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Raising Momentum for Integrating Respectful Maternity Care in Humanitarian Settings
›Greater than one third of all women experience mistreatment during facility-based childbirth. Mistreatment, particularly in humanitarian settings, may include verbal or physical abuse, poor patient-provider rapport, a lack of information about maternal and newborn health (MNH) services for both pregnant women and providers, lack of privacy within facilities, challenges with receiving informed consent from women for medical procedures due to language and cultural barriers, and denied or delayed care. Such mistreatment can stem from historical tensions between populations seeking care and health workers (both foreign and local) as well as systemic mistreatment of providers who are burned out and possibly carry their own biases. Evidence shows that some women delay seeking care, or avoid care entirely because of social fears stemming from negative stigma or negative perceptions of their situation.
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The Environmental Dimensions of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
›March 4, 2022 // By Wilson Center StaffToday, the Environmental Peacebuilding Association published an open letter, signed by 902 individuals and 156 organizations from more than 75 countries, to express solidarity with the people of Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion and shine a light on some of the environmental risks posed by the invasion that have both short and long-term implications. Below is an excerpt of that letter.
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COVID-19 Costs: Declining Maternal and Child Nutrition in Low-and Middle-Income Countries
›“The pandemic and related global economic recession are severe setbacks to already insufficient progress towards meeting the global nutrition targets set for 2025 for stunting, wasting, maternal anemia and breastfeeding,” write the authors of a 2021 study examining the effects of COVID-19 on child and maternal health and nutrition. Adequate nutrition in the perinatal period is essential for healthy mothers and babies, and COVID-19-induced poverty and disruptions to global supply chains have compromised the food security of people around the world, mostly in low-to-middle-income countries (LMICs).
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The Changing Face of the Global Humanitarian Crisis: Gender, Climate Change, and Humanitarian Interventions
›“In a changing world with galloping, growing needs, we can’t keep making the same efforts, issuing the same pleas, and just write bigger and bigger checks and expect different results,” said Samantha Power, Administrator of the United Agency for International Development (USAID), at the launch of the Global Humanitarian Overview, co-hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, USAID, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). “We must change the ways we deliver humanitarian assistance to include full participation, design, and leadership from local populations and organizations, from women and marginalized peoples who can help develop truly sustainable solutions to the risks they face in their own communities,” said Power.
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Accessing Justice for Gender-Based Violence in Humanitarian Settings
›Gender-based violence (GBV) is a global epidemic rooted in gender inequality and an imbalance in power dynamics. All persons are at risk of violence because of their gender or perceived gender. Women and girls—including transgender women and girls—experience disproportionate gender-based violence, and this violence is even more prevalent among women and girls who have been forcibly displaced.
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COVID-19 Pandemic Exacerbates Violence Against Refugee Women and Girls
›Currently, refugee women and girls are facing three concurrent crises: their ongoing humanitarian crisis, the health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the invisible crisis of gender-based violence (GBV). COVID-19 has severely worsened various dimensions of inequality for refugee women and girls. A 2020 report found that 73 percent of forcibly displaced women interviewed across 15 African countries reported elevated cases of domestic or intimate partner violence due to the pandemic. In addition, 51 percent reported sexual violence and 32 percent observed a rise in early and forced marriages.
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The Challenge of Securing Access to Minerals for the Green Transition
›COP26 came to a close in Glasgow this weekend, with activists and developing country governments disappointed in the global ambition as laid out in the final agreement text. On the one hand, the final document reflects commitments to cut on methane, doubling of monetary compensation for adaptation measures, and the need for cooperation between the United States and China—the two largest carbon emitters—to set out a roadmap to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius. On the other hand, developing countries criticized rich countries for evading the language of loss and damage—compensation that recognizes that the countries most affected by climate change have contributed the least to planet-warming greenhouse gases.
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Afghans that Remain Are in Dire Need of Humanitarian Support
›Although large-scale evacuation efforts have dominated international attention, evacuation is only an option for a “tiny fraction” of the Afghan population, said Vicki Aken, Country Director for Afghanistan at the International Rescue Committee, at a congressional briefing hosted by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. The briefing was focused on the evolving humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and the need for civil protection in the country. “More than 40 million Afghans will remain in Afghanistan,” said Aken. “And half of them already face critical humanitarian needs.”
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