to facilitate food security activities and distributed maize and bean seeds. We also began construction of a health unit for returnees, and plans are in place to build a primary school to meet the needs of child returnees.

"Life is beginning to return to normal. When the construction of the health unit and school is completed we shall be able to lead lives like our friends" commented Joyce Chemo, a resident of Girki Resettlment camp. To reduce the risk of the conflict resurging, we continue peace-building and conflict resolution activities between the two formerly warring communities of the Sabiny and Pokot.

Mr Ayeba, a councillor with Griki Parish, said "We are grateful to ActionAid. The work they are doing is increasing value to this area. We see more and more people returning because they see this place has a future. One year ago, there was no road. Now we see government has opened up the road. We hope more social services can be mad available to meet the people’s basic needs and reduce on their suffering."

In a separate initiative, Country Programme staff have also been working to promote the right to education for girls caught up in conflict situations in the Katakwi district, establishing a number of community committees through which children can document cases of rights abuses.

* denotes SCP funding

Floods Floods which swept a number of Southern African countries in the first months of 2008 affected almost 35,000 people in Zambia alone. With support from the Strategic Crisis Programme*, a Programme Coordintor was deployed from ActionAid Sri Lanka as part of the EFast (Emergency First Action Support Team) roster to assist with a rapid assessment of the situation and implement response activities. ActionAid’s immediate response* involved distribution of food and other items to a total of 9,864 people, as well as awareness-raising activities on protection of the rights of women and children. AA Zambia also participated in UN coordination meetings and established a partnership with UNICEF to raise awareness of women and children’s issues in the temporary resettlement camps.

A long delay in announcing the winner of the 29th March presidential election gave rise to increased tension and violence throughout the country. Amid an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, ActionAid initiated peace-building and advocacy activities and worked with partners to document individual cases of violence. .
On 4th June 2008, the Government of Zimbabwe suspended all field operations of NGOs and other CSOs until further notice. This had a significant impact on our work at the operational, programming and fundraising levels. AA Zimbabwe staff participated in a training course in Zambia in June to build their capacity for working in and on conflict.

Against a background of tension, food insecurity and rising inflation, AA Zimbabwe has joined a Technical Working Group of NGOs, coordinated by NANGO (National Association for NGOs in Zimbabwe) which aims to map solutions going forward.

 

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