 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sunday, 3 March 2013
MALNUTRITION: Action Against Hunger (ACF)
MALARIA: Weekly Update from Malaria Nexus 01 March 2013
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| www.malarianexus.com. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Friday, 1 March 2013
MALNUTRITION: Getting food aid right
Now, a research team led by food aid expert Daniel Maxwell, a professor at Tufts University’s Feinstein International Centre (FIC), has released a paper, Response Analysis and Response Choice in Food Security Crises: A Roadmap, describing the factors that underlie how aid agencies respond to food crises. The paper, released this week, highlights the need for reliable analysis to inform aid agencies’ and policymakers’ decisions, not only in responding to these crises but also in preventing their recurrence.
However, the authors - Maxwell, Heather Stobaugh and John Parker from FIC, and Megan McGlinchy of Catholic Relief Services - point out, “There remains little in the way of an evidence base about what works best under what circumstances.”
Analysis for prevention
Response analysis should not simply ensure that aid is delivered in time to those who need it; it should also play a role in addressing chronic food insecurity, helping to end the vicious cycle of aid dependency.
“Response analysis is appropriate and necessary whether you are talking about an acute emergency or longer-term resilience programming - the range of options may be different, but the analysis processes are similar,” Maxwell told IRIN via email.
"the authors find there often remains a 'disconnect' between the information provided and kind needed to inform humanitarian responses"
Laura Taylor, policy head at the NGO Tearfund, said, "Smarter analysis before emergencies, such as cyclical droughts and food crises that we can often predict from warning signs - up to nine months in advance - will ground plans with a good understanding of the risks and underlying causes of vulnerability. This has been proven in the case of chronic hunger situations in regions such as the Sahel.” Graham Farmer, global coordinator of the new Food Security Cluster - the UN’s mechanism to coordinate the food responses of humanitarian agencies - agrees.
He told IRIN via email, “Response analysis is a key element of preparedness and contingency planning… Such preparedness will allow us to respond faster, more effectively and in a more targeted manner.”
The study’s authors suggest various kinds of information should be collected before a crisis, such as market analysis. This information would include: the number and types of food traders in an area; historical commodity prices; production trends; consumer demand; access to markets; food quality; government policies; and weaknesses or bottlenecks in the food supply chains. The agencies should also be aware of traditional coping mechanisms and details of how households function.
All this information would help agencies analyse which communities to target and what kind of interventions would best ensure people are resilient to shocks.
Disconnect
Although a lot of effort has recently gone into improving assessments, the authors find there often remains a “disconnect” between the information provided and kind needed to inform humanitarian responses.
For instance, assessments often provide a snapshot of the current needs in a food security crisis, but humanitarian requirements change with seasons. Ideally, an assessment should include some projection of the conditions expected in the immediate future so programmes can be designed to address them.
The study also found that analyses often fail to take into account recipients’ preferences. When they do, recipients’ preferences are typically noted to justify an agency’s mode of response, rather than driving decision-making.
Additionally, the authors note, aid agencies do not base their responses solely on evidence and analysis. Other factors come into play, including agencies’ capacities, the personal experiences of staff, and funding and policy constraints.
“As a result, they often have to rely on assumptions - rather than analysis - when choosing emergency food-security interventions. This makes the need for more evidence-based decision-making processes more urgent than ever,” the authors say.
In most instances, agencies’ capacities determine their responses - for example, an agency’s nutritional assessment will lead to nutrition programmes - which can result in narrowly focused responses to complex emergencies.
Coordination is key
The report stresses that, while conducting response analysis, agencies must be mindful of how their work will affect the broader humanitarian context, taking into account what other agencies, governments, and local communities are doing to address food insecurity.
For example, an agency might roll-out a cash-transfer programme based on an assessment that concludes one such programme would not affect local markets. But if a number of agencies roll-out similar programmes, the cumulative effects could prove disruptive.
The authors say some collaborative work resulted from the response to the Horn of Africa crisis in 2011-2012, “but in practice, such approaches remain the exception rather than the rule”.
A coordination mechanism is necessary to ensuring all parties are aware of what is being done - the new Food Security Cluster aims to fill this role.
“Much of what we advocate is that this kind of analysis should be done at the cluster level, so that the response follows an overall strategy,” Maxwell told IRIN.
Collaborations across institutions help draw on the strengths of different organizations, Farmer says. “The cluster approach… should provide a safe environment - devoid of interference from external factors such agency agendas - for the development of evidence-based analysis and programming,” he said.
“That then increases efficiency and, through the efforts of national cluster partners, increases delivery and accountability to affected populations.”
Integrating programmes
Ideally, food and nutrition interventions and programmes that target livelihoods should be integrated, reckoned Maxwell.
Farmer says the aid community is moving in that direction. “At the global level, we have created a working group between the Food Security and Nutrition Clusters, looking at how to avoid duplication and increase synergy. At the country level, there are clear examples of benefits from clusters working together.”
Farmer says there is also dialogue taking place at the Inter-Agency Standing Committee “about reshaping our perspective on… cross-cutting issues such as gender, age, environment and so on. One potential push coming from the work is a focus on better targeting based on strong assessment.”
Tearfund’s Taylor says a key element would be for “donors to be more flexible with funding for budgets. Programmes shouldn’t be set in stone. This ensures that if a crisis develops over time, NGOs can adapt their responses based on the latest analysis from the affected region and avoid being locked into pre-determined budgets.”
jk/rz
- See more at: http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97576/Getting-food-aid-right#sthash.xHa25U6r.dpuf
POVERTY: Egypt: turmoil makes life tougher for refugees
He has not worked since, though not for want of trying: He spends his days knocking on the doors of houses, firms, factories and workshops to beg for work.
“I urgently need work to feed my family, but this work has become impossible to find here,” the father of two told IRIN. “We stick to buying the basics, but these basics become harder to get each day.”
The political turmoil and deep economic crisis in Egypt, which has been hit by a slump in tourism, low investment and rising food prices, is hurting the country’s most vulnerable communities.
Monthly inflation in January was up 1.7 percent according to the Central Bank of Egypt. The current annual inflation rate is 6.3 percent.
African refugee rights’ groups say refugees and migrants are frequently the victims of unprovoked arrests and disappearances, while also struggling to feed themselves and pay rent.
“Life in Egypt for refugees has moved from bad to worse after the revolution,” said Aly Mahmud, a Sudanese refugee and the founder of the Makarem African Society, an NGO that tries to help refugees find jobs.
“As Egypt's economy shrinks, the refugees find it more difficult to earn a living or even lead a dignified life.”
As of January 2013, the number of African refugees officially registered in Egypt was 35,180, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
African refugees and economic migrants generally live in Cairo's toughest neighbourhoods, sharing dirty toilets and stinking alleyways with Egypt’s poorest citizens.
“The refugees have been affected in the same way that Egyptians have been affected,” Elizabeth Tan, deputy regional representative of UNHCR, told IRIN. “Refugees often complain about an increase in crime and the increase in the cost of living.”
No money
Abdullah Hanzal, director of refugee NGO Sudan Centre for Contemporary Studies, said research they had conducted in January found that most African refugees in Egypt had lost their jobs since the revolution.
"Life in Egypt for refugees has moved from bad to worse after the revolution" Aly Mahmud, NGO Makarem African Society
“Refugees who sell on the streets said they had to stay on the streets longer to sell their wares,” Hanzal said. “And when these refugees sell everything, the money is not nearly enough to buy food for their families.”Aly Mahmud, the founder of the Makarem African Society, has three friends who could not pay 200 Egyptian pounds (US$29) to rent a shared room in the poor Giza Governorate neighbourhood of Ard Al Liwa and were kicked out as a result.
“They spend the nights at coffee shops and the days in public gardens,” Mahmud said. “My three friends are single, but the situation is even more difficult for refugee families that fail to pay the rent.”
Local aid groups are also feeling the pinch, said Tareg Nour, executive director of Tadamon, an NGO that works to promote the welfare of marginalized refugees. “Funding no longer comes, because donors do not want to give money to organizations in countries where there is all this turmoil.”
UNHCR says applications for financial support from refugees increased substantially after the revolution. UNHCR is able to give financial support to only 25 percent of the 35,180 African refugees.
“Unfortunately, UNHCR's budget has not increased to take into consideration the increase in the cost of living,” Tan said. “But the office will be supporting grassroots and community-based initiatives in order to enhance self-reliance and income generation efforts to be implemented by the refugees.”
Organ theft risk
Hanzel says African refugees and economic migrants are prone to the most brutal forms of exploitation, including organ theft.
“A marked increase - spearheaded by traders who exploit Egypt's bad security conditions - in organ theft cases has happened after the revolution,” said Bashir Suleiman, a reporter for Coalition for Organ Failure Solutions (COFS), an international NGO that identifies survivors of organ trafficking and tries to provide long-term support.
“Most refugees are deceived by organ trafficking gangs who hang out among refugees,” he told IRIN.
Tan said UNHCR is aware of reports of organ trafficking in Egypt and has been in dialogue with the government. “The refugees are particularly vulnerable to this kind of exploitation,” she said.
“Unfortunately, a large number of the refugees who come to us were subject to organ theft, even without knowing it,” Suleiman said. “Refugee kidneys, tissues, uteruses, ovaries and other organs are high on the list of stolen organs.”
*not his real name
ae/jj/cb
POVERTY: Pakistan: How best to serve 750,000 IDPs?
PESHAWAR, 1 March 2013 (IRIN) - Residents escaping the latest round of fighting in Khyber Agency in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) say they did not even have time to bury their dead before leaving their homes in the Tirah valley.
They are the latest of hundreds of thousands of people who have fled their homes in the tribal belt close to Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan over the past five years of Pakistani military operations.
Conflict is not the only cause of displacement - natural disasters have also played a role, creating what humanitarians call a “complex emergency”.
But despite the existence of camps set up for internally displaced persons (IDPs) where the government and humanitarian organizations provide assistance, most choose to flee elsewhere - creating a challenge for those wanting to help these vulnerable communities.
Over 75,000 people live in three established IDP camps (such as Jalozai, a half-hour drive from Peshawar) which house families in tents or makeshift structures, and provide food aid, medical facilities and drinking water. They also serve as a central registration point for families arriving from areas hit by conflict or natural disaster.
Large though these camps are, they only account for 10 percent of the three-quarters of a million IDPs, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Humanitarian agencies are increasingly being pushed to take care of those who prefer to live elsewhere; often in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KP), and elsewhere in KP.
NGOs and the UN working in Pakistan carry out so-called IDP vulnerability assessment and profiling (IVAP) surveys to gather information on where off-camp IDPs are, and the type of support they need - from shelter and food to health care and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) assistance.
They also gather information about what IDPs say they will need on returning to their homes, generally in FATA - with housing, security and agriculture of particular concern to families.
IVAP findings are then passed to humanitarian partners in an effort to ensure that assistance is targeted where there is the greatest need.
The European Commission-funded IVAP project recommends that aid agencies prioritize assistance for off-camp families, 82 percent of whom have to pay rent and live in difficult, cramped conditions.
IDPs outside the camps
Providing humanitarian services outside of the camp environment can be challenging.
IDPs have direct access to facilities at camps, but tribal customs, perceptions of camp life and a preference to stay with relatives and friends, mean a large number of IDPs choose to live outside the camps, making it more difficult for the authorities and humanitarian organizations to keep track of them and offer assistance.
Those providing aid, and the IDPs receiving it, would be better served if distribution was decentralized, said Sobat Khan Afridi, chairman of the Tehreek-e-Mutasireen Khyber Agency, an NGO set up by different political parties to assist IDPs.
“It is easier for larger organizations, especially international NGOs, to operate from the camp as it is easier to manage for them. The problem is that it is still difficult for all the families not living at the camp to reach Jalozai and get aid,” said Afridi.
“It would be better if they set up distribution points across Peshawar in the areas where a lot of IDPs live. That would mean less stress for the authorities at Jalozai, and less problems for off-camp IDPs too.”
Yar Mohammed, 29, arrived in Peshawar from Tirah in January after walking with his family for five days, much of the journey through heavy snow. He says going to Jalozai was not an option.
"The ones in the camps are the most vulnerable. They have no other means or resources to set up something else for themselves."
“I spoke to some people who told me the facilities at Jalozai are not enough. They were going to give just one tent to us, and that will not do for 10 people.” Instead, Mohammed stayed with his cousin until he found a three-room mud house in the Scheme Chowk area of Peshawar. He pays 4,000 Pakistan rupees (US$41) a month, and hopes to move his family to a better house soon.
“The movement of off-camp families, especially those from Khyber, is very volatile. Sometimes they are living with relatives. If they can afford it, they rent a house of their own. We try our best to register all of them, but it is a challenge,” said Faiz Muhammad, the KP government’s chief coordinator for IDPs.
Efforts are made to keep in touch with families who choose to live among relatives or rent property. The government uses mobile phone numbers to register families living off-camp, and officials try to reach families that are not registered in this way during monthly food distributions at designated points, he added.
“Even if they are not staying at camp, most of them visit the food distribution points and that allows us to get information from them, give them information and assess the situation.”
Humanitarian organizations and the government have identified areas in and around Peshawar with a high concentration of IDPs, and some assistance, such as medical care, is also provided in those areas.
"Identifying off-camp families was a challenge because of the reluctance of many IDP families to register, as well as humanitarian organizations’ own security concerns. That was overcome to some extent by mapping families initially based on information from IDPs living in camps, and then expanding the effort to surveys of off-camp families in host communities,” said an aid worker with Save the Children in Pakistan who preferred anonymity.
Moving on
Khalid Shah from Khyber Agency lives in Sufaid Dheri, a Peshawar neighbourhood that is home to an estimated 250 displaced families. Two years ago, worried about the safety of his children as fighting escalated in the town of Bara, he boarded up his small shop and left home. His first stop was Jalozai.
“Everyone told me that going to the camp was the best idea. It was safe and there was food and shelter. But after a couple of months, I couldn’t take it any more,” Shah, 42, said.
He started commuting from Jalozai to Sufaid Dheri, where he would earn a daily wage loading and unloading goods in a market. Today, he lives in a two-room apartment in the same neighbourhood with his family. He remains registered with the Jalozai authorities, and often travels to the camp if he requires assistance.
“I have managed to move here, but my brother and his family are still in Jalozai. He works here with me but stays registered there. You never know,” said Shah. The brothers also take turns visiting their land and their shop in Bara every month.
For many families, pessimistic about the prospects of peace in their villages and towns, the next step is to plan for a new life away from Khyber. Many have sold their land to buy property in and around Peshawar. Those with the money have set up businesses too.
“The day I am convinced Bara is peaceful, I am going back,” said Shah.
However, those without even modest financial resources are the real challenge for policymakers in terms of a return strategy. The poorest of the IDPs have no option but to register and live in camps like Jalozai, where the services provided are far superior to what they could hope for back home.
“The ones in the camps are the most vulnerable. They have no other means or resources to set up something else for themselves. They get health, education and food at the camp,” said Faiz Muhammad of the KP government.
“It’s an obvious question: why would they go back?”
Security fears
Pakistani officials say return plans cannot be successful until peace is established in the affected areas.
“We can only begin working on a return programme for IDPs after the government and the military determine that the affected area is safe,” said Faiz Muhammad.
In a refugee camp on the outskirts of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, home to many families displaced by the conflict on the border with Afghanistan, Sher Mohammed, from the Mohmand Agency in FATA, says the military has cleared his village, but his family members that visited still fear militant attacks.
“My cousins went back last summer and they had to come back because it was still dangerous there. I can’t afford to go back unless it is absolutely safe. It costs 50,000 rupees to take my family back. If it’s not safe, I’ll have to spend another 50,000 rupees to come back here,” said the 40-year-old. “I don’t have that kind of money.”
rc/jj/cb
- See more at: http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97570/How-best-to-serve-Pakistan-s-750-000-IDPs#sthash.rKK0URrp.dpuf
MALNUTRITION: Malawi: Maize smuggling creates hunger
Exacerbating both of these problems is the cost of maize - Malawi's staple food - which has become unaffordable.
Between June and October 2012, a 20-litre bucket of maize cost her between 500 and 750 kwacha (about US$1.50 to $2). Now it costs 3,000 kwacha ($8) a bucket.
“That is only enough to produce two meals for me and my children,” said Kilembe.
In a good year, Kilembe grows enough maize in her garden to supply her restaurant and feed her family, but dry spells during the 2011-2012 growing season wilted her crop. Unreliable rainfall is nothing new in Malawi, but in the past, Kilembe could purchase affordable maize from local vendors. This year things are different.
During and after the 2012 harvest, cross-border traders offered farmers in the area much better prices than those offered by local traders.
“Most of the farmers here thought if they sold their maize and kept the money, they would be able to buy from the market once the maize they stored for their own consumption was depleted,” said Masuzgo Zowani, a community worker and subsistence farmer from Chirambo, in western Rumphi District.
“Unfortunately, they did not know that they were creating a gap in the supply of maize both in their area and the country generally because those who offered the better prices took the maize out of the country. Now they can hardly afford the maize that is found on the market.”
Exports banned
A ban on the export of maize from Malawi was implemented in December 2011, when it became apparent dry weather threatened to cause a maize shortage.
But the ban has not prevented traders from smuggling maize across the border into neighbouring Tanzania and Mozambique, where the weakening of the kwacha against the dollar has made Malawi's maize attractive to buyers.
“When trucks bring bags of maize here [from surrounding areas], it is not meant for our market," said Kilembe. "We don’t know where it goes, as the maize often comes late in the evening when we are about to sleep and it is not [there] by daybreak."
"When trucks bring bags of maize here, it is not meant for our market. We don't know where it goes, as the maize often comes late in the evening...and it is not [there] by daybreak"
Dan Msowoya, a spokesperson from the opposition party the Alliance for Democracy, blamed the boom in cross-border trade on the state-owned grain marketer, the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (ADMARC). In recent years, ADMARC has not received sufficient budgetary support to buy surplus maize from farmers, store it and then resell it, leaving the task in the hands of a private conglomerate called Mulli Brothers.But farmers complained that Mulli Brothers did not offer them good prices, and as a result, many sold their maize instead to cross-border traders, not even keeping a portion of the crop for consumption.
Government officials are now urging communities to stop selling maize to cross-border traders, regardless of the prices they offer, but the message seems to have come too late.
Police corruption?
Efforts by local police to stop the smuggling of maize into Tanzania have been largely unsuccessful.
“When we increased manpower on land and impounded trucks carrying maize, the smugglers started transporting the maize on bicycles, and it would appear as if it belonged to an individual who was taking it home,” said Karonga police station officer William Kadzayekha.
“But once we busted that, they started smuggling the maize in boats via Lake Malawi and connecting to Songwe River. We know that they are doing this, but we cannot do anything. We have officers who trained as marine experts, but there are no boats for these officers to use.”
Many local people in Karonga blame the police for letting maize pass through roadblocks, allegedly in return for bribes.
“We have a number of roadblocks from Karonga to the Songwe border post. Police are manning these roadblocks, yet food crops such as maize continue to cross the borders. One wonders how this could happen if it is not [that] the police have pocketed bribes,” said paramount chief Kyungu, the most senior traditional authority in Karonga and Chitipa districts.
Locals have engaged the police in battles over the issue, even chasing them from roadblocks. But while this may have slowed the movement of maize by truck, it has not affected transport by boat. On a recent night, IRIN witnessed maize being loaded onto boats on Lake Malawi just a few hundred metres from the Karonga police station.
Supply and demand
Malawian cross-border businesspersons buying goods in Tanzania for resale in Malawi have also reported seeing huge piles of maize at the Tanzanian border town of Kasumulu. It is believed that the maize is repackaged there for transportation further on in the region.
“The maize piles we see there are usually more than what we see on the Malawian side,” said Grace Kumwenda, who buys wares in Mbeya, Tanzania, and sells them in Mzuzu.
Economist Henry Kachanje says the rising market cost of maize is simple supply and demand: As more maize is smuggled out of the country, supply in the Malawian market dwindles and prices go up.
Currently, most ADMARC markets across the country do not have maize stocks. When limited stocks do come in, they are rationed; the amounts sold are as little as 5kg per person.
The government's 2012 decision last year to replace fuel price subsidies with automatic fuel price adjustments - in which the cost automatically reflects global price fluctuations - has resulted in record high fuel costs, which private traders of maize are also transferring to consumers.
sm/ks/rz
- See more at: http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97571/Maize-smuggling-creates-hunger-in-Malawi#sthash.UDPacEhQ.dpuf
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
