It is widely understood that the food insecurity crisis in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is one of the world’s fastest growing and most neglected crises. It lacks sufficient global focus, resources and urgency. As in so many crises, women and girls are disproportionately affected and shoulder t...he consequences of protracted neglect, with unconscionable impacts on their safety, life chances and agency.
Gaining a holistic view of the gendered drivers, risks and impacts of food insecurity in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is difficult. This is due to a lack of data and prioritization, and the large geographical and socioeconomic terrain covered by both regions. However, what we do know about this crisis is more than enough to urgently address the needs of women and girls.
An OCHA discussion paper on this topic (which will be published imminently, and from which this policy brief is drawn) found that there is:
A strong risk of profound regression in gender equality gains made to date in the countries of concern, including on education, sexual and reproductive health, and the economic independence of women and girls (with knock-on effects on broader humanitarian and development outcomes).
An increasing challenge to reverse what must be recognized as a protracted and growing gender-based violence (GBV) emergency in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.
The food insecurity crisis in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is protracted, multidimensional and highly gendered, with spiralling impacts on gender equality and food security outcomes. It is driven by interwoven and overlapping factors, including climate change, political instability, conflict, socioeconomic conditions, migration and displacement and, more recently, COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. Interlinked with these factors are gendered structural drivers of food insecurity, including deeply entrenched gender inequalities and harmful social norms. Gendered risks and impacts of food insecurity include alarming limitations on access to education, sexual and reproductive health rights, women’s agency and participation, and dramatic increases in different existing forms of GBV and the emergence of new ones. Recognition of such gendered dimensions of food insecurity and of the need for a multisectoral approach in the response is key to addressing the crisis, along-side sustained commitment and adequate allocation of resources. This policy brief draws out key findings from the OCHA discussion paper on this topic, which includes a desk review of studies, assessments and reports, and interviews with local women’s organizations on the front lines of the food insecurity crisis in communities across both regions.
Below are the most pressing gendered drivers, risks and impacts of food insecurity (not in order of priority), as well as key gaps in the current humanitarian response to food insecurity, and recommendations to take forward.
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After introducing Ethiopia's WASH sector challenges and trends, the plan describes IRC Ethiopia's vision and strategy which draws from IRC and Water For People's joint framework - Destination 2030. It then details the organisational changes and business development needed to implement the strategic ...plan. Detailed targets are provided in the annexes.
At IRC, we believe that turning on a working tap should not be a surprise or cause for celebration. We believe in a world where water, sanitation and hygiene services are fundamental utilities that everyone is able to take for granted. For good.
We face a complex challenge. Every year, thousands of projects within and beyond the WASH sector fail – the result of short-term targets and interventions, at the cost of longterm service solutions.
This leaves around a third of the world’s poorest people without access to the most basic of human rights, and leads directly to economic, social and health problems on a global scale. IRC exists to continually challenge and shape the established practices of the WASH sector.
Through collaboration and the active application of our expertise, we work with governments, service providers and international organisations to deliver systems and services that are truly built to last.
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This valuable and timely guidebook represents an innovative contribution to enhancing quality education through textbooks. It will change the way textbook authors, publishers and educators, as well as governments of the United Nations Member States, see the poten...tial of educational media at a time of growing violent extremism, changing notions of national identity, increasingly globalized and diverse communities, and environmental destruction. The need for education that promotes peace, social justice and global citizenship has become more urgent in a world of greater uncertainty. This guidebook builds on the momentum of Agenda 2030, providing a toolkit to enable textbook authors to place ESD at the core of their subjects in ways that are at once practical for them and interesting and relevant to the students.
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WiderNet@UNC and the WiderNet Project have established the Ebola Emergency Response Library initiative to create a pocket library for people, especially local health care workers in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, responding to the Ebola crisis in Africa.
They are collecting high-quality digit...al resources for everyone from physicians and researchers to families, teachers, media outlets, social workers, and school children.
While this collection is available on the World Wide Web for those who have Internet access, the resources can be distributed on micro chips for use in smartphones, tablets, and laptops in places that lack internet access. The chips can be freely copied so that the information spreads faster than the disease.
The Internet version of the Ebola Pocket Library can be viewed at:
http://www.widernet.org/portals/ebola
The downloadable version can be found here:
Download the Ebola Pocket Library
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BMC Health Services Research 14(1):42 · January 2014
The objective of this international comparative study is to describe and compare the mental health policies in seven countries of Eastern Europe that share their common communist history: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland..., Romania, and Slovakia.
The burden of totalitarian history still influences many areas of social and economic life, which also has to be taken into account in mental health policy. We may observe that after twenty years of health reforms and reforms of health reforms, the transition of the mental health systems still continues. In spite of many reform efforts in the past, a balance of community and hospital mental health services has not been achieved in this part of the world yet.
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As the Convention of the Rights of Children recognizes, children are human beings with a distinct set of rights, and not the passive objects of care and charity. They deserve to be full participants in society, and to live lives free of poverty. But for children, living in poverty is particularly im...pactful. The foundations for life are built in childhood. In the early part of our lives, our bodies and brains develop their capacities to function and interact with the world. We learn the social skills we need to fit into society, and acquire the human capital necessary to earn a living, support a family, and to fully take part in the life of our community Poverty can stunt this development. So can the onset of a disability. As the World Report on Disability (WHO/World Bank 2011) points out, people with disabilities are all too often excluded from the economic and social lives of their community. And the interaction between disability and poverty has the potential to develop a vicious circle that can greatly limit life opportunities.
Working Paper Series: No. 25
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The arrival of COVID-19 in Afghanistan has brought heartache to millions of people who are now battling a deadly pandemic while simultaneously fighting for their survival amid poverty, disaster and war. Over my three years as Humanitarian Coordinator, I have marvelled at the resilience of the people... of this country to cope with the hardships of life in the world’s deadliest conflict – but even this remarkable strength is now being tested by the health, social and economic consequences of COVID-19. The virus is spreading across the country with frightening speed. Every province is now impacted, and people are understandably frightened.
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The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Georgetown University, and the United Nations University have today launched new guidelines to provide the first-ever global policy framework that will help protect, include, and empower children on the ...move in the context of climate change.
The Guiding Principles for Children on the Move in the Context of Climate Change provides a set of 9 principles that address the unique and layered vulnerabilities of children on the move both internally and across borders as a result of the adverse impacts of climate change. Currently, most child-related migration policies do not consider climate and environmental factors, while most climate change policies overlook the unique needs of children.
The guidelines note that climate change is intersecting with existing environmental, social, political, economic, and demographic conditions contributing to people’s decisions to move. In 2020 alone, nearly 10 million children were displaced in the aftermath of weather-related shocks. With around one billion children – nearly half of the world’s 2.2 billion children – living in 33 countries at high risk of the impacts of climate change, millions more children could be on the move in the coming years.
Developed in collaboration with young climate and migration activists, academics, experts, policymakers, practitioners, and UN agencies, the guiding principles are based on the globally ratified Convention on the Rights of the Child and are further informed by existing operational guidelines and frameworks.
Recommendations for safeguarding the rights and well-being of children regardless of their location or migration status.
The guiding principles provide national and local governments, international organizations and civil society groups with a foundation to build policies that protect children’s rights. The organizations and institutions are calling on governments, local and regional actors, international organizations, and civil society groups to embrace the guiding principles to help protect, include, and empower children on the move in the context of climate change.
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These guidelines provide a clear framework for child-centred emergency preparedness, response and recovery. They are intended for use by state and non-state actors directly involved in interventions, as well as other stakeholders whose work may contribute to the overall safety and well-being of chil...dren during emergencies.
The development of these Guidelines was achieved through concerted efforts led by the Government of Kenya, through the Ministry of Labour & Social Protection, together with the Child Protection in Emergencies Working Group (CPiEWG) members that World Vision Kenya was part of.
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The greatest risk to persons engaging in international medical emergency response is poor preparation.
The In Control handbook hopes to provide a remedy.
At the time of writing, we are living through the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, a health emergency that disregards physical borders, brin...gs into focus social inequalities and affects people on every continent. This shared challenge requires unprecedented measures and the collaboration of the brightest minds to support global health protection through this crisis and beyond. Healthcare infrastructures have to be strengthened, public health capacities and processes upgraded, medical countermeasures and vaccinations found and psychosocial side-effects treated.
Solidarity is the normative order of the day and the human species has to collaborate to face this invisible threat. Hiding and living in fear is not an option in this interconnected world. We have both a responsibility and an opportunity to make substantial contributions to a safer, healthier and more sustainable future for us all.
The existence of this handbook is an impressive example of solidarity. Over 50 authors from more than 15 institutes and organisations have come together voluntarily within a very short time to make their expertise available and enable cross-sectoral thinking. Knowledge is bundled, resources are combined, information gaps are filled. The In Control handbook is not a theoretical treatise of possible dangers, but a collection of subject-matter expertise, written by experts and practitioners who have shaped health topics over the past 20 years in the most diverse corners of the world.
The Centre for International Health Protection at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is collaborating with its partners and investing heavily in the build-up of operational know-how and capacity to support health crisis response abroad. This is done by preparing and enabling professionals to deploy safely across the world to assist those in need. In Control addresses the multi-faceted challenges of an international deployment. Readers will find not only technical medical information, but also insights into, for example, the fragility of our environment, the cultural differences that influence risk communication or the dilemmas arising from social distancing. Legal principles are highlighted, along with ethical guidance to ensure that our actions and decisions correspond to the highest moral standards.
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This codebook outlines the set of TUFF procedures that have been developed, tested, refined, and implemented by AidData staff and affiliated faculty at the College of William & Mary. We initially employed these methods to achieve a specific objective: documenting the known universe of officially fin...anced Chinese projects in Africa (Strange et al. 2013, 2017). We have since then employed these methods to track Chinese official finance to five major world regions: Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Central and Eastern Europe (Dreher et al. 2017). Additionally, other social scientists have adapted and applied the TUFF methodology to identify grants and loans from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members (Minor et al. 2014), under-reported humanitarian assistance flows from traditional and non-traditional sources (Ghose 2017), foreign direct investment from Western and non-Western sources (Bunte et al. 2017), and pre-2000 foreign aid flows from China (Morgan and Zheng 2017). However, this codebook focuses specifically on TUFF data collection and quality assurance procedures to track Chinese official finance between 2000 and 2014.
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Slavery on fishing vessels, degradation of ecosystems, overfishing, debt bondage, human trafficking and child labour in peeling sheds – the scandals surrounding the Thai fishery and shrimp industries have garnered international censure. Farmed and processed at the cost of extreme exploitation of b...oth people and the planet, Thai shrimp ends up on plates around the world. The former delicacy can now be bought cheaply everywhere. But how high is the price really? And who has to pay it?
This report by seeks to remind governments in the countries of production that it is their duty to enforce human rights and living wages, rather than to compete for the favour of large companies to the detriment of people and the environment. It also appeals to consumers and their governments – and to importers – to send a clear message to suppliers in Thailand and elsewhere: If you want to survive on the global market, you need to respect human rights and child rights, and uphold social and environmental standards.
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Fact Sheet 3
accessed 23 July 2020
The World Happiness Report 2021 focuses on the effects of COVID-19 and how people all over the world have fared. Our aim was two-fold, first to focus on the effects of COVID-19 on the structure and quality of people’s lives, and second to describe and evaluate how governments all over the world ha...ve dealt with the pandemic. In particular, we try to explain why some countries have done so much better than others.
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From 2011 until 2016, a multi-actor programme was run in five countries to improve the life chances and living conditions of people experiencing exclusion and marginalisation of various kinds. This programme worked with local leaders, organisations and movements as well as various institutions and a...uthorities
focusing on older people, those with mental health issues, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, people displaced by war and youth at risk. Many initiatives were developed that had lasting effects on the ways in which these groups valued themselves and in which they are valued by society.
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Self-care interventions are among the most promising and exciting new approaches to improve health and well-being, both from a health systems perspective and for people who use these interventions.
The World Health Organization (WHO) uses the following working definition of self-care: Self-care i...s the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health worker. The scope of self-care as described in this definition includes health promotion; disease prevention and control; self-medication; providing care to dependent persons; seeking hospital/specialist/primary care if necessary; and rehabilitation, including palliative care. It includes a range of self-care modes and approaches. While this is a broad definition that includes many activities, it is important for health policy to recognize the importance of self-care, especially where it intersects with health systems and health professionals.
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