Showing posts from category humanitarian.
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Book Review: Envisioning a Broader Context to Security With ‘The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon’
›The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace, by a career U.S. Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Shannon Beebe, and Professor Mary Kaldor, director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School for Economics, is the product of an intriguing partnership. Despite the fact that their respective professions have often displayed distrust and hostility toward one another, the coauthors’ combined perspectives have created a particularly prescient and non-partisan challenge to the security status quo.
Beebe and Kaldor add to the growing call to re-evaluate existing constructs of “national security” and to reconsider the roles of Western militaries and international aid agencies in the globalized 21st century world. In particular, they emphasize the urgent need for a more nuanced understanding of security that includes humanitarian considerations as an integral component in these institutions’ agendas. This “human security” is the right of all people to livelihoods, clean drinking water, nourishing food, and education and proper health care, in addition to a safe and secure place to live, free from the fear of personal crime and violence.
Such insecurity affects us all even if it does not directly result in open warfare. According to Misha Glenny in his 2009 book, McMafia, it is estimated that 20 percent of the global GDP is generated through criminal activities, which exploit the weak and the vulnerable on a global scale. It is difficult to say what role the traditional Western military can play under situations in which vast networks of tyranny through corruption are rapidly growing.
Historical and General Context
The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon is a persuasive argument in favor of deconstructing the conventional credo of war that has dominated U.S. military theory since World War II. Beebe and Kaldor argue that the political and financial capital mined from the Greatest Generation significantly influenced the “state-against-state” model of the American military machine, and then helped perpetuate and sustain it. The United States’ Cold War experience reinforced the notion that the goal of security is to defeat a great enemy, preferably in open battle using the best available military hardware.
But, the authors ask, did such displays of military superiority and readiness actually accomplish the strategic goal of maintaining our security in today’s world? Did we perhaps narrow the definition of security too much, and in using the wrong tools, did we worsen the very problems we set out to solve?
Beebe and Kaldor provide ample evidence to suggest we have taken the narrow approach, from NATO’s involvement in Yugoslavia, to the debacle in Somalia, and the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. The authors are not simply out to criticize the military, but instead suggest that the lines that define nation-states today no longer hold the same power that they once did. Other forces at work, from economic globalization to climate change, must be recognized.
Definitions and Prescriptions for a Changing World
When civilians become targets of violence, their resilience is weakened, write Beebe and Kaldor, for a variety of reasons that are often difficult to ascertain without on-the-ground intelligence. For instance, is violence against civilians intended to provide opportunities for political gain by certain groups, or just cover up criminal behavior intended for monetary gain? In this kind of environment, where does the modern Western military machine fit, and how can international humanitarian institutions be more effective?
Beebe and Kaldor contend that instead of developing strategic operations focused on killing the enemy, the military should be focused instead on creating safe spaces for civilians:A human-security approach would emphasize bottom-up reconstruction of governance and justice systems, local security capabilities, and, of course, addressing poverty, education, and health. It would, as well, have to be part of a more global strategy for dealing with the transnational criminal networks, especially drug networks, that are nourished by and that nourish conflicts (p. 196).
Even if it is not the sole responsibility of the military to provide such resources, the authors argue, failure to recognize the importance of human security or to protect resources will ultimately increase our security risks.
An Unobtainable Utopia or Early Warning?
Undoubtedly, the problems that the authors describe are real; it is time to re-evaluate what kind of world we want to live in and how this might be achieved. What should we do if there is no legitimate state government to negotiate with, and yet there is clearly a violent and deadly situation, such as the 1994 genocide in Rwanda? Would the American people tolerate spending money on a military operation without there being any direct sign of imminent threat or danger to them, and without the ability to declare some sort of traditional military victory? Or would their reaction be the same as Neville Chamberlain’s to Czechoslovakia in 1938, that human security merely describes “a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing?”
The recent intervention in Libya is a case in point. Speaking on Meet the Press recently, Secretary of Defense Gates admitted that the country was of no vital interest to the United States, and instead defended spending money on military air strikes based upon humanitarian grounds. Despite the clear mandate from the UN, NATO, and the Arab League to respond to this human security crisis, there has clearly been little appetite in the United States to lead military interventions in Libya without an obviously defined motive of self-interest.
The difficulty lies in explaining that basic security and instability have grave consequences, even across great distances, and that addressing potential conflicts early prevents the need for making harder choices later on. The U.S. Department of State has tackled that difficult task in the recent Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which calls for greater focus on human security interventions as a way to avoid or mitigate future military conflicts.
Though a few of the solutions postulated in this book may seem overly idealistic to some, I would argue that Beebe and Kaldor’s ideas represent less a utopian vision than an early warning and plea for change in the years to come. Rather than succumbing to the easy temptation to fear globalization and the world outside our borders, we must learn to engage with and help create a thriving global civil community.
A must-read for a broad range of audiences, The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon offers a historical and contemporary basis for envisioning a broader context to security and understanding that the “ultimate weapons of the twenty-first century are, in fact, not weapons in the military sense at all” (p. 202).
Tracy Walstrom Briggs is currently the Minerva Associate Chair for Energy and Environmental Security (USAF). She has worked with the Swedish Defense Forces (FOI) and the UN Environment Programme to facilitate more sustainable peacekeeping installations using rapid impact assessment tools. She was also a professor and associate chair for the Graduate Environmental Studies Program at California State University Fullerton.
Sources: HistoryVideos101, McMafia (Glenny), NBC, U.S. Department of Defense.
Photo Credit: “3-6 Soldiers Provide Medical Aid,” courtesy of flickr user expertinfantry. -
Working With the Private Sector to Improve Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health
Innovations From Development to Delivery
›“Challenging and dynamic partnerships [with the private sector] are difficult to pull together, but when you look at sustainability, impact, and effectiveness, they can also be great levers of change,” said Kari Stoever, senior advisor for global advocacy at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) at the Wilson Center on March 22. [Video Below]
Stoever was joined by panelists Laura McLaughlin, environmental engineer at Cascade Designs, Inc., Hugh Chang, director of special initiatives at the NGO PATH, and Laura Birx, senior food security and nutrition specialist at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for a discussion of the private sector’s role in developing innovative health technologies to increase access to safe water, prevent infectious diseases, and improve maternal health nutrition.
Collaborating to Provide Safe Water
“NGOs have different strengths and different perspectives from the private sector, and we’ve found an area where we can really complement each other,” said McLaughlin. Cascade Designs, Inc., collaborated with PATH to create a smart electrochlorinator, which produces a chlorine solution to purify water using just salt water and a simple battery, because “we wanted to make a bigger difference than we could do with philanthropy alone,” said McLaughlin.
“Products need to be designed specifically for the end user, particularly for women and children, who are often times left out of the design process,” said McLaughlin. Cascade’s smart electrochlorinator was designed with this in mind. One charged battery can treat up to 40,000 liters of water, 200 liters at a time. The device is easy to use, requires simple resources, is significantly more affordable than existing solutions, and lends itself to an entrepreneurial business model that can deliver safe water to small community households. The current prototype is being field-tested in 10 countries globally, with the aim of providing safe water in resource-poor communities while generating income for local entrepreneurs.
The PATH-Cascade partnership was successful in part because it combined “private-sector expertise in efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and meeting market demands” with knowledge about the health needs in developing countries, said McLaughlin. By “pushing each other to a common end goal, this partnership really multiplied our strengths.”
Engaging the Private Sector
“One of the reasons we work closely with the private sector…is because we recognize an efficiency of resource usage that comes with building bridges between the public sector and the private sector,” said Chang of PATH’s work with Cascade and others. Engaging the private sector to advance health technologies can complement PATH’s goals, like encouraging healthy behaviors and strengthening health systems, he said. “But, we are not averse to profits,” he added, stressing that partnerships with NGOs can be mutually beneficial. “We understand for this to be sustainable, these companies need to make a profit.”
PATH is working with the private sector to develop injection and vaccine technologies that “produce a product that not only benefits the recipient of the vaccine but also produces a revenue stream,” said Chang. The SoloShot, for example, is a low-cost, disposable syringe that locks after a single injection, preventing needle reuse and contamination that can increase the risk of HIV, hepatitis B, and other infections. To address the challenge of maintaining the proper refrigeration of vaccines in low-resource settings, private sector collaboration has helped to develop the vaccine vial monitor (a sticker that changes color when a vaccine has been exposed to too much heat) and to create more stable vaccine formulas that are less vulnerable to extreme temperatures. “By combining innovation with on-the-ground presence,” concluded Chang, “private sector engagement can be a powerful tool for global health.”
A “Win-Win Partnership”
“There is a tremendous role for the private sector to play in the intersection of agriculture and health as they relate to nutrition,” said Birx. Engaging the private sector can be a “win-win partnership,” she said. The Obama Administration’s hunger initiative, Feed the Future, for example, uses the resources, expertise, and innovation of the private sector to encourage sustainable, market-driven approaches to reducing poverty and food insecurity, said Birx.
USAID sees innovation as a “research-to-use continuum,” said Birx. “When we look at innovation, it’s not just about the development of a specific product, but about the entire system that goes around that product,” she added. New technologies must not only respond to a major development challenge in poor and rural communities but need to be affordable, culturally appropriate, gender sensitive, easy to use, and durable.
But solutions don’t have to be complicated. “Often times it’s about a really simple technology that can improve accessibility,” said Birx. The nevirapine pouch, for example, a simple foil packet that allows health care workers to give women single doses of nevirapine syrup, can reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV by more than half.
“There’s a lot of excitement, but we need to do some serious work to capitalize on [it],” said Birx. Moving forward, health, development, and private-sector organizations must work together to create innovative financing mechanisms, build institutions in developing countries, and encourage enabling policy environments.
Sources: PATH.
Photo Credit: “Mission to Ouanda Djallé,” courtesy of flickr user hdptcar. -
Watch: Dan Smith on How International Alert Builds Peace
›April 6, 2011 // By Schuyler NullAddressing violent conflict is complex and difficult, but one universally important aspect of any peacebuilding operation is to understand the unique context of each situation, said Dan Smith, secretary general of International Alert, in this interview with ECSP. International Alert is a London-based NGO that works in 23 countries and territories in West and Central Africa, the Southern Caucasus, Central Asia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines.
The goal of International Alert, said Smith, is to help people “move from situations of danger and vulnerability…towards positions of greater safety.” In addition, the NGO tackles broader international policy questions, he said, such as how to manage and minimize the risks of conflict and hasten recovery from it.
Peacebuilding defies simplification, said Smith, but there are two broad recommendations to keep in mind. First, “going in with a preset form of analysis or of the action you will undertake, or the problems you will look at,” is the most significant mistake international actors can make. “If you’re a hammer, every problem for you is going to be a nail,” he said. “But there are many countries where you need screwdrivers or monkey wrenches… you’ve got to be open-minded about that.”
Second, “realize that the outsider, like us, is not going to make peace or build peace in a country – it’s the people there who are going to do it,” said Smith. The international community’s job is to assist.
“Sometimes it’s as simple as experience from other places,” he said, which can be provided by an NGO and transferred from one context to another. “As long as you don’t shove it down anybody’s throats – it’s always an assisting and a helping role.” -
Congressional Hearing: Clean Water Access Is a Global Crisis, Human Right, and National Security Issue
›March 17, 2011 // By Hannah MarquseeUnsafe drinking water causes nearly 1.8 million deaths each year from diarrhea, “a number that dwarfs the casualties associated with violent conflict,” said U.S. Representative James McGovern at a congressional human rights commission hearing earlier this month on water as a basic right. Nearly all of these deaths are children under the age of five, he said. “This is a war against families, children, and women on an ongoing basis,” said Representative Earl Blumenauer, also speaking at the hearing, titled “Realizing the Right to Safe Water and Sanitation.”
There are currently 884 million people in the world without access to safe drinking water, according to UNICEF, and 2.6 billion without improved sanitation. As population growth and climate change place added stress on fresh-water systems, by 2025, two thirds of the world’s population will live in water-stressed conditions, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. “This is a severe global crisis,” said McGovern.
“A Human Right”
With 2011 World Water Day only weeks away, the hearing harkened back to Secretary Clinton’s widely quoted statement from World Water Day 2010, marking a commitment by the Obama administration to address global water issues:It’s not every day you find an issue where effective diplomacy and development will allow you to save millions of lives, feed the hungry, empower women, advance our national security interests, protect the environment, and demonstrate to billions of people that the United States cares. Water is that issue.
Four months after that statement, the UN passed a resolution to make access to water and sanitation a human right, not just a development priority. Said Catarina de Albuquerque, a UN independent expert who testified at this month’s congressional hearing, the resolution stipulates that water must be “available, accessible, affordable, acceptable and safe.” A “right to water” is an important “sign of political will,” that will place increased obligations on governments to improve access to water and sanitation, she said. But in the meantime, for the millions without access to safe water, “there is no change.”
According to the UN, the world is on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal target of halving the number of people without access to an improved water source by 2015. But de Albuquerque noted that the reality is not quite so optimistic. On a UN fact-finding mission, she encountered at least one family who by UN definitions had access to an “improved drinking water source,” yet their tap water was literally black. “Water quality is not being monitored” and for many of the people who do have access, it is simply “undrinkable,” she said.
In developed countries as well, there are significant barriers to access, especially for marginalized communities. On a recent mission to the United States, de Albuquerque found that America’s “voiceless” – people of color, Native Americans, and the homeless – face significant discrimination in access to water. “Society closes its eyes to them,” she said. Thirteen percent of Native Americans lack access to safe water, in comparison to 0.6 percent of non-native Americans, she said in a statement to the press releasing her findings. And in Boston, “for every one percent increase in the city ward’s percentage of people of color, the number of threatened cut-offs increases by four percent.” To make the necessary improvements to fill these gaps in America’s aging water infrastructure would cost $4 to $6 billion annually, she said.
A National Security Issue
Water “is a security issue as well as a human development issue,” said Blumenauer. Since, according to UNEP, 40 percent of the world relies on river basins that share two or more political boundaries, water management has enormous potential for both conflict and cooperation. Echoing Clinton’s World Water Day statement, McGovern championed the cross-cutting nature of water:The right to water is inextricably linked with other basic rights…including the right to food, the right to health, and the right to education.
The burden of collecting water in underdeveloped countries often creates a gender gap and exposes women and girls to violence and rape, he said. And it “has been the basis for many territorial and violent disputes between various peoples and even nations.”
Last month, a staff report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee expressed a similar sentiment with the publication of their report, Avoiding Water Wars: Water Scarcity and Central Asia’s Growing Importance for Stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The report commends the Obama administration for recognizing the importance of water: “For the first time, senior government officials are recognizing the critical role that sound water management must play in achieving our foreign policy goals and in protecting our national security.” However, by exclusively focusing on Pakistan and Afghanistan’s water issues and “neglecting the interconnectivity of water issues between Central and South Asia, the U.S. approach could exacerbate regional tensions,” the report says.
To be more strategic about water assistance, the report recommends the United States: (1) provide technical support in data collection to better manage water; (2) help increase water efficiency and reduce demand for water; (3) recognize the transboundary nature of water issues and “provide holistic solutions;” and (4) “safeguard institutions against shocks to water supply and demand.”
Moving Forward
The Obama administration’s commitment to water issues, the UN’s recognition of water as a human right, and the 2005 Water for the Poor Act have all been important steps towards fulfilling the pledge of making access to safe water a human right. “We’ve come a long way,” Blumenauer (who authored the Water for the Poor Act) said at the hearing, but there is still significant work ahead.
“We’re going to have to be more strategic moving forward” in order to meet global water shortages, said Aaron Salzberg, special coordinator for water resources for the U.S. Department of State who testified at the hearing. Salzberg recommended that the U.S. government take steps to integrate water management with the food and health sectors; build political will; mobilize financial support; promote science and technology; and form partnerships with other governments and aid organizations. The United States must also “be smarter” about allocating funds based on the dual criteria of “need” and “opportunity.” Balancing efforts with partners to find out which countries have the greatest need and the least resources will allow limited U.S. funds to make the deepest impact, he said.
John Oldfield, managing director of the WASH Advocacy Initiative, urged Congress to increase funding for foreign assistance, continue appropriations for the Water for the Poor Act, and improve the effectiveness of existing water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) assistance. “Each dollar invested in water and sanitation leads to an 8:1 return from reduced healthcare costs and time savings,” he said. “The world does not need to bury millions more of its children in the coming years when we know how to prevent waterborne disease today.”
Sources: FAO, UNEP, UNICEF, United Nations, WHO.
Image Credit: Adapted from “School girl drinks water from new handpump,” courtesy of flickr user waterdotorg. -
Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty?
›The much-anticipated Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review(QDDR) demands to be taken seriously. Its hefty 250 pages present a major rethink of both American development policy and American diplomacy. Much of it is to be commended:
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Mapping the “Republic of NGOs” in Haiti
›One year after the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti, InterAction has teamed up with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Business Civic Leadership Center and FedEx to launch the Haiti Aid Map, an interactive visual mapping platform of individual aid projects being conducted in Haiti. The goals of the map are to increase aid transparency, facilitate partnerships, and help NGOs and others better coordinate and allocate resources to aid relief and reconstruction efforts.
With an estimated 10,000 NGOs operating on the ground – the second largest per capita in the world – Haiti has been referred to as “a republic of NGOs.” The Haiti Aid Map is an effort to help the humanitarian community – which has been criticized for lack of accountability, poor transparency, and corruption – better coordinate its response.
The map features 479 projects being operated all over the country by 77 local and international NGOs, most of which are InterAction members. Projects can be browsed by location, sector, or organization and include information on project donors, budgets, timelines, and the number of people reached by the project.
While InterAction’s map covers their donors’ response, it leaves out the thousands of government and other NGO projects being conducted in Haiti. USAID recently released a map of U.S. government projects in Haiti (see right) by sector and location.
“The goal is not to rebuild Haiti but to build a different Haiti,” said Sam Worthington, President and CEO of InterAction, speaking exactly one year after the earthquake struck at the map’s formal launch this month. “The relief effort will still be here a year from now.” The goal of the map will be to help coordinate activities as reconstruction continues in the future.
The map is the first part of a larger mapping platform, called the NGO Aid Map, which will include not only the Haiti aid map but also projects working on food security in other developing countries. The food security map is due to be launched in March 2011.
Sources: Clinton Foundation, InterAction, NPR, ReliefWeb, USIP.
Image Credit: Adapted from Haiti Aid Map. -
Environmental Security at the UN
UNEP/PCDMB Progress Report From Brussels
›January 11, 2011 // By Lauren Herzer RisiAt a November Environmental Security Assessments conference on methodologies and practices, held jointly by ENVSEC and IES outside of Brussels, I had the opportunity to catch up with David Jensen, a policy and planning coordinator in the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Post Conflict and Disaster Management Branch (PCDMB).
Jensen pointed to several upcoming reports coming from UNEP and expressed some relief that the concept of environmental security was finally getting some recognition without having to constantly be “banging on doors.”
PCDMB is a branch of UNEP created to provide five core services to UN member states: post-crisis environmental assessments; post-crisis environmental recovery; environmental cooperation for peacebuilding; disaster risk reduction; and, most recently, humanitarian action and early recovery.
There has been a steady stream of activity flowing from PCDMB and a lot to look forward to this spring:
Finally, it sounds like PCDMB is getting some recognition from within the upper echelons of the UN. Jensen has been asked to brief senior peacebuilding officials, and the Secretary-General’s political advisor called him in to talk about peacekeeping and natural resource management and conflict prevention.- The guidance notes on conflict prevention and natural resources, recently published on the PCDMB website, are draft notes that will be revised following pilot programs in four countries (Jensen particularly noted that there is much work to be done on them still). Ultimately, they hope to identify funding for 100 experts to deploy to countries (at the country’s request) to apply the guidance notes in the field.
- PCDMB has a project of 150 case studies coming out in six volumes in February 2011 on natural resources and peacebuilding.
- The culmination of a three-year UNEP project in Nigeria, which includes a full analysis and remediation plan of 300 oil-contaminated sites in the Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta, is expected to be released in the second quarter of 2011. (Editor’s note: though not finished, the report caught flack last summer over concerns that it will largely exonerate Shell.)
- PCDMB is also partnering with UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Department of Field Support to assess options for resource-efficient technologies and practices in peacekeeping camps (the so-called “green helmets“). They will be issuing a policy report on best practices in May 2011.
In an interview with ECSP last fall, Jensen predicted the UN was finally approaching a fundamental tipping point for inclusion of natural resource issues in the broader peacebuilding process, and the kind of interest noted above appears to be proving him right.
In a report this summer, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted the need for inclusion of environmental security in peacekeeping operations and highlighted the particular work of PCDMB in places like Afghanistan, Timor-Leste, and the Sudan.
It’s no surprise then that when Jensen briefed the full Secretariat, he said he was greeted by a packed house.
Image Credit: Arranged from “UNEP and Disasters and Conflicts at a Glance,” courtesy of UNEP. -
Rebuilding Stronger, Safer, Environmentally Sustainable Communities After Disasters
The GRRT Toolkit for Humanitarian Aid
›Natural disasters present an immediate humanitarian crisis but are also an opportunity to rebuild societies to be more resilient and environmentally sustainable than they were before. The “Green Recovery and Reconstruction Training Toolkit” (GRRT), created by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the American Red Cross and launched at the Wilson Center on November 19, will help future humanitarian efforts integrate principles of environmental conservation into their disaster recovery strategies. This strategic partnership has been “an incredible effort and marriage between organizations that have different operating styles, different approaches to situations,” said WWF Chief Operating Officer Marcia Marsh. While implementing the GRRT may not be easy, “we need integrated solutions for integrated problems,” said Erika Clesceri, bureau environmental officer at USAID.
A Critical Partnership
In the midst of a crisis, humanitarian workers on the ground often do not have the time, skills, or funding to incorporate environmental concerns into relief efforts, said Robert Laprade, senior director for emergencies and humanitarian assistance at CARE. Humanitarian workers are “going a hundred miles an hour, they’re going on adrenaline and they’re there to save people’s lives – and the environment is just of secondary importance,” he said.
But “environmental sustainability is critical to the achievement of long-lasting recovery results,” said Roger Lowe, senior vice president of communications at American Red Cross. The Red Cross Principles of Conduct state that “relief aid must strive to reduce future vulnerabilities to disaster as well as meeting basic needs” and “avoid long-term beneficiary dependence upon external aid,” he said.
From Damnation, Purgatory, and Armageddon to Redemption
For many crisis-stricken regions, lack of an emphasis on environmental sustainability during disaster recovery efforts can mean “damnation in the present, purgatory in the near future, and Armageddon in the long term,” said Peter Walker, director of the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University. Stress on the environment caused by climate change or unsustainable resource consumption can often contribute to conflict, he explained.
In Darfur, “the environmental change was part and parcel of what led to that conflict,” Walker said. At one time an “environmental Eden” of diverse ecological zones, Darfur gradually became an environment that could not support a society of livestock herding. As the environment changed, some former herders became salaried, armed gunmen, known as the Janjaweed who felt they faced “a choice of no choice,” Walker said, to either “die as pastoralists or become pariahs as mercenaries.”
The challenge for humanitarian aid organizations is to not only help communities recover from disasters, but help them adapt to future environmental stress caused by globalization, climate change, or other factors. “If you cannot adapt,” Walker said, “that’s going to lead to violence.” To avoid aid dependency or resurgence in conflict it is critical to integrate environmental sustainability into disaster relief efforts from the beginning, he said:We used to believe that our world in the aid business was divided between relief on the left and long-term development on the right, and one would gradually go into the other in this relief-development continuum. But the reality is that you have a significant population – a population of millions of people – who are effectively trapped in a form of aid purgatory. They’re basically on a drip feed. Humanitarian assistance does not get you forward, it keeps you alive.
The GRRT offers organizations guidelines for implementing integrated disaster relief to provide a sustainable solution. While every crisis is different, the GRRT’s guidelines should be as applicable to “flooding in Boston as they are to flooding in Aceh,” said Walker.
Implementing Integrated Solutions
Securing funding for this integrated approach will be a challenge, as a significant portion will go towards staffing and training people on the ground, said Clesceri. A stand-alone, dedicated budget for environmental issues within humanitarian assistance programs must “be fought and re-fought for on a continual basis,” she said.
Local partnerships are essential. “Replicate” should be “stricken from the lexicon,” said Marsh. “You can’t replicate, and this toolkit isn’t meant to be a one-size-fits-all.” Instead, she said, the goal of the GRRT is to “create very practical approaches with communities.”
The key to helping communities recover from disasters is to form the kinds of strategic partnerships demonstrated by WWF and the American Red Cross in the creation of the GRRT. “Interdisciplinary groups are always, in my mind, going to get you a better solution in the end, but the risk is that they take more time…but it’s absolutely worth it,” she said.
Photo Credit: “Dark Clouds from Haiti’s Hurricane Tomas Loom over Camps,” courtesy of flickr user United Nations Photo.