destroyed, diverted, or programs have to be scaled down to minimise risk to personnel. However, whether in complex emergencies or in response to natural disasters, militaries often play an important role in humanitarian relief efforts, sometimes by providing search and rescue and airlift capabilities or by restoring damaged infrastructure. Indeed, in most of today’s crises, humanitarian organisations operate in the same environment as a range of military and non-state armed actors. Coordination is often easier in natural disaster settings than in conflict, as there is a
information with partners, coordination groups and other relevant actors ( Sphere Association, 2018 : 71). Conducting training for local service providers and providing documentation in local languages are also recommended. Numerous groups are engaged in projects to increase the quality and reach of crisis translation. For interpreting (the spoken act of translation), the InZone project demands recognition. 2 InZone has pioneered innovative approaches to
and that only presents mixed results in the so-called civil–military coordination in humanitarian responses. The challenge for humanitarian agencies to work effectively and according to their missions and principles while cohabitating the same spaces (geographical and others) as military and non-state armed actors has been a headache for decades. Contexts of violent conflict are usually examples of all that can go wrong when civil–military coordination is not prioritised. But those are not the only contexts where humanitarian agencies struggle to find and protect
of Ministry of Health and WHO personnel from Equateur, Kinshasa and Geneva to Nord Kivu. Two days after the confirmation of the first cases, an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) was installed in Beni, 30 km away from Mangina, under the coordination of a director from the national Ministry of Health and an incident manager from the WHO. Local health authorities from Nord Kivu province had little involvement in this coordination group. The EOC adopted technical and
the ones that have died? We contacted the authorities so that these patients could be transferred immediately to more specialised centres. Some of them died waiting, others were referred – it seemed so unfair. Coordinator, MSF care home intervention, Catalonia Poor Coordination between Different Actors The first months of the pandemic also exposed important structural issues. The
cities. The article by Hunt, O’Brien, Cadwell and O’Mathúna problematises language and translation in humanitarian crises. They start from the position that linguistic differences and a lack of access to adequate translation can undermine effective information sharing, coordination, collaboration and relationship building among humanitarian responders, government agencies and local communities. They show how translation innovations intersect with humanitarian values and humanitarians
scattered areas ( Kirisçi, 1996 ). 4 The term ‘deconfliction arrangements’ is defined by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) as: ‘The exchange of information and planning advisories by humanitarian actors with military actors in order to prevent or resolve conflicts between the two sets [of] objectives, remove obstacles to humanitarian action, and avoid potential hazards for humanitarian personnel. This may include the negotiation of military pauses, temporary cessation of hostilities or ceasefires, or safe corridors
term ‘multi-sector integration’ is widely used and promoted throughout the sector, yet practical experience shows that few cluster programmes ever achieve integration. Barriers such as the different disciplines’ languages, different sector intervention approaches, agency priorities and network-governance gaps continue to limit integration, but this problem can be readily resolved. UNOCHA leads the process of operational coordination during humanitarian emergencies
’s Human Development Index were missing as of 2018. On the latter, as far as we are aware, no documents have brought together lessons from multiple donors and NGOs, and thus learning has remained donor-specific or project-based. A further challenge, as evidenced in the evaluations analysed in this study, is that actors have yet to act upon lessons they have learned, suggesting that other barriers need to be overcome in implementation. As of 2018, there were 194 organisations registered with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA
vulnerabilities. Such measures – including physically fortifying humanitarians (often criticised as ‘bunkerisation’) or implementing bureaucratic risk management procedures to prevent humanitarian actors from operating in locations where security risks are too severe – aim to reduce humanitarians’ vulnerabilities but shy away from addressing the threats themselves. A ‘protection’ approach distinguishes this category in a sense that it aims – to quote the seminal report, To Stay and Deliver , published in 2011 by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – ‘to