Haiti analysis round-up for Monday 25th January

There is such a lot now coming out of blogs and commentators that I thought rounding them up would be more useful.

• One piece of news: a useful summary of today's meeting in Montreal of governments involved in the response.

Below are more technical pieces from the humanitarian blogosphere (and yes I did just use that phrase). Enjoy:

• Quite a bit of comment on the Lancet article condemning the aid effort as self-serving and uncoordinated. Michael Keizer agrees that some points have a grain of truth, albeit unsupported by evidence, (the comments repay the reading on this one); Alanna Shaikh (humanitarian uber-blogger with a big following) weighs in; Brendan Gormley is covered in a Guardian profile following the very strong DEC response to the article; and a frazzled response straight from Haiti here.
  
• Dan Smith of International Alert looks at what's next for Haiti, recovery and the humanitarian caseload and the IntLawGrrls look at future administration possibilities
  
• Paul Currion argues that reinventing Haiti really means reinventing the systems in which the country exists, as well as internal infrastructure
  
• Peter Daou asks why we can't mobilise the same outpouring of aid and compassion for comparable numbers of people affected by sexual violence in the Congo
• Newsweek gives a view on the historical background to the earthquake in Haiti
  
• An old hand expresses disappointment with the media coverage of the response
  
• And an absolutely fascinating bit of advice for the military supporting the operation from a retired Marine Corps officer - sample quote:
  

'Your job is to try to get Haiti back to something approaching the way it was seconds before the quake struck. If the President wants you to do nation-building, he’ll let you know.'

Academic article: Caring for People with HIV: state policies and their dependence on women's unpaid work

Women's unpaid care work is a feature of life in sub-Saharan countries, where nearly 67% of PLWHA live and where 75% of all AIDS deaths occurred in 2007. Women comprise 58% of adult HIV infections and tend to be more adversely affected because of their primary caregiving role.

Increasing reliance on home-based care to supplement an overstretched health system fails to acknowledge the cost on the patient, the carer and the wider family, including financial resources, time resources, and opportunity costs. For women, this means time taken away from paid work, unpaid household chores, and agriculture. For girl children, caregiving is at the expense of school work, leisure activities and important social development activities - including HIV prevention activities. In many cases, particularly when heading a family as a result of being orphaned, many girls cannot go to school at all, renouncing their right to education - affecting their potential income and career choices, and ability to play a role in wider society.

Policies should be developed to recognise these effects and take into consideration the needs of women and girl children carers, including the right to education. An option might be to see care work as a professional career option which would allow girls, women and workers to progress and develop. This would create a pool of trained, qualified professionals who are adequately compensated. Finally, challenging the assumption and strong cultural traditions that mean caring is women's work, not men's, would lay the foundation for a more equal sharing of care responsibilities.

Citation: Makina, A. (2009) Caring for People with HIV: state policies and their dependence on women's unpaid work, in Gender and Development, Vol 17, No. 2, July 2009 pp309-319

Summary by Laura.

WHO: Breastfeeding - an emergency response

Emergencies – whether caused by conflict or natural disasters – are extraordinary events that can jeopardize the health and survival of large populations. Children are among the most vulnerable groups during emergencies, and small children are the most vulnerable of all, as they face a triple risk of death from diarrhoeal disease, pneumonia and undernutrition.

Breastfeeding during emergencies saves lives

The life-saving role of breastfeeding during emergencies is firmly supported by evidence and guidance. The Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding outlines actions to improve infant and young child feeding in emergencies. In all situations, the best way of preventing malnutrition and mortality among infants and young children is to ensure that they start breastfeeding within one hour of birth, breastfeed exclusively (with no food or liquid other than breast milk, not even water) until six months of age and continue breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods up to two years or beyond. Even in emergency situations, the aim should be to create and sustain an environment that encourages frequent breastfeeding for children up to at least two years of age.

Read more on Reliefweb.

Tufts: Livelihood Impacts of Disarmament in Uganda

The latest report published by Tufts' Feinstein International Center, Changing Roles, Shifting Risks: Livelihood Impacts of Disarmament in Karamoja, Uganda by Elizabeth Stites and Darlington Akabwai, is the result of the first phase of a partnership with Save the Children in Uganda. It examines the experiences and perceptions of communities of the present disarmament campaign carried out by the Uganda People's Defence Force and the Government of Uganda.

We find that although individual experiences with disarmament have been largely negative, there is overwhelming support among local communities for an end goal of complete and uniform disarmament as a means of bringing peace and economic development. At the same time, the current policies of disarmament have brought major changes to livelihood roles and responsibilities by gender and generation, and associated shifts in exposure to risk. We examine the effects of disarmament on security, livestock management, peace processes, and food security and coping systems. Recommendations are made to international and national actors for programming, policy-making and advocacy in the areas of livelihoods and engagement with disarmament processes.

Age, Gender and Diversity Mainstreaming Evaluation

From It Begins With Me:

An 8 month evaluation of the strategy to consider persons of diverse age, gender and physical condition in planning and program (Age, Gender, Diversity Mainstreaming or AGDM) for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) begins this week [late March 2009]. In this video independent evaluators Virginia Thomas and Tony Beck join Naoko Obi, head of UNHCR’s Community Development, Gender Equality and Children Section, to discuss the mission, methodology and milestones for this comprehensive task.

IFPRI: Helping Women Respond to the Global Food Price Crisis

The current food price crisis has received widespread attention, but discussions to date have largely overlooked the gender dimensions of the crisis. More than 15 years of rigorous research on gender and intrahousehold resource allocation suggest not only that men and women will be affected differently by the global food crisis, but also that, as both consumers and producers, they will have different stocks of resources with which to respond to rising prices. Although the current situation calls for an urgent national and international response, urgency is not an excuse for misguided policies that fail to address the gender implications of the crisis. Instead, decisionmakers should take this opportunity to incorporate what is known about women’s roles in agricultural production and household welfare, and the specific challenges they face, both to craft more effective policy responses and to enable women to respond better to the current challenges and opportunities.

Download the document from Reliefweb (pdf, 78kb).

JHA: Gender Mainstreaming During Disasters: The Case of the Tsunami in India

The 2004 tsunami had disastrous consequences for entire coastal regions bordering the Indian Ocean. Yet the tsunami’s impact on the affected populations varied according to their pre-disaster vulnerabilities. Specifically, gender roles contributed to the vulnerability of girls and women by limiting their social rights and access to resources. This study, which was conducted by researchers from the Anawim Trust in Tamil Nadu, India, documents ways in which 10 local Indian NGOs brought a gender dimension to their post-tsunami emergency and rehabilitation programs in the state of Tamil Nadu, and it offers recommendations to help local and international NGOs improve their gender mainstreaming efforts at both the programmatic and organizational levels.

Read more on the Journal of Humanitarian Assistance (JHA) website.

United Nations Economic Commission for Africa: 'Securing Our Future'

The report on the state of HIV and AIDS in Africa focuses on the cultural factors, including gender inequalities, wife inheritance and some sexual practices that have a great influence on the AIDS epidemic and the responses that are specific to the continent, and must be better understood and changed.
Access this report via ReliefWeb

Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children: Disabilities among Refugees and Conflict-Affected Populations

This report is the culmination of a six-month project commissioned by the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and co-funded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to address the rights and needs of displaced persons with disabilities, with a particular focus on women (including older women), children and youth. Based on field research in five refugee situations, as well as global desk research, the Women’s Commission sought to map existing services for displaced persons with disabilities, identify gaps and good practices and make recommendations on how to improve services, protection and participation for displaced persons with disabilities. The objective of the project was to gather initial empirical data and produce a Resource Kit that would be of practical use to UN and nongovernmental organization (NGO) field staff working with displaced persons with disabilities.

Access the report via Reliefweb.

Assisting Pregnant Women to Prepare for Disaster - subscription required

Disasters are natural or (hu)man-made life-altering events that require preplanning to save lives. Pregnant women are a particularly vulnerable population in such events, because they have special physical and psychosocial needs. Preparations made for labor and birth might have to be drastically altered in the event of an emergency, especially if a woman is separated from her familiar healthcare providers and facilities. The issue of breastfeeding also must be considered in disaster planning for pregnant women, along with occurrences such as food shortages and outbreak of illnesses caused by overcrowding of displaced persons. Recent events such as hurricane Katrina have demonstrated that maternal/child nurses need to become more aware of disaster planning and help to empower pregnant women with knowledge of how to handle their special needs in times of crisis.

American Journal of Maternal Child Nursing, 33(2):98-103, March/April 2008. Ewing, Bonnie PhD, RN; Buchholtz, Susan EdD, ACNP; Rotanz, Richard MS.

Update from the Gender and Development Network

'Rape in Burma: A Weapon of War', by Cheery Zahau

Highlights the situation of women and children in a country ruled by the military junta. The stories have remained undocumented for a long time, however, organisations such as the Women's League of Chinland have started to interview and tell the stories of the rape survivors in Burma. Read the full article from The Women's International Perspective website.


'Spotlight on Sexual Violence in Conflict Situations' , by Kathambi Kinoti
Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID)

Reviews some of the issues highlighted in two recently released reports on sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict situations: 'No One to Turn To' carried out by Save the Children, UK in Cote d'Ivoire, Haiti and Southern Sudan and 'Forced Marriage within the Lord's Resistance Army, Uganda' published by the Feinstein International Center. Available for download from the Gender and Disasters Network website.

Update from Gender and Development Network

Information from UK Gender and Development Network, May 2008

Gender and Natural Disasters

• Press Release 8/05/08 from UNFPA: "$3 Million Requested by UNFPA to Help Women and Girls Displaced by Myanmar Cyclone"

Gender and Armed Conflict

• Report from UNMIL: "International Engagement in Addressing Violence against Women"
  Focus on women and girls in the 14 year Liberian Civil War.
• Report from Plan International UK: "Because I am a Girl: Special Focus- In the Shadow of War"

GDN: The Gendered Nature of Natural Disasters: The Impact of Catastrophic Events on the Gender Gap in Life Expectancy, 1981-2002

Natural disasters do not affect people equally. In fact, a vulnerability approach to disasters would suggest that inequalities in exposure and sensitivity to risk as well as inequalities in access to resources, capabilities and opportunities systematically disadvantage certain groups of people, rendering them more vulnerable to the impact of natural disasters.

In this article we address the specific vulnerability of girls and women with respect to mortality from natural disasters and their aftermath. Biological and physiological differences between the sexes are unlikely to explain large-scale gender differences in mortality rates. Social norms and role behavior provide some further explanation, but what is likely to matter most is the everyday socio-economic status of women. We analyze the effect of disaster strength and its interaction with the socio-economic status of women on the change in the gender gap in life expectancy in a sample of up to 141 countries over the period 1981 to 2002.

We find, first, that natural disasters lower the life expectancy of women more than that of men. In other words, natural disasters (and their subsequent impact) on average kill more women than men or kill women at an earlier age than men. Since female life expectancy is generally higher than that of males, for most countries natural disasters narrow the gender gap in life expectancy. Second, the stronger the disaster (as approximated by the number of people killed relative to population size), the stronger this effect on the gender gap in life expectancy. That is, major calamities lead to more severe impacts on female life expectancy (relative to that of males) than smaller disasters. Third, the higher women’s socio-economic status, the weaker this effect on the gender gap in life expectancy.

In other words, taken together our results show that it is the socially constructed gender-specific vulnerability of females built into everyday socio-economic patterns that lead to the relatively higher female disaster mortality rates compared to men.

Download the document from Reliefweb.

Gendercc.net

A new site set up to provide 'information about women’s perspectives and gender aspects in climate change policies and measures', including;

• research on gender and climate change and related areas
• case studies that clarify and illustrate the gender aspects
• activities and campaigns to make women's contributions to climate protection visible and further the integration of the gender dimension in climate policy
• mechanisms and tools to put the integration of gender dimensions in climate change policies and measures into practice.

http://www.gendercc.net/.

Tufts: The State of Female Youth in Northern Uganda: Findings from the Survey of War Affected Youth

Youth have been the primary victims and the primary actors in the 22 year war between the Government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army. However, it has never been clear exactly who is suffering, how much, and in what ways. We knew little about the experience of youth: what is the magnitude, incidence, and nature of the violence, trauma, and suffering of youth in northern Uganda? Understanding of the effects of war on women and girls has been particularly lacking.

Not surprisingly, targeting of services has been crude. Programming has been based on rough measures of well-being, immediate and observable needs, and possibly erroneous assumptions about the types of assistance required and the appropriate beneficiaries.

The Survey of War Affected Youth (SWAY) seeks to address these problems by improving the information available to service providers working with youth in order to implement better evidence-based programming.

The State of Female Youth in Northern Uganda presents findings on female youth in northern Uganda. Specific topics include:

· Livelihoods
· Education
· War Violence and Abduction
· Forced Marriage and Motherhood within the LRA
· Psychosocial Well-being and Mental Health
· Health
· Sexual and Domestic Violence
· Reintegration

Findings are based on a quantitative survey of 1,018 households and 619 young women and girls and on in-depth qualitative interviews with a sub-sample of survey respondents, their friends, community members, and family.

The report strongly suggests that the Ugandan government, UN agencies, and NGOs should abandon targeting categories based on war experience, such as the “formerly abducted,” “girl mother,” and “orphan.” While important in the experience of an individual and her family, these categories do not determine vulnerability or need. War affects a much broader segment of the population than those within these parameters: assistance should therefore be targeted towards measurable needs--illiteracy, chronic unemployment, family estrangement, emotional distress, serious injury and illness--regardless of a specific war experience.

Download the report from the Tufts website.

Women’s role in adapting to climate change and variability

Y. Carvajal-Escobar, M. Quintero-Angel, and M. Garc´ıa-Vargas
Published: 10 April 2008

Given that women are engaged in more climate-related change activities than what is recognized and valued in the community, this article highlights their important role in the adaptation and search for safer communities, which leads them to understand better the causes and consequences of changes in climatic conditions. It is concluded that women have important knowledge and skills for orienting the adaptation processes, a product of their roles in society (productive, reproductive and community); and the importance of gender equity in these processes is recognized. The relationship among climate change, climate variability and the accomplishment of the Millennium Development Goals is considered.

Download the piece as a pdf.

HPN: Gender, HIV/AIDS and emergencies

HIV/AIDS is often neglected in emergency and displaced situations where agencies concentrate on providing basic needs, shelter and the treatment of disease. However, from the war zones of Rwanda, Bosnia and Sierra Leone to the stigmatised migrant communities of the industrialised North, there is a body of evidence linking war and forced migration to the spread of HIV/AIDS. The impact of this is particularly acute on women and children as they make up the largest proportion of refugee and displaced people.

HIV prevalence and gender issues

While there are a number of modes of transmission, sexual intercourse and intravenous drug use account for the majority of HIV infection globally. Estimates available at the end of 1997 show that over 30 million people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide. Although almost every country in the world is touched by HIV the virus spreads very differently in different regions of the world; 90 per cent of people living with HIV are in the developing world. Due to limited access to counselling and testing nine out of 10 people who are HIV positive do not know their status.

For every four men infected with HIV, six women are infected. While women and young children are physically more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, it is now recognised that HIV/AIDS is a wider social and economic issue firmly rooted in power imbalances in gender relations in all social classes.3 These power imbalances are more acute in resource-poor countries and regions.

The rest of the piece is available to read from the HPN website.

WILPF: Women and Cluster Munitions

From the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom:

Victim assistance is frequently referred to as the cornerstone of a future instrument on cluster munitions. In order to adequately address the inhumane suffering caused by the use of these weapons, care for their innocent victims must be the focus of an international treaty. There is a general understanding among states participating in the Oslo Process that ‘victim’ is a multifaceted term, much larger than the individual, encompassing the victim’s family and larger community.

Implicit in the consideration of the term ‘victim’ is also the consideration of gender and age. Men, women, girls, and boys are affected differently by the threat posed by the presence of cluster munitions in their communities. Gender influences the role an individual plays in their community; in their social and economic activities and their likelihood of becoming a cluster munitions victim or their ability to access medical attention or risk education and awareness.

The report can be downloaded from Reliefweb.

UN-ISDR publication: Gender Perspective: Working Together for Disaster Risk Reduction

The UN/ISDR secretariat, in coperation with GROOTS International, a network of grassroots women's organizations, have facilitated the compilation of "Gender Perspective: Working Together for Disaster Risk Reduction." The compilation is based on the many contributions from community-based organizations, NGOs and UNDP country offices and aims to trigger more action towards gender-inclusive disaster risk redcution process.

This publication highlights the fact that disaster recovery and rehabilitation provide good opportunities for women to play public roles with the support of their families and communities. It also underlines the importance of working with both men and women to promote a gender-balanced approach to disaster risk reduction.

Some of the good practices are on awareness-raising and capacity-building, others are on women's participation in and contribution to building safe communities and households and equal access to information. In a nutshell, the publication showcases women's valuable contributions to community resilience.

A pdf version of the document can be downloaded via Reliefweb.

BRC Media and PR Officer Blogs on Alertnet on the Bangladesh cyclone community preparedness project

Georgina Cooper, Media and PR Officer for the British Red Cross, is a guest blogger on Alertnet. Her first article deals with the need for women-focussed peer education on cyclone preparedness, and the work of the Building Community Disaster Preparedness Capacity Project.

Click on the link above to see Georgina's page.