WORLD URBAN FORUM: Our Future: Sustainable Cities – Turning Ideas into Action


The World Urban Forum is a biennial gathering that is attended by a wide range of partners, from non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations, urban professionals, academics, to governments, local authorities and national and international associations of local governments. It gives all these actors a common platform to discuss urban issues in formal and informal ways and come up with action-oriented proposals to create sustainable cities. The third session of the World Urban Forum (WUFIII) will be hosted by the Government of Canada. It will take place in Vancouver, Canada, from 19 to 23 June 2006 and have as its main theme, Our Future: Sustainable Cities – Turning Ideas into Action. Read more...

SRI LANKA: Women's Right to Work


Statement issued on 26th April 2006 by a number of organisations and community groups in Eastern Sri Lanka in Response to the recent threats made against women workers in the East of Sri Lanka. Read the statement...

WHO: World Health Report 2006 - Working together for health


This report from World Health Organization (WHO) focuses on the shortage of health workers in 57 countries. The shortage, combined with a lack of training and knowledge, is a major obstacle for health systems as they attempt to respond effectively to emergency medical aid and chronic diseases. The report sets out a 10-year plan to address the problem where it calls for national leadership to urgently formulate and implement country strategies for the health workforce. Read more...

DFID: Reducing the Risk of Disasters

The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) has published a new policy entitled “Reducing the Risk of Disasters” that sets out ways to save lives and reduce the devastation caused by disasters. In 2005, DFID announced that in future, 10 per cent of funds spent on disaster relief will be invested in initiatives to reduce the impact of disasters. Read more...

ISDR: 2005 Disasters in Numbers

ISDR and the Belgian Université Catholique de Louvain's Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) released the official figures of the number of disasters in 2005 at a press conference in the Palais des Nations, Salle 1 at 11 a.m.. CRED's Driector Prof. Debarati Guha Sapir unveiled the 2005 figures which show an 18 per cent rise in the number of disasters with more people affected, but a significant drop in deaths rates. Read more...

ACTION AID: Women of the Pakistan earthquake

ActionAid medics have worked hard to help those who suffered the most from the Pakistan earthquake which devasted the region in October 2005. Mothers at home, crushed by collapsing walls, suffered more than the men who were out in the open when the disaster struck. Read more.....

World Bank: Complementing natural Disaster Management, Vol.1

Natural disasters have a huge impact on social and economic welfare. Policies to manage them need to be integrated and well grounded to the specificities of natural hazards as well as local capacities in terms of fiscal, administrative and economic capabilities. A well designed natural disasters management strategy crucially depends on carefully assessing and planning responses before, during and after the disaster occurs. This policy note discusses the complementary role that Social Protection can play in the formation of an effective strategy for natural disasters management. Read more...

ACEH: Peace after the Waters? Aceh: One Year After the Tsunami


In response Global Exchange organized a delegation of human rights advocates
and researchers from Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh and the United States to
travel to Aceh, Indonesia to witness and assess the situation one year after the
disaster.  Read more...


Journal of Education in International Development: Fostering education for female, out-of-school youth in Afghanistan

This paper describes the Afghanistan Primary Education Program (APEP) set up 2003 in response to the lack of educational opportunities in Afghanistan for the general population and especially for females. The main aim of APEP is to offer
emergency access to accelerated elementary education for out-of-school youth between ten and eighteen years of age, focusing on females. The paper describes the programme strategies and the significant results achieved for female youth. Read more....

International Development Committee: HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE TO NATURAL DISASTERS - New inquiry


Natural disasters during 2005 focused public attention on the policies and practices of humanitarian assistance. The IDC has decided to conduct an inquiry into Humanitarian response to natural disasters. The focus is specifically on natural disasters (both slow and rapid onset), although we recognize that there is not always a clear distinction between natural disasters and complex emergencies. The inquiry will address the following issues. Read more....

Article 19: Legal and Ethical Standards on Freedom of Expression in the Context of Disaster Response.

International Peace Academy: International Assistance to Countries Emerging from Conflict

With attention on the operationalization of the recent established UN eacebuilding Commission this paper provides a review of the main features and trends in international assistance to countries emerging from conflict over the last fifteen years. This paper argues that though progress with international peacebuilding is being made on the ground, the United Nations system and donor agencies have failed thus far to address satisfactorily three gaps: political leadership,strategic
coordination, and a comprehensive financial mechanism. click here....

International Peace Academy: How Remittances Sustain Livelihoods in War, Crises and Transitions to Peace


Conflicts, crises and disasters increase the number and categories of vulnerable people whose survival depends on assistance from outside sources. It has become increasingly apparent that migrant remittances have played a major role in helping individuals and communities affected by conflicts and disasters. This report explores the impact of remittances destined for countries or populations living in contexts of conflict, war-to- peace transitions, and/or crises. Click here...

CPR Network: PEACE and CONFLICT IMPACT ASSESSMENT (PCIA) HANDBOOK

The handbook consolidates good practice for peace and conflict impact assessment from multiple sources and provides a stand-alone, practical approach for peacebuilding practitioners who wish to ensure that the impact of their engagement in fragile communities will, as a minimum 'do no harm', and as a maximum may contribute to peace promotion. The handbook is ideally designed to be used in a workshop setting but may also be used as a guide for a mission assessment. Click here...

CPR Network: EARLY WARNING & EARLY RESPONSE HANDBOOK

This handbook is intended for development practitioners who seek to mainstream peace and conflict analysis into their long-term development programs.The conflict diagnostic framework enables planners to take a "snapshot" of peace and conflict dynamics in a given country, and stimulates discussion of possible development activities that can support peace. The handbook can also be used by non-development actors (i.e. diplomatic, political, security, trade, finance) to identify
possible areas for action. Read more....

INFOCHANGE: An overview of disasters in India/ By Vinod C Menon and Shirish Kavadi


India is the worst-affected theatre of disaster in the South Asian region. Drought, floods, earthquakes and cyclones devastate the country with grim regularity. Ten thousand were killed in the Orissa supercyclone of 1999, and 16,000 died in the earthquake that hit Kutch in January 2001. Are these natural disasters caused by nature's fury? Or are they man-made in large measure? Is the country equipped to manage the disasters that affect 25 million people every year? Read more...


ISS Tsunami reconstruction efforts needs to focus on the poor

The paper contends that women on the African continent have the benefit of using these international rights-based frameworks in their political efforts to achieve equality and political representation. The paper focuses on the violence that omen experience in conflict situations and on state policies and practices as corrective measures for gender inequities, cognisant that this is not the only locus of struggle, because women’s realities are shaped by multiple social hierarchies and gendered power relations are deeply rooted in our societies. Read more...

INDIA: Development interventions for PME facilitators

This article is a part of a booklet published to help planning, monitoring and evaluation (PME) facilitators to bring new insights and practical solutions related to planning and Monitoring of development programs The following text explores the implications and special challenges associated with different types of evelopment interventions from Planning and Monitoring point of view. Read more...

INDIA: Everybody loves a good flood

Although the intensity of floods has been increasing, it is not primarily due to deforestation. It is the failure of the so-called modern world to come to terms with this natural phenomenon that is aggravating the situation. As long ago as 1937,
the chief engineer of Bihar, Captain G F Hall, said that by building embankments “we are storing disaster for the future”. Read more.....

W O M E N ’ S C O M M I S S I O N for refugee women & children:
Displaced Women and Girls at Risk

This paper and accompanying checklists build on research, reports and tools developed by the University of New South Wales' Centre for Refugee Research to better understand what places women at risk, and how to respond to immediate
needs and prevent further harm to their safety and well-being. Read more...

UNICEF: HUMANITARIAN ACTION REPORT 2006

UN: "The State of the World's Refugees"


The return of millions of people to recovering nations such as Afghanistan, Angola and Sierra Leone has contributed to a sharp global decline in the number of refugees and asylum seekers over the past five years, but the sustainability of some of those returns remains a concern, according to a new report today by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Read more...

ACTION AID: Reducing the Risk of Disasters - Women of the Pakistan earthquake

ActionAid medics have worked hard to help those who suffered the most from the Pakistan earthquake which devasted the region in October 2005. Mothers at home, crushed by collapsing walls, suffered more than the men who were out in the open when the disaster struck. Read more..

INDIA: Health, Wealth and Terror

The idea of a ‘killer’ global pandemic has been hitting the headlines off and on ever since the SARS scare of early 2003 and the WHO has been warning the world repeatedly of a pandemic that could kill ‘millions’ within a period of months if not
weeks. The oft quoted historical precedent is of course the so-called Spanish Flu of 1918 that is supposed to have left over40 million people dead around the world in a matter of a few months. Read more...

INDIA: State asked to form teams for disaster management

The state government has been asked to mobilise a state disaster management force on the lines of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) at the earliest to effectively handle emergency situations and natural disasters. Read more...

INDIA: Temporary structures too need fire guidelines

A short-circuit that caused a fire at a consumer fair in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, ending 50 lives has brought into sharp focus the lack of safety norms at such expositions, routinely held in Indian cities. Read more...

SOUTH ASIA: The South Asian Earthquake Six Months Later: An Ongoing Crisis

An estimated 74,650 people lost their lives — a higher death toll than the average annual loss to all natural and man-made disasters combined during the 1990s, excluding armed conflicts. Yet the outpouring of concern, solidarity, and assistance was of short duration. Today only 66 percent of the "flash appeal" issued by the United Nations — an appeal for emergency aid initially estimated at $312 million and rapidly increased to $550 million — has been funded. Important needs remain unmet. Read more...