Path dependency when prioritising disaster and humanitarian response under high levels of conflict: a qualitative case study in South Sudan

In high-conflict scenarios, humanitarian needs often surpass resources, and humanitarians are faced with ongoing challenges of whom to prioritise and where to work. This process is often referred to as ‘targeting’, but this article uses the concept of ‘triage’ to emphasise how prioritisation is a continuous and political process, rather than a one-off exercise to find the best match between needs and programme objectives. This study focused on South Sudan, exploring the formal and informal dynamics at the national, regional and local levels of humanitarian decisions. The article is based on semi-structured interviews and multiple meetings and observations of programmes over four months of fieldwork in 2017. This fieldwork was beset by many of the problems that humanitarians also encounter in their work, including complicated access, logistics difficulties and security challenges. Humanitarian action is meant to be flexibly deployed to respond to priority needs resulting from conflict or disasters, and agencies have multiple tools and policies to facilitate this. However, in reality, we find humanitarian action largely locked into path-dependent areas of intervention because agencies must rely on logistics, trust and local partners, all of which take years to develop, and because local actors’ commitment to see programmes continued.

A Review into the Acute Emergency Response of Operational Partnerships During the Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Cox’s Bazar

Background: The unprecedented influx of Rohingya refugees into Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in 2017 led to a humanitarian emergency requiring large numbers of humanitarian workers to be deployed to the region. The World Health Organization (WHO) contributed to this effort through several well-established deployment mechanisms: the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) and the Standby Partnerships (SBP). The aim of the study was to capture the views and experiences of those humanitarian workers deployed by WHO through operational partnerships between December 2017 and February 2019.Methods: A mixed methods design was used. A desktop review was conducted to describe the demographics of the humanitarian workers deployed to Cox’s Bazar and the work that was undertaken. Interviews were conducted with a subset of the respondents to elicit their views relating to their roles and contributions to the humanitarian response, challenges during their deployment and how the process could be improved. Thematic analysis was used to identify key themes.Results: We identified sixty-five deployments during the study period. Respondents’ previous experience ranged between 3 and 28 years (mean 9.7 years). The duration of deployment ranged from 8 to 278 days (mean 67 days) and there was a higher representation of workers from Western Pacific and European regions. Forty-one interviews were conducted with people who experienced all aspects of the deployment process. Key themes elicited from interviews related to staffing, the deployment process, the office environment and capacity building. Various issues raised have since been addressed, including the establishment of a sub-office structure, introduction of online training prior to deployment, and a staff wellbeing committee. Conclusions: This study identified successes and areas for improvement for deployments during emergencies. The themes and subthemes elicited can be used to inform policy and practice changes, as well as the development of performance indicators. Common findings between this study and previous literature indicate the pivotal role of staff deployments through partnership agreements during health emergency response operations and a need for continuous improvements of processes to ensure maximum effectiveness.

The power to lead

The staff in local organisations are taking on the largest proportion of risk in a humanitarian response by being on the frontlines and endangering their physical and mental well-being. This paper reflects on how local organisations are taking leadership over the responses within their countries despite the challenges of bringing the localisation agenda and commitments into reality. Further, it recommends how international actors can reflect on their localisation efforts to reach a more tangible change that aligns with the Grand Bargain commitments. In addition to advocating for more access to direct funding, the paper also provides examples of how to shift leadership to a more community-driven response aligned with the concept of the triple nexus, and shares firsthand experience from the work of a local organisation that is active in the Syria response and driven by the commitment to create youth-led change.

Geo-spatial Assessment of Flood Vulnerability Areas of the Gaza Strip Towards Preparedness and Humanitarian Response Planning

Nowadays, flood and drought will become more common as climate change causes. Due to climate change consequences, flood occurrence and its impact on Gaza people have been of great concern to the Palestinian water authority, as it has a negative influence on various humanitarian and social issues. The hazards and damages resulted by flooding cause loss of life, property, displacement of people and disruption of socioeconomic activities. This research focuses on assessing Gaza Strip vulnerability to flooding using analysis of GIS-based spatial information. Not only did it consider the physical-environmental flood vulnerability, it also investigated social flood vulnerability aspects e.g., population densities. Soil and slope were considered to have the highest weight in the vulnerability mapping, as they represent the main factors in urban hydro-ecosystem structure. The long term average rainfall, a climate function factor, has the lowest weight, because it could be considered as a threat factor in addition to a vulnerability factor. This research demonstrates that urban area and population density as strong factors influencing flood vulnerability for humanitarian and saving life purposes. The findings of Geospatial analysis were used to map vulnerable areas likely to be affected in the event of flood hazard and suggest future interventions and related adaptation strategies in Gaza areas for flood mitigation.

Use of COVID-19 evidence in humanitarian settings: the need for dynamic guidance adapted to changing humanitarian crisis contexts

Background For humanitarian organisations to respond effectively to complex crises, they require access to up-to-date evidence-based guidance. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of updating global guidance to context-specific and evolving needs in humanitarian settings. Our study aimed to understand the use of evidence-based guidance in humanitarian responses during COVID-19. Primary data collected during the rapidly evolving pandemic sheds new light on evidence-use processes in humanitarian response. Methods We collected and analysed COVID-19 guidance documents, and conducted semi-structured interviews remotely with a variety of humanitarian organisations responding and adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic. We used the COVID-19 Humanitarian platform, a website established by three universities in March 2020, to solicit, collate and document these experiences and knowledge. Results We analysed 131 guidance documents and conducted 80 interviews with humanitarian organisations, generating 61 published field experiences. Although COVID-19 guidance was quickly developed and disseminated in the initial phases of the crisis (from January to May 2020), updates or ongoing revision of the guidance has been limited. Interviews conducted between April and September 2020 showed that humanitarian organisations have responded to COVID-19 in innovative and context-specific ways, but have often had to adapt existing guidance to inform their operations in complex humanitarian settings. Conclusions Experiences from the field indicate that humanitarian organisations consulted guidance to respond and adapt to COVID-19, but whether referring to available guidance indicates evidence use depends on its accessibility, coherence, contextual relevance and trustworthiness. Feedback loops through online platforms like the COVID-19 Humanitarian platform that relay details of these evidence-use processes to global guidance setters could improve future humanitarian response.