This guidance highlights tangible, evidence-based priority actions in health and WASH programs to achieve the Global Targets for nutrition. Throughout the guidance the importance of cross-sectoral collaboration within and outside the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement to holistically address nutrition ...is emphasised.
more
Early damage assessments indicate that at least 800,000 people could be directly exposed to minor to severe damages, including communication, access, security, loss of livelihoods, infrastructure, and health services could be impacted.
Travailler avec les dirigeants communautaires pour lutter contre la VBG est une très bonne et prometteuse approche, car les dirigeants communautaires sont les gardiens de toutes nos croyances et coutumes. Étant donné que la VBG est enracinée dans les croyances et les coutumes, essayer de s�...�attaquer à la VBG sans impliquer les dirigeants communautaires peut mener à un grand conflit, et vous n’aurez aucun résultat. Les dirigeants communautaires ont également des rôles à jouer dans la réponse aux survivantes de la VBG. Les survivantes s’adressent aux chefs de villages pour faire part de leurs préoccupations et de leurs expériences, et les dirigeants ont des pratiques pour traiter les préoccupations et une approche de la justice qui se base d’abord sur le maintien de la cohésion sociale, mais la VBG ne peut pas être résolue comme n’importe quel autre conflit. D’après mon expérience des programmes de VBG dans mon propre pays et ailleurs, j’ai appris qu’il est plus difficile d’impliquer les dirigeants communautaires dans certains endroits que dans d’autres. Parfois, les aspects religieux rendent les choses plus difficiles. Mais si vous demandez à n’importe quel dirigeant de décrire ce qu’est un dirigeant, ce qu’un dirigeant fait, il parlera de la protection de la communauté. Et c’est aussi ce que nous voulons — protéger les femmes et les filles dans la communauté.
more
The document is a comprehensive practical guide for managing cholera epidemics. It includes detailed instructions on outbreak investigation, control measures, case management, and the organization of treatment facilities. It emphasizes strategies such as rehydration therapy, water sanitation, hygien...e promotion, and vaccination to prevent the spread of cholera. The guide serves as a resource for healthcare professionals, logisticians, and public health officials to respond effectively to cholera outbreaks.
more
Zimbabwe has, over the years, grappled with the repercussions of the climate crisis, which have led to erratic rainfall patterns characterized by either severe floods or prolonged periods of drought. The nation has experienced a concerning trend of numerous regions reporting rainfall levels below th...e usual during what should be "normal" years. The upcoming El Niño event forecasted for 2023-2024, which is associated with drier-than-average rainfall, is poised to exacerbate this predicament. It is expected to intensify aridity, significantly impacting food and animal production across many areas, including those typically classified as "dry regions."
more
Cholera is a diarrhoeal disease that is usually contracted when drinking water contaminated with Vibrio cholerae bacteria. The fight against this disease requires a multidisciplinary approach that combines a water, hygiene and sanitation (WaSH) response with a monitoring system, improved water suppl...y and quality, sanitation and hygiene, and a health response with the treatment of the disease itself.
more
COVID-19 has resulted in an unprecedented global crisis. As the pandemic spreads and countries around the world continue to struggle to contain its health and socio-economic consequences, UNRWA is issuing a new humanitarian appeal from August through December 2020 to address the worst impacts of the... pandemic on Palestine refugees across the Agency’s five fields of operation. Through this appeal the Agency seeks US$ 94.6 million. The funds requested in this appeal are additional to the previous UNRWA COVID-19 appeal for March to July.
more
Across Zimbabwe, 7 million people in urban and rural areas are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, compared to 5.5 million in August 2019. Since the launch of the Revised Humanitarian Appeal in August 2019, circumstances for millions of Zimbabweans have worsened. Drought and crop failure, exa...cerbated by macro-economic challenges and austerity measures, have directly affected vulnerable households in both rural and urban communities. Inflation continues to erode purchasing power and affordability of food and other essential goods is a daily challenge. The delivery of health care, clean water and sanitation, and education has been constrained and millions of people are facing challenges to access vital services.
more
The humanitarian crisis in Yemen remains the worst in the world. Nearly four years of conflict and severe economic decline are driving the country to the brink of famine and exacerbating needs in all sectors. An estimated 80 per cent of the population – 24 million people – require some form of h...umanitarian or protection assistance, including 14.3 million who are in acute need. Severity of needs is deepening, with the number of people in acute need a staggering 27 per cent higher than last year. Two-thirds of all districts in the country are already pre-famine, and one-third face a convergence of multiple acute vulnerabilities
more
The Cholera Outbreak Guidelines: Preparedness, Prevention, and Control provide a practical field guide for responding to cholera outbreaks. Developed by Oxfam GB, the guidelines combine lessons from past cholera interventions and best practices for effective outbreak management. The document outline...s key strategies, including preparedness planning, rapid response to outbreaks, water and sanitation improvements, hygiene education, and coordination among stakeholders. It covers both non-endemic and endemic cholera outbreaks, offering step-by-step guidance on surveillance, intervention, and monitoring. The aim is to ensure community-based, gender-sensitive, and rapid public health responses to control cholera and minimize mortality.
more
This review of the IFRC support to the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society response to the 2012 cholera outbreak provides ideas and concepts to promote a more coherent and evidence based rationale on how to make more effective use of IFRC global assets to stop, control, mitigate and respond to cholera ep...idemics. No fit and healthy person should die from cholera – that should be the indicator of success.
more
During the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world’s economy slowed. Yet, the global annual average particulate pollution (PM2.5) was largely unchanged from 2019 levels. At the same time, growing evidence shows air pollution—even when experienced at very low levels—hurts human health. T...his recently led the World Health Organization (WHO) to revise its guideline for what it considers a safe level of exposure of particulate pollution, bringing most of the world—97.3 percent of the global population—into the unsafe zone. The AQLI finds that particulate air pollution takes 2.2 years off global average life expectancy, or a combined 17 billion life-years, relative to a world that met the WHO guideline. This impact on life expectancy is comparable to that of smoking, more than three times that of alcohol use and unsafe water, six times that of HIV/AIDS, and 89 times that of conflict and terrorism.
more
The outbreak of COVID-19 comes with unpredictable primary and secondary impacts on vulnerable and food-insecure populations across the world. Mortality and morbidity appear to be most acute for elderly people, and those with underlying health conditions. At the same time, the widely anti...cipated economic downturn could have a more devastating effect on the world’s poor than the virus itself
more
With about 24 million of Yemen’s 30 million people in need of some form of assistance, the United Nations calls Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Cholera and other disease outbreaks are common, malnutrition is widespread, water is scarce, and the healthcare system is crumbling, with o...nly half of the country’s 5,000 or so health facilities fully operational and with massive medical supply and staff shortages. In August 2020, the UN warned the country was again on the brink of full-scale famine.
more
After five consecutive below-average rains, the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa is expanding and deepening.
Combined with insecurity and macroeconomic volatility, the impact of the drought on food and nutrition security has been devastating. Across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, an estima...ted 22 million people are now acutely food insecure because of the drought. The malnutrition situation is also critical. Some 5.1 million children across drought-affected areas of the three countries are acutely malnourished in 2023, with dire implications for their health, growth and survival. Concerningly, the upcoming March-May 2023 rains are also forecast to be below-average. Should these rains fail, and humanitarian assistance not be delivered at scale, food insecurity will continue to deteriorate.
Regardless of how the 2023 rains perform, extremely high humanitarian needs will persist through 2023 while a full recovery from a drought of this magnitude will take years. To address the devastating drought-induced hunger and malnutrition across the region, WFP is pursuing an integrated dual track approach; meeting immediate life-saving food and nutritional needs while simultaneously building resilience to extreme climate variability.
more
In 2018, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in South Sudan must respond to the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded in the country. To address this challenge, FAO revised its multiyear Emergency Livelihood Response Programme (ELRP) to enable rapid food produ...ction among the most vulnerable communities, protect their livelihoods and reduce dependency on humanitarian aid while building their resilience.
more
Previous crises, such as the Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa in 2014, indicate the direct impact movement restrictions and disease containment efforts have on food availability, access, utilization and violence – particularly gender-based violence (GBV). The importance of maintaining and ...upscaling food security interventions for the most vulnerable populations, alongside the health sector’s efforts to avert disease spread, is therefore undeniable. The COVID-19 outbreak in South Sudan threatens to paralyze an already fragile food system and negatively impact more than 6.5 million people in South Sudan who remain vulnerable. At the same time, the core national capacities for prevention, preparedness and response for public health events is limited, and the healthcare system has been weakened by years of conflict, poor governance and low investments.
more
The Republic of the Union of Myanmar is at a historic moment, with a new civilian government assuming power in 2016. The country graduated to lower-middle-income status in 2015, and has made significant progress in reducing poverty, improving food security and addressing malnutrition.
The remai...ning challenges to food and nutrition security and achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 2 targets include continued population displacements resulting from conflict, vulnerability to extreme weather events, poverty, limited social protection coverage, high malnutrition and persistent gender inequalities.
more
Prioritise education in conflict-affected areas:
Across the world 28 million1 primary school-age children living in conflict-affected countries are
out-of-school, and they form half of the world’s total out-of-school population. During conflict,
infrastructure assets such as schools are damaged... or completely destroyed during fighting. Children
may choose to stay away from school due to their and their family’s safety fears in the midst of
conflict, or the need to supplement their family’s income amidst conflict-related financial loss.
Children who are internally displaced by conflict face a particularly challenging task accessing
education due to the specific conditions created by their displacement, such as loss of livelihoods
making school fees hard to find, and discrimination from host communities. Children caught in
conflict are being deprived of their right to education2 and denied the opportunity to benefit from the
protective and life-sustaining mechanisms of education.
more
The purpose of this paper is to clarify relevant terminologies and approaches relating to psychosocial well-being and social and emotional learning (SEL) in education in crisis affected contexts, and to explore how psychosocial support (PSS) and social and emotional learning relate to one another.