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2019-05-21
Center for Disaster Philanthropy;
In 2017, the U.S. experienced the costliest year of major natural disasters on record; 2018 was the fourth costliest year. In this two-year period, how many Americans donated to disaster aid and how much? What are the main drivers for disaster giving? Does giving to disaster aid come at the expense of other causes? Based on new data on American household giving, this forthcoming research brief answers questions about the patterns, preferences, and practices of individual charitable giving for disaster aid.
2019-05-14
Free Press;
The ability to communicate during and after a disaster is a life-and-death matter. And few disasters better exemplify this need than Hurricanes Irma and Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico in September 2017.
Hurricane Irma struck on Sept. 6 and left more than a million people without power while weakening Puerto Rico's already fragile infrastructure. Then on Sept. 20, Hurricane Maria — a Category 4 storm — destroyed the islands' infrastructure. It left nearly the entire population without power and knocked out Puerto Rico's communications networks. Between 3,000–5,000 people died, making Maria one of the deadliest disasters in U.S. history. And the inability of Puerto Ricans to make calls or access life-saving information contributed to the death toll.
The failure of the islands' communications infrastructure was a major factor in the death toll. This report's goal is to call attention to the critical need to examine and investigate all of the causes for the collapse of the communications networks -- and to ensure a crisis like this isn't repeated.
2018-12-04
Oxfam;
Large-scale and complex emergencies often occur in countries where government institutions have weak coping capacity. They may struggle to deliver essential services routinely, even in non-emergency situations. This has serious implications for the way in which emergency water, sanitation and hygiene services are managed long-term and in the transition from emergency to post-emergency situations.
UNHCR and Oxfam commissioned a study to understand more about how emergency WASH services are delivered, and to identify how the provision of infrastructure can lead to sustainable service delivery and a more professional management mechanism. As many humanitarian crises are protracted in nature, emergency WASH services need to be sustained once humanitarian agencies depart. This report aims to review and identify alternative service delivery options, and to provide some pragmatic guidance that can be incorporated into emergency response programmes and tested, evaluated and built on in the future.
2018-12-03
Red de Fundaciones de Puerto Rico;
La Red de Fundaciones de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Funders Network) released a report documenting philanthropic engagement in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. The report does a deep dive on how philanthropy changed after one catastrophic storm and shares lessons learned that can inform disaster giving going forward.
Janice Petrovich, then executive director of "La Red," describes the purpose of the study of private philanthropy following the 2017 hurricanes "to reflect on what we experienced and draw meaning and lessons that can serve us in the long rebuilding process, and others who may have the misfortune of experiencing such a destructive event."
2018-11-13
C&A Foundation;
In January 2015, the Li & Fung Foundation and C&A Foundation jointly set up a trust fund, the Tazreen Factory Victim Workers' Children Welfare Fund (TCWF1), to provide financial support covering basic needs for the 89 children of missing or deceased workers from the 2012 Tazreen factory disaster in Bangladesh. The financial support from the TCWF is distributed to the beneficiaries in the form of both a monthly allowance and a fixed deposit released when children turn 18. The fund is being managed by Caritas Bangladesh on a first five-year agreement (July 2015 to June 2020).In August 2018, C&A Foundation and Li & Fung Foundation commissioned this independent evaluation with the primary purpose of assessing the initiative's performance so far in terms of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability, as well as identifying case studies, key lessons learned and providing recommendations in order to improve and adapt the execution of the fund for the next phase (2020-2025).
2018-11-08
Foundation Center;
Every year, disasters and humanitarian crises affect millions of people globally. This report analyzes disaster-related funding in 2016 from foundations, bilateral and multilateral donors, the U.S. federal government, corporations, and smaller donors who gave through donor-advised funds and online platforms.
2018-10-25
Rockefeller Archive Center;
This project examines the development of American humanitarianism in the era of the world wars. It explores how, in the absence of state power, private citizens often filled the void. Their activities expand the common definition of diplomacy by noting myriad ways private organizations and individuals, including the Rockefeller Foundation and its partners, attempted to influence the direction of American foreign relations. The primary argument here is to demonstrate that American citizens, who grew frustrated at the lack of government involvement in world affairs during the first-half of the twentieth century, sought to insert themselves into positions of power and influence. This project shows that, in the absence of the state, many American individuals and NGOs formed partnerships and coordinated their humanitarian activities on a global scale. In specific ways, they undertook the roles and strategies of foreign policy professionals: stationing professionals in foreign offices, raising and appropriating large sums of money, providing food and medicine, coordinating the mass migration of refugees, and negotiating with foreign governments. By doing so, they acted as "shadow diplomats" – working as a shadow government in opposition to the recognized state authority, but also working in the shadows, away from most public attention and scrutiny, because they reasoned that quiet actions would produce the desired results.
2018-10-05
Oxfam;
On 1 August 2018, the Ministry of Health in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) declared a new Ebola epidemic in Beni territory, North Kivu. It was the first time that Ebola had struck in an area of chronic insecurity and humanitarian crisis. A large-scale response to the outbreak, including health workers on the ground, volunteers in communities, and those working to coordinate the response, has had a clear impact on the spread of the virus. The challenge for DRC and its international partners is not only to rapidly control the deadly Ebola, but to do so in a way that contributes to protecting communities in this vulnerable environment.
In the next phase of the response, there is a need to rebuild trust and engagement with communities, alongside the essential medical response. A stronger and more independent role for NGOs would also better support scale-up and reinforce quality. These briefings track some of the issues faced by the response to the outbreak: the complexity of the context, the role of communities, and new directions for the response.
Briefing 1: DRC: The world's first Ebola outbreak inside a conflict
Briefing 2: Strengthening the Ebola Response in Beni, DRC by Putting Communities at the Centre
Briefing 3: Crucial Course Corrections for the Ebola Response in Beni, DRC
2018-09-20
Oxfam;
The Saudi and UAE-led Coalition has intensified its assault towards Hudaydah's city and port, with devastating consequences for civilians. If fighting continues and the main roads out of the city are blocked, hundreds of thousands of people could be trapped in Hudaydah without access to adequate food, water and medical care. All sides in the conflict are causing harm to civilians -- for example, airstrikes are damaging water infrastructure, which has undermined water supplies to about 58,000 families.
This urgent briefing adds new evidence -- from Oxfam's interviews with civilians on the ground -- to the warnings that the UN and others have already made. There must be an immediate cessation of all fighting, and a turn towards an inclusive peace process, engaging Yemen's women, youth and civil society.
2018-08-31
Environmental and Energy Study Institute;
Every year, natural disasters inflict damages costing hundreds of billions of dollars globally – and the cost is rising. Climate change creates a more volatile weather system in which hurricanes, storm surge, wildfires, and other climate-related disasters are becoming more frequent and intense. The National Centers for Environmental Information, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), records the number of natural disasters that cause at least a billion dollars in losses in the United States – 'billion-dollar' disasters. In 2017, there were 16 'billion-dollar' disasters with losses totaling more than $300 billion, a record high. These extraordinary losses, although unprecedented, were not entirely unexpected. The frequency of 'billion-dollar' disasters (adjusted for inflation) has been increasing since the 1980s. Between 1980 and 2012, there were on average 5.3 'billion-dollar' disasters per year in the United States. In the last five years, 2013-2017, the average was 11.6 such disasters per year.
2018-08-15
Oxfam;
In 2017, Elrha's Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF) launched a Challenge 'to understand how to design, implement, and evaluate approaches to user-centred sanitation that incorporate rapid community engagement and are appropriate for the first stage of rapid-onset emergencies' (defined as the first twelve weeks post crisis). A component of this Challenge involved undertaking a landscape review of existing community engagement practice and approaches that could be used to provide a background resource for Challenge participants. The review was carried out by Oxfam, the HIF's Research and Evaluation Partner for the project. It draws on published and grey literature and interviews with 15 key informants.
2018-07-31
Action Against Hunger;
Since August 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar for camps in the Cox';s Bazar district of Bangladesh. The research for this report was conducted to identify the needs, vulnerabilities, risks and concerns of Rohingya refugee and host community women, girls, men and boys in Cox';s Bazar, as well as the skills and opportunities on which they can build. The analysis shows various gaps in the humanitarian response for both communities, especially in terms of accountability, communication with affected communities and disaster preparedness, but also in equitable access to services, in particular for women and girls, and especially for the Rohingya community. The report presents a range of recommendations for agencies responding to the crisis, including on water, sanitation and hygiene; menstrual hygiene management; food security and nutrition; livelihoods; gender-based violence; community and household power structures; women';s and girls'; leadership; unpaid care work; coping strategies; and community cohesion, among others.
The research was led by Oxfam in partnership with Action Against Hunger and Save the Children, and produced with analysis, comments and recommendations from CARE, UNHCR, the Inter Sector Coordination Group and UN Women.
