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- Permanent Link:
- http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI13042453/00001
Notes
- Summary:
- In this advocacy paper, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) calls on international donor countries and agencies to move beyond simply responding to distress and towards the systematic implementation of disaster risk reduction (DRR) on the continent of Africa as a way to reduce disaster and hunger while increasing hope. The IFRC asserts that in spite of the exceptional wealth and progress being made around various parts of the developing world, many poor Africans continue to be racked by hunger, preventable illness, and disaster. Excessive reliance on disaster response can hardly facilitate durable solutions to these problems. Instead, the IFRC has a different vision for how international stakeholders should tackle these concerns. This involves: considering vulnerable people the primary partners of humanitarian actors; understanding that preventing disasters is more cost-effective than responding to them once they have occurred, both in terms of lives saved, as well as destruction and suffering avoided; improving emergency assistance; providing better support to Red Cross Red Crescent actions that aim at bridging the gap between disaster response, recovery, and development processes; and investing and reinforcing communities’ capacities to establish long-lasting solutions to their own problems. In this publication, the IFRC basically calls upon the donor community to rethink its cooperation approach in the African continent in order to effectively mitigate disasters. This primarily means developing an understanding that African communities are not simply victims, but have the potential to save themselves if given the appropriate assistance. ( English )
- Subject:
- Humanitarian Assistance ( English )
- Scope and Content:
- Foreword p. 5; Introduction p. 6; The facts at glance: Flood, drought and economic
crisis. Box 1: Africa’s indicators, Box 2: Senegal’s unnatural disaster, Box 3: Investing in assets. How simple Red Cross action, such as better rainwater harvesting, strengthens resilience in a droughtstricken village in Kenya’s North Eastern Province p. 9; Humanitarian action: Tomorrow’s challenges. Box 4: Beyond food relief. The limits of food aid. A small Red Cross livelihoods project in a Gambian village is good but not enough. What happens to communities when the
food aid runs out? Box 5: Water is life. A tale of two Kenyan villages: one where there is no water; one where the Kenya Red Cross Society has provided a pipeline and a sustainable access to water. Box 6: Bridging the science gap. How climate science and partnership have benefited West Africa p. 12; Solutions: Food and Malawi Kenya and food Mozambique and disasters. The role of donors. Investing in institutional capacity. Box 7: The International Federation, disaster risk reduction and Africa p. 16; Reference list p. 24 ( English )
- Citation/Reference:
- (2009). Hunger, disaster, hope: rethinking humanitarian action in Africa. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
Record Information
- Source Institution:
- Florida International University
- Rights Management:
- Any part of this report may be cited, copied, translated into other languages or adapted to meet local needs without prior permission from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, provided that the source is clearly stated.
- Resource Identifier:
- FI13042453
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