Federation media delegate reflects on the Nargis experience

I seem stuck in a spiral of interviews, half-meetings on stairways and in the backs of cars, rare trips to the storm-hit locations on the edge of battered Yangon, late-night beers in a weirdly well-functioning hotel.

So much is happening, but the story is the paucity of aid. Our relief planes arrive one by one, then four in one day. The Myanmar Red Cross HQ by the port in Yangon is frenetic from dawn to dusk with hundreds of volunteers loading relief supplies onto trucks.

Read more on Head Down Eyes Open.

HPG: Sara Pantuliano on the impact of Darfur expulsions on the Three Areas

The expulsion of 12 foreign aid agencies and one private development firm and the suspension of three national NGOs by the Sudanese government following the issuing of an international arrest warrant for President Bashir has generated widespread concerns about the potential impact of an interruption of aid on civilians at risk. These concerns have, though, been largely limited to Darfur. Worryingly, very little attention has been focused on the repercussions these expulsions could have on the Three Areas (Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile) and the eastern region which have only recently emerged from conflict and remain highly volatile.

Read more on Alertnet.

Sara has written about the consequences of the expulsion of the 13 major aid agencies for people relying on assistance in Darfur - download a pdf report here.

Dispatches from Disaster Zones - Communicating with affected communities

“We’ve come a long way,” says Colm Byrne, of the Irish Red Cross, describing his organisation’s innovative communications project in Indonesia.

Following the tsunami there was an emphasis on communication going back to donors and external media, but there was room to improve the accountability and transparency to beneficiaries.

“We quickly realised we could do something. It started with a radio programme and soon evolved into a more complex mix of communication approaches including personal interaction with Red Cross volunteers playing a key role too,” explains Byrne.

The resulting project has gone from strength to strength, says Byrne.

But the lack of attention paid to communications in the planning stages of humanitarian response is a story familiar to many in the international aid community.

Read more on the British Red Cross website.

Swine flu gets a high five

Paul Conneally of Federation Media team blogs at Head Down Eyes Open about the swine flu outbreaks.

ODI: Simon Maxwell moves on from Director post - Alison Evans, incoming Director, blogs a tribute

'...it is really Simon’s unerring commitment to push high quality evidence and debate into the heart of international policy processes that has become his leitmotif. Under his leadership, ODI has not only built an extensive and respected network of partners in both developing and developed countries, it has also become the first port of call for evidence-based policy research on a host of critical development and humanitarian issues. What ODI says is heard, loud and clear, by those who need to listen, and that is a crucial part of Simon’s legacy.'

Read more on the ODI blog.

Alertnet: Has globalisation made us more catastrophe-prone?

Butterfly effect, collapsing key nodes, and adaptable complex systems - still not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but an interesting article all the same - available on Alertnet.

NYT: A year after storm, subtle changes in Myanmar

The cyclone that struck on the night of May 2 last year was one of the deadliest storms in recorded history. It blew away 700,000 homes in the delta. It killed three-fourths of the livestock, sank half the fishing fleet and salted a million acres of rice paddies with its seawater surges.

In many ways, just a year beyond those horrors, life in the Irrawaddy Delta has settled back into some of its familiar rhythms, the push of the planting and the pull of the harvest. It is a manageable if hardscrabble life, one that the weather controls and the farmers expect.

But something unexpected has happened, too, say U.N. officials, aid workers and foreign diplomats in Myanmar. The storm — and a following surge of humanitarian aid — might have opened a breach in the political wall around Myanmar...

Read more on the New York Times website.