Humanitarian Need Research Articles

Creative employment as a modern resource of socio-economic recovery of Ukraine

The article's main idea is to substantiate the importance of creative employment for Ukraine's socio-economic recovery. Human capital, its creative element, can accelerate the transformation of a raw economy with its export orientation into a new economy dominated by technology and technologies inherent in Industry 4.0. The use of methods of dialectical analysis, synthesis, generalization, systemic, strategic, and process approaches, and techniques of abstraction made it possible to reveal the high potential of creative employment for preserving existing jobs and generating new jobs, making it attractive to investors. The systematization of the thoughts and work of domestic and foreign scientists regarding the content of creative employment is of theoretical and practical importance. In accordance with the defined goals and objectives, the conceptual principles of "narrow" and "broad" approaches to the content of creative employment are summarized and deepened. It was found that, according to the "narrow" approach, creative workers are mainly people of art and creative professions, people employed in the media industry, and specialists in the field of information systems and technologies, for which individual work is characteristic. According to the author's position, in accordance with the "broad" approach, creative employment takes place in all branches and spheres that produce material, cultural, and spiritual goods, as well as in management activities. This concept not only brings new knowledge to socioeconomics but also has practical significance for determining the scope of creative employment and evaluating state social and economic policy. The study concluded that creative employment is not an artificial phenomenon detached from technical and social progress. Its development is connected primarily with the increase in the economy's and the social and humanitarian sphere's need for innovative developments, which are subsequently commercialized. According to the author, new industrial relations are formed on this basis, which are gradually transformed into partnership ones.

Community Psychology and the Acceptance of Rohingya Refugees in Aceh: Local Identity, Humanitarian Needs, and Islamic Law

Community Psychology and the Acceptance of Rohingya Refugees in Aceh: Local Identity, Humanitarian Needs, and Islamic Law

Simulating Civil Society in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA): Fog, Friction, and the Lebanese Port Explosion

Introduction Though the effects of fog and friction on decision-making are frequently simulated in military settings, they are less frequently extended to non-military and non-governmental MENA spaces. This article provides a description and evaluation of a disaster simulation rooted in the real-world event of the August 4, 2020 Lebanese port explosion. The aim of the simulation is to prompt student learning of the decision-making dynamics of CSOs amidst fog and friction in democratizing MENA spaces. Background A brief overview of the Lebanon-CSO landscape is provided. As part of their ruling strategy, sectarian elites engineer fog and friction to co-opt and fragment CSOs. This complex power sharing milieu creates dilemmas for CSOs. The Intervention The simulation was designed for an entire classroom of students to experience the fog and friction in decision-making that CSOs encounter in MENA conditions of limited resources and urgent humanitarian need. Methods and Limitations Student learning, framed by Bloom’s taxonomy of levels of intellectual behavior, was assessed using qualitative entry and exit classroom surveys based on three iterations of the simulation. Qualitative interpretive content analysis was used to categorize survey responses. The sample is not statistically significant given the small class sizes at the College. The study serves as an initial exploration for assessing the promising pedagogical benefits of the Lebanon port explosion simulation. Results Before the simulation, students had knowledge and understanding of CSOs, democratization, and the Lebanese context. After the simulation, student surveys yielded results that evidenced higher- ordered learning. Students discovered the challenge of applying their knowledge of Lebanese CSOs amidst fog. Next, the panel stress- testing and critical reflection essay exercises prompted an analysis and evaluation of CSOs as weak or fraught vehicles for democratization in the region. In sum, fog and friction prompted students to experience and learn how CSOs may subvert democratization in the MENA despite intentions to “do good.” Discussion The Lebanon port explosion survey data indicate the value of simulations as “experience vehicles” that may push students to higher orders of abstracted thinking about CSOs in the MENA. Conclusion Coupled with historical knowledge of co-optation and fragmentation strategies of elites vis-à-vis CSOs in Lebanon, the classroom simulation experience provided a low-cost and high-reward learning opportunity for students to grapple with the constraints and consequences of fog and friction on CSO decision-making.

International neglect in the Rwandan genocide; lessons missed in Somalia that would have been prevented the Mogadishu syndrome

This review which has three objectives is aimed at negating the myth that the ‘shadow of Somalia’ was responsible for the international neglect in Rwanda which enabled the 1994 Genocide. The first objective is to discuss the differences in the methodology of operations between the various peace keeping actors and identify the challenges that occurred during the peace keeping operations in Somalia. The second objective is to highlight some of the lessons that would have been learnt from the differences in operational tactics and strategies, and maybe the “syndrome of Mogadishu” would not have happened which spilled over to the Rwandan neglect. The third objective is to use a normative approach to highlight the importance of military interventions as an important component of humanitarianism in cases such as Rwanda, discussing theoretical concepts to develop effective approaches to this humanitarian need. This literature review is a product of the synthesis of information from various peer-reviewed publications from academic databases. The events that happened in Somalia will be critically analyzed to demonstrate the actual cause of the “shadow of Somalia.” Humanitarian intervention is then recommended to be implemented when war or armed conflict of genocidal proportion occurs in a sovereign state.

Integrating sustainable and energy-resilient strategies into emergency shelter design

Energy access and use is a cross-cutting issue in humanitarian action. Nevertheless, there is no cohesive and integrated approach amongst different clusters of actions in achieving sustainability and energy resilience for emergency shelters. This study aims to explore how to integrate sustainable and energy-resilient strategies into emergency shelter design. Taking the “Quantifying Sustainability in the Aftermath of Natural Disasters” (QSAND) tool as a guiding principle, a system of modular emergency shelter prototype, entitled “Bag Box Building Cloud’ (BBBC)”, was designed and constructed. To identify the needs of the affected population and humanitarian workers, gap and need analysis were conducted through a global market review, while site surveys and stakeholder interviews were conducted in post-disaster areas in China. Key stakeholders were involved from the early design stage through implementation. This is the first research in action to contextualize the implementation of QSAND and SDGs while meeting local environmental/socio-cultural/regulatory requirements. The prototype is the first solar-powered, reusable, versatile, safe, affordable, and energy-efficient emergency shelter integrating passive design, energy storage, and combined DC/AC power system. Achieving this requires context-specific knowledge, early stakeholder engagement, careful adaptation and a holistic approach with a wide range of technical and social considerations in the design stage.

An efficient system for water leak detection and localization based on IoT and lightweight deep learning

Nowadays, Water Distribution Networks (WDNs) efficiency is limited due to leakage issues, which result in large water losses that exceed about one third of the input volume. Considering the problems of growing population and water scarcity especially in Africa and Asia continents, an urgent humanitarian need arisen to efficiently detect and localize pipeline water leaks. To address this need, this paper proposes an end-to-end system for leak detection and localization in water pipelines based on IoT and deep learning. The IoT solution is deployed allowing real time monitoring of pipelines by using non-invasive IoT devices equipped with acoustic sensors which are installed on the pipeline surface. A lightweight one-Dimensional Convolutional Neural Network (1D-CNN) classification model is embedded on these devices to detect leaks. This model uses raw audio signals generated by sensors as input information. Information about the detected leaks is then remotely transmitted using long range and low energy LoRaWAN protocol to the LoRa gateway. The gateway relays messages to a data processing Server. A 1D-CNN regression model has been then created and deployed in this server to directly estimate the 2D position of the leak. As an illustration, An IoT device prototype is designed and used as a case study to test the performance of the proposed system. We demonstrated that our proposal achieves an accuracy of 97 % for detecting leaks and can fix the 2D position of leak with an error of 0.0006 on the X coordinate and 0.0004 on the Y coordinate. Experiments confirm the effectiveness of the proposed solution.

Violation of the standards of international humanitarian law in the conditions of russian armed aggression

The article addresses the issue of the ineffectiveness of norms of international humanitarian law during modern armed conflicts, the content of certain norms of the Geneva Conventions with the aim of improving the international legal regulation of the status of victims of armed conflicts. An analysis of international legal acts and national acts adopted in Ukraine after the introduction of martial law in Ukraine, which are aimed at improving the status of victims of the armed conflict, has been carried out. Attention is drawn to the fact that the russian-Ukrainian war qualifies as an international armed conflict, in which, in accordance with the norms of international humanitarian law, the combatants are given the status of prisoners of war. At the same time, russia grants them the status of “persons opposing a special military operation” without guaranteeing the protection of the rights of prisoners of war, does not distinguish the status of civilians in an armed conflict, which is a significant violation of the norms of international humanitarian law. It is proposed to adopt the conventional norms of international humanitarian law in terms of regulating the exchange of prisoners of war.Different definitions that denote certain vulnerable categories of the civilian population during an armed conflict are analyzed in relation to the definition of “indirect victims of an armed conflict”. Proposals for the creation of a coordinating body that would take care of the issues of indirect victims of the armed conflict, the development of an effective compensation mechanism for destroyed or damaged property during armed aggression, and the determination of the legal status of persons who have been deprived of personal freedom as a result of armed aggression against Ukraine are supported. Today, international and national legislation is clear on the appointment - who should be taken into account by the persons who suffered in the wake of the violent aggression. It is concluded that the norms of international humanitarian law need to be updated and revised for their future observance and implementation by all subjects of international law.

From asylum to labour: track change in German migration policy

Asylum and labour migration used to be processed along sharply separate legal-political tracks, recognising either humanitarian need or individual performance, respectively. This binary is losing traction, as neoliberal performance criteria and mundane labour needs hold entry in the asylum domain. This trend is illustrated along the Spurwechsel (track change) in German migration policy. While the preference for track change traverses party lines, it is marked by a tension between the imperatives of migration control and migrant integration. This allows for political variation, the right tending towards the control and the left towards the integration horn of the dilemma. Under a recently left-dominated government, which is at the same time receptive to business calls for more Fachkräfte (skilled labour), the control versus integration dilemma has been decisively resolved in favour of integration, up to a point that the state’s sovereign migration control function and the integrity of asylum policy are put at risk.

Natural language processing for humanitarian action: Opportunities, challenges, and the path toward humanitarian NLP.

Natural language processing (NLP) is a rapidly evolving field at the intersection of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence, which is concerned with developing methods to process and generate language at scale. Modern NLP tools have the potential to support humanitarian action at multiple stages of the humanitarian response cycle. Both internal reports, secondary text data (e.g., social media data, news media articles, or interviews with affected individuals), and external-facing documents like Humanitarian Needs Overviews (HNOs) encode information relevant to monitoring, anticipating, or responding to humanitarian crises. Yet, lack of awareness of the concrete opportunities offered by state-of-the-art techniques, as well as constraints posed by resource scarcity, limit adoption of NLP tools in the humanitarian sector. This paper provides a pragmatically-minded primer to the emerging field of humanitarian NLP, reviewing existing initiatives in the space of humanitarian NLP, highlighting potentially impactful applications of NLP in the humanitarian sector, and describing criteria, challenges, and potential solutions for large-scale adoption. In addition, as one of the main bottlenecks is the lack of data and standards for this domain, we present recent initiatives (the DEEP and HumSet) which are directly aimed at addressing these gaps. With this work, we hope to motivate humanitarians and NLP experts to create long-term impact-driven synergies and to co-develop an ambitious roadmap for the field.

Predicting Efficiency of Innovative Disaster Response Practices: Case Study of China’s Corporate Philanthropy

Corporate philanthropy is significant because gifts are viewed as a means to enhance the image of a business organization in an era of intense competition. Taking into account the corporations listed on the Shenzhen stock exchanges, this research reveals that environmentally unfriendly enterprises have been exhibiting more altruistic behavior to counterbalance the negative image that has resulted from their massive emission of pollutants. In addition, a review of innovation, idle resources, and directors’ salaries indicated a substantial positive correlation. It is not required that a company be profitable for it to engage in philanthropy; rather, it should have an abundance of excess resources to donate. We also show that corporate philanthropy produces value for a company during a natural disaster and increases the company’s goodwill during times of humanitarian need.

Coloniality of Waithood: Africa’s Wait for COVID-19 Vaccines amid COVAX and TRIPS

AbstractAfrican nations have struggled to secure lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines, while rich nations have purchased more than they needed, depleting the global supply. High vaccine prices and intellectual property regulations that block the production of cheaper generics have contributed to a condition of African waithood. Hagan examines this waithood, which characterizes the disjuncture between African countries’ existential and humanitarian need for COVID-19 vaccines and corporations’ quest for profits in the pandemic. African waithood, produced by pharmaceutical companies including Moderna and Pfizer, is a direct product of colonialism. Waithood echoes the ongoing colonial relations between African nations and the corporations that continue to exploit them.

Introduction

Abstract Two hundred seventy-four million people-one in thirty people on the planet-are in humanitarian need as of September 2022.1 More than one hundred million of these individuals are displaced, usually as a result of crisis: conflict, political upheaval, economic meltdown, or climate shocks.2 In a humanitarian crisis, health is the most urgent and paramount need. But today the system for preventing and addressing humanitarian crisis is failing, and with it, the health needs of millions of vulnerable people are under threat. From treating childhood acute malnutrition to delivering COVID-19 vaccines to ensuring access to sexual, reproductive, maternal, and newborn health, health care in humanitarian contexts requires a dramatic rethink amid growing challenges to access and service delivery.

The role of community health workers in palliative care in a rural subdistrict in South Africa.

Effective palliative care is an urgent humanitarian need, particularly in less developed countries, including South Africa (SA). People can be palliated within their communities, motivating the integration of palliative care into primary healthcare systems. While community health workers (CHWs) play a vital role in health coverage at the primary care level, literature on their roles in palliation is limited. To explore the roles of CHWs in palliative care delivery in a rural subdistrict in SA. This study was conducted in the George subdistrict of the Western Cape province, SA. A descriptive qualitative study explored the perceptions of a wide range of stakeholders (n = 39) of CHWs' roles in palliative care. Data were collected via semistructured interviews and focus group discussions and analysed thematically. Patients experienced severe biopsychosocial symptoms and needed home-based palliation. While CHWs identified and referred patients, their main responsibilities were health promotion and disease prevention. Palliation was primarily a registered nurse's function. Community health workers were conflicted by their limited ability to deliver basic palliative care to patients. While there is a definite need for community-based palliative care, the optimal structure of such a service and the roles of CHWs therein are uncertain. Future research should explore the home-based palliation needs of patients in similar contexts and the service design best suited to address these needs within the primary healthcare domain.Contribution: This study illustrates the influence of individual and system-related factors on CHWs' roles in palliative care. It can inform service design to optimise CHWs' contribution to palliation within primary health care.

Is a Special Purpose Vehicle a Way to Circumvent Western Economic Sanctions Imposed on Russia or Only Pitfalls Lie Ahead?

The ‘problem’ of economic sanctions that restricted trade has vexed the Russian community for the past several years and seemingly only tends to worsen. At the same time, the European Union (the EU) developed a Special Purpose Vehicle (the SPV) (known as Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (the INSTEX) for Iran to continue trade without accessing the United States financial system and avoid violating the United States of America (the US) sanctions. In this respect, one might argue that Russia, in general, might consider a similar option by creating an INSTEX like SPV to circumvent the imposed economic sanctions. At first glance, such SPV seems like a working mechanism to continue the trade in goods and services and to preserve trade flows in case Russia is fully disconnected from the SWIFT) or if ‘maximum’ sanctions are imposed against Russia. This article provides a general overview of how Russia deals with trading under the pressure of economic sanctions and how the hypothetical SPV may assist Russia in maintaining stable trade relations despite the sanctions. The article further discusses how the hypothetical SPV may resort to investment arbitration in order to protect its rights and interests and challenge the imposed sanctions and the risks it may face in this respect. The study reveals that creating such SPV to avoid anti-Russian sanctions might assist with humanitarian need, while the potential to restore normal trade flows is quite doubtful. Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), Economic Sanctions, Investment Arbitration, Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), Counter-sanctions, Circumventing sanctions

How do information problems constrain anticipating, mitigating, and responding to crises?

The explosion in data availability and new analytical tools combined with increasing humanitarian need and the imperative of anticipatory action compel us to rethink humanitarian information systems and humanitarian action for the future. Synthesizing interviews with humanitarian practitioners, donors, analysts, and researchers and analyses of early warning (EW) information systems and their linkages to Anticipatory Action (AA), we describe six information challenges within the current system: abundant but confusing information, the difficulty of predicting conflict, politicized information, limitations of new analytical tools, varying information needs, and limited data sharing. We then propose an approach to improve the timeliness and appropriateness of action for humanitarian crises and disasters. Rather than ask, “What can we do with the information (early warning and otherwise) that we have to inform action?” we propose asking, “What information do we need for anticipatory (and other) action?” In other words, we propose planning from known and likely hazards and actions back to information needs. Such an approach should help to mitigate shocks before they cause major humanitarian crises. While not all crises can be prevented, this approach could also support responsive action, which is equally important for protecting human life and dignity.

The Challenge of Reaching Undocumented Migrants with COVID-19 Vaccination.

Access to vaccination against a health threat such as that presented by the COVID-19 pandemic is an imperative driven, in principle, by at least three compelling factors: (1) the right to health of all people, irrespective of their status; (2) humanitarian need of undocumented migrants, as well as of others including documented migrants, refugees and displaced people who are sometimes vulnerable and living in precarious situations; and (3) the need to ensure heath security globally and nationally, which in the case of a global pandemic requires operating on the basis that, for vaccination strategies to succeed in fighting a pandemic, the highest possible levels of vaccine uptake are required. Yet some population segments have had limited access to mainstream health systems, both prior to as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic. People with irregular resident status are among those who face extremely high barriers in accessing both preventative and curative health care. This is due to a range of factors that drive exclusion, both on the supply side (e.g., systemic and practical restrictions in service delivery) and the demand side (e.g., in uptake, including due to fears that personal data would be transmitted to immigration authorities). Moreover, undocumented people have often been at increased risk of infection due to their role as “essential workers”, including those experiencing higher exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus due to frontline occupations while lacking protective equipment. Often, they have also been largely left out of social protection measures granted by governments to their populations during successive lockdowns. This article reviews the factors that serve as supply-side and demand-side barriers to vaccination for undocumented migrants and considers what steps need to be taken to ensure that inclusive approaches operate in practice.

Is Aid a Blessing or Cures for Africa?

In Africa aid is a short term blessing that minimized the problem of trade deficit, budget deficit, gross capital formation, poverty reduction, aid lead economic growth, human capital development, foreign exchange stability and economic stability role in Africa and also tries to full fill humanitarian emergency need of Africa at a large. However, due to aid conditions and neo- colonial hidden objectives of aid donors even though 1trillions of dollar were spend in Africa for the last 60 year from rich countries still Africa is the home of millions poor and yet not realize sustainable economic growth. So that, it is time for Africa tool look inside, to use its natural resource endowment and its land productively; avoid aid dependency culture; look for domestic source of revenue by expanding tax base and developing modern tax administration system; incorporate its endogenous knowable as part of its education, training, research and development areas; reduce waste and increase resource management and it must strengthen political, economic (like free mobility of labour, free trade area among Africans, establishment of domestic non government organization and using common currency) and social integrations( like developing African common cultural center) among its members countries; uses of domestically manufactured products, and reduce corruption and rent seeking activities of government officials; avoid predatory instructional set up and exercise democratic government system. Keywords: Africa, Europeans aid, blessing /cures, review DOI: 10.7176/JAAS/80-03 Publication date: May 31 st 2022

The development of Afghanistan's Integrated Package of Essential Health Services: Evidence, expertise and ethics in a priority setting process

Health systems in fragile states need to respond to shifting demographics, burden of disease and socio-economic circumstances in the revision of their health service packages. This entails making difficult decisions about what is and is not included therein, especially in resource-constrained settings offering or striving for universal health coverage. In this paper we turn the lens on the 2017–2021 development of Afghanistan's Integrated Package of Essential Health Services (IPEHS) to analyse the dynamics of the priority setting process and the role and value of evidence. Using participant observation of meetings and interviews with 25 expert participants, we conducted a qualitative study of the consultation process aimed at examining the characteristics of its technical, socio-cultural and organisational aspects, in particular data use and expert input, and how they influenced how evidence was discussed, taken up, and used (or not used) in the process. Our analysis proposes that the particular dynamics shaped by the context, information landscape and expert input shaped and operationalized knowledge sharing and its application in such a way to constitute a sort of “vernacular evidence”. Our findings underline the importance of paying attention to the constellation of the priority setting processes in order to contribute to an ethical allocation of resources, particularly in contexts of resource scarcity and humanitarian need.

Achieving equitable food security: How can food bank mobile pantries fill this humanitarian need

Hunger occurs in all locations around the globe, from developing to developed countries. In fact, there were over 37 million food insecure individuals (those without access to consistent nutritious food) in the United States in 2018, and this number increased in recent years due to the COVID pandemic. In many countries, food banks are used to consolidate food donations from individuals or government agencies and then provide that food to local partner agencies (such as food pantries and soup kitchens), who distribute it to food insecure individuals. As nonprofit humanitarian organizations, food banks strive to achieve geographic equity in their food distribution, so one area (or county) is not favored over others. However, food banks also want to maximize food distribution with their limited budgets. This equitable distribution versus cost balancing act is made even more challenging since food banks experience extreme variability in both the supply (donations) of food and partner agencies' capacity to deliver food to the food insecure. Our paper focuses on how mobile pantry programs, additional food bank storage capacity, and improved partner agency capacity can be utilized to address this supply and distribution capacity variability while considering food expiration times. Mobile pantry programs allow food banks to distribute food directly to the food insecure by sending their own trucks and employees to locations where food is most needed. Although all three of these approaches can be helpful, our results show that mobile pantries are a more effective approach to achieve high equity levels. This is especially true in the case of produce with relatively short expiration times. We also find that utilizing mobile pantry programs can increase equitable partner agency distribution considerably, because even small amounts of mobile pantry distribution in under‐served areas allow for more equitable partner agency distribution in areas with available partner agency distribution capacity. Our research is based on data from our partner food bank, but our modeling and extensive sensitivity analysis should be applicable to many food banks with a similar collection and distribution structure.

Burundi: Humanitarian Needs 2022

Africa Research Bulletin: Economic, Financial and Technical SeriesVolume 59, Issue 2 p. 23757A-23757A Policy and Practice Burundi: Humanitarian Needs 2022 First published: 01 April 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6346.2022.10463.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume59, Issue2April 2022Pages 23757A-23757A RelatedInformation