El Niño conditions persisting during the 2015/16 planting season have caused the worst drought in 35 years in Southern Africa, resulting in a second consecutive failed harvest. This has created severe food shortages and compounded existing vulnerabilities. Since July 2016, Namibia and Botswana have... declared national drought emergencies, in addition to the declarations made earlier by Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. Madagascar issued a letter of solidarity with the SADC Appeal, and Mozambique has maintained a red alert in affected areas.
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- Pacific Possible Background Paper No.6
ECDC launched the HEPSA (Health Emergency Preparedness Self-Assessment) tool, in order to support countries in improving their level of public health emergency preparedness. The tool is worksheet-based and is targeted at professionals in public health organisations responsible for emergency planning... and event management. It consists of seven domains that define the process of public health emergency preparedness and response: 1) Pre-event preparations and governance; 2) Resources: Trained workforce; 3) Support capacity: Surveillance; 4) Support capacity: Risk assessment; 5) Event response management; 6) Post-event review; 7) Implementation of lessons learned.
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The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were launched in September 2015, made up of 17 Goals and 169 Targets that set out a plan of action that will shape the mainstream development agenda for the next 15 years1. There has already been much debate about how these Goals will be achieved, but the sig...nificant issue of drug policy reform has so far been ignored. This briefing aims to address this gap, to support discussions and demonstrate how global drug control policies are a cross-cutting development issue that impact upon a number of the SDGs.
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‘Do not underestimate the capacity of the community; they are smarter and more capable than you think’
As countries like the United States pass temporary legislation to cushion the massive blow that is on the horizon that is about to hit many of their citizens – poor and not poor – it is important to think about the tools available to governments of low-income countries, what kind of preparations... they might consider, and what type of scal burden they face for social protection programs that can be nanced through their own budgets and grants from international development institutions like the World Bank.
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Guinea’s 450 megawatt Souapiti dam, scheduled to begin operating in September 2020, is the most advanced of several new hydropower projects planned by the government of President Alpha Condé. Guinea’s government believes that hydropower can significantly increase access to electricity in a cou...ntry where only a fraction of people have reliable access to power.Souapiti’s output, however, has a human cost. The dam’s reservoir will ultimately displace an estimated 16,000 people from 101 villages and hamlets. The Guinean government had moved 51 villages by the end of 2019 and said it planned to conduct the remaining resettlements within a year. Forced off their ancestral homes and farmlands, and with much of their land already, or soon to be flooded, displaced communities are struggling to feed their families, restore their livelihoods, and live with dignity.
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he central Sahel region—Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger—is facing a severe humanitarian and protection crisis.
Massive displacement, most of it driven by intense and largely indiscriminate violence perpetrated by a range of armed actors against civilian populations, is taking place across the regi...on. While internal displacement is on the rise substantial numbers of refugees have fled to neighboring countries, and the situation risks spilling over into the coastal countries of Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo.
This context is exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which is already affecting areas hosting refugees and IDPs
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There are indigenous communities at high risk in every country of the region. At stake are the lives of 45 million people who belong to more than 800 indigenous peoples. Of these, some 100 are spread across several countries, around 200 maintain voluntary isolation or are in initial contact, and nea...rly 500 are at risk of disappearing due to their reduced numbers. Due to their lower immune resistance, their lack of access to hospital care and the increasing penetration of extractive activities in their territories, indigenous communities in voluntary isolation or in initial contact are cause for particular concern.
Far from hospitals and the news cameras, indigenous people in Latin American become ill and die without access to the means needed to protect themselves. They face the pandemic in conditions of social exclusion, racism and discrimination, which highlights historical inequalities and extreme precariousness in basic and health services.
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Malnutrition in childhood and pregnancy has many adverse consequences for child survival and long-term well-being. It
also has far-reaching consequences for human capital, economic productivity, and national development overall. The
consequences of malnutrition should be a significant concern for ...policy makers in Burkina Faso, since around 672,000
children under 5 years (21 percent) suffer from chronic malnutrition (stunting or low height-for-age) and 10 percent
suffer from acute malnutrition (wasting or low weight-for-height) (Ministère de la Santé [MOH] et al. 2018).
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Speech of the President of Caritas Internationalis to the FAO regarding food loss and responses from Caritas