IRIN Africa Reports: Aid to refugees "race against time"

Aid agencies working in northern South Sudan are worried about refugees from Sudan's war-torn Blue Nile State who are reaching under-resourced camps in increasingly poor health.

In recent weeks over 35,000 people have flocked to a site 50km from the border known as Kilometre 18 (KM18) by aid agencies - the distance to the nearest refugee camp (Jamam) holding over 30,000 people.

The war in Blue Nile between Sudan's government forces and rebels has raged since September 2011.

Several refugees from Bau County said they had joined an exodus of people fleeing recent shelling, bomber planes and soldiers attacking villages.

"We were running from the war," said 22-year-old Hawegu Oram Junjal, who arrived from Mugum village three days ago. "There was no one left in the village when we fled."

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) last week said it expected up to 15,000 more people to cross from Blue Nile in the coming weeks to join over 100,000 refugees already in Maban County in South Sudan's Upper Nile State.

"I saw the army coming and the plane came and bombed so we ran away," said Anim Chapa, who, like many others, is now being treated at a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) clinic for dehydration at KM18.

After weeks and sometimes months of walking, aid agencies say refugees are arriving in places like KM18 (which have limited water and no sanitation) increasingly exhausted, malnourished, and in poor health.

KM18 under pressure

MSF doctor Erna Rijnierse said that last week, the clinic carried out 500 consultations, whereas half way through this week 900 people had already been seen.

Half of the consultations are for diarrhoea, with increasing cases of bloody diarrhoea from persistent dehydration and poor hygiene.

"There's not enough clean water, so people drink from pools of dirty water and get diarrhoea,” said an MSF worker as she handed out cup after cup of rehydrating fluid mostly to women, children and the elderly.

MSF said malnutrition was above emergency levels and particularly prevalent in children under five, for whom diarrhoea can prove fatal.

"Four out of eight children in the family have diarrhoea" from drinking dirty water, said Junjal.

"On the way, there was no food, no water", and some people died from bad water or a lack of it, claiming they could not walk any more, said Chapa.

"You are already vulnerable, you have very little to eat and you've been a refugee for four weeks, so if you suffer from diarrhoea, then it is quite easy to cross the line from being a normal kid to having severe malnutrition," said Rijnierse.

Aid agencies fear that if the lack of water, poor sanitation and rising diarrhoeal diseases cannot be solved, the possibility of disease outbreaks is very real. "You've got poor water, poor sanitation and poor hygiene… The risk of that turning into cholera is very high," said Pauline Ballaman, Oxfam's humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan.

MSF has vaccinated over half the child target group in KM18 for measles and hopes to achieve 90 percent coverage to avert an outbreak. It is also trying to deliver cholera kits and, in case of an outbreak, has earmarked sections of its tented hospital in Jamam.

Eating trees

"When we came from there to here, we brought a little bit of sorghum with us, but when we crossed over, the food ran out, and we were just eating the leaves of trees," said Chapa.

The sight of small children in rags eating the whitish flesh from a tree stump is apparently not rare. "We've seen children eating bark at the side of the road," said Rijnierse.

"People need very basic things like shelter when it rains and they need proper food. There is food distribution going on but some people need something extra," she added.

MSF said it only had the capacity to treat the worst cases of malnutrition, and expects to have a much bigger caseload during the six-month rains, due to a lack of shelter and mosquito nets.

"The rainy season has started, and we are seeing the first cases of malaria and respiratory diseases," said Rijnierse.

Poor road access

It is a race against time before rains cut off access to transit points like KM18 and places like El Foj, just inside South Sudan, where refugees often rest before moving on.

UNHCR is trying to move 2,000 people per day to permanent camps using buses and trucks, but five days after the last rain, buses from Jamam to KM18 are getting stuck in the sticky clay.

“Normally it takes us about half an hour to get there [Jamam]. After one night of rain, it took about 4.5 hours,” Rijnierse said.

Water at KM18’s two `hafirs’ (man-made watering holes) is only expected to last another week, while rains could cut off aid agency access.

“The problem is that nothing is easy here. The roads are a nightmare. They turn into some kind of mud that sticks to everything,” said Rijnierse.

But even if refugees are moved in time, they will face similar water shortages in the camps that are already over their capacity.

“There is not enough space now in the camps. They are not ready and the rainy season is starting. It’s too late, we have to react right now,” warned MSF’s Maban County coordinator, Patrick Swartenbroek.

Air access

Maban County has an airstrip near Doro refugee camp, but the lack of other airstrips in the area has sparked concern among charities which believe Jamam, a new site called Yusuf Batil, and KM18 could be cut off.

On 16-17 June UNHCR gained access to government-and-oil-company-owned Paloich airport in Melut County 90km from Jamam and 150km from Doro.

"We needed a much swifter delivery system, as the number of refugees in Upper Nile rapidly surpassed our original planning assumptions," said UNHCR representative Mireille Girard. "Whereas we had planned for 75,000 refugees, we are already counting some 105,000 - with several thousand more reportedly about to cross the border from Blue Nile State."

Since 16 June, the agency has flown in thousands of plastic sheets, blankets, jerry cans, kitchen sets, mosquito nets, sleeping mats, in addition to more materials to construct wells, and piping. UNHCR said it is also planning to fly 5,000 tents from Nairobi to Paloich.

UNHCR recently appealed for an extra US$40 million to address the refugee crisis in Upper Nile and in neighbouring Unity State, where around 50,000 refugees have fled conflict in Sudan’s South Kordofan State since June.

Girard said only $34 million of UNHCR's initial appeal for $111 million had been secured, and that the agency had now exhausted its emergency reserves.

Boreholes

Meanwhile, Oxfam has been struggling to meet water and sanitation demands for months in an area with black-cotton soil and drill rigs which have dug boreholes that have simply collapsed.

In Jamam people are getting 5-7 litres of water a day, while the standard is 15 litres.

Oxfam's Ballaman said it had been impossible to get drill rigs big enough to match existing boreholes that are about 150m deep and were drilled by oil companies operating nearby. "It's an ongoing battle just to provide some of the basics… It's been a long time since we've had a positive borehole."

Oxfam hopes that some of the riverbeds they have found have water underneath, while MSF is setting up pipes to try and transport water from other 'hafirs' nearer Jamam.

"It's all terribly hit-or-miss, and there are no guarantees that this is going to be enough," said Ballaman.

Source:  

Dry Days In Africa!

Soaring temperatures and the severity of this year’s drought have taken some by surprise in southeastern and eastern Mauritania. When rains are normal people only dip into their cereal reserves from June/July in the following year, but in mid-2012 people have already been without food for more than three months, and many pastoralists in the region have lost the animals on which they depend for a living.

Livestock farming is the second biggest export earner so the loss extends to the national purse.

Mauritania is poor - among the bottom 30 in the UN Human Development index - and recently asked for US$95 million to help respond to the crisis. But if it had signed up for a pooled drought risk insurance facility, it could have had up to $30 million to help respond within weeks after the weak rainy season ended in October 2011, said the World Food Programme (WFP).

In any given year a thin rainy season in Mauritania is probable, but this cannot be predicted with certainty says WFP, which is helping the African Union (AU) set up the Africa Risk Capacity (ARC) insurance and early response facility. The objective is that the insurance will pay out when an extreme event occurs - in this case drought - rather than in the case of persistent or localized arid events that occur often or even every year.

By linking insurance payouts to effective response plans, ARC aims to help African governments reduce the negative impact of droughts on the lives and livelihoods of the vulnerable, while decreasing reliance on external aid. "We are still in the design phase, and if all goes well we hope to establish the ARC in mid-2013 or so," said Joanna Syroka, programme director of the project.

The ARC is modelled on the Caribbean Climate Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), a non- profit pooled insurance scheme created in 2007 for the 16 members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which pay comparatively low premiums and get quick payouts when a member is hit by a hurricane or an earthquake.

However, the ARC will be modified to reflect the continent's weather and food security context, bringing together the concepts of insurance and contingency planning to help African countries hit by severe drought translate an ARC payout into effective and timely responses to assist those affected.

Waiting for money to buy aid, and then getting it to people who need it quickly, have always been challenges for the WFP. But drought is a slow-onset event and its impact on people takes time to become visible, so raising money to respond has been even more problematic.

The famine in Somalia in 2010/11 is an example. The agency had rung the alarm bells early but it took the declaration of famine and images of starving children to get money flowing in, and putting aid in place then was expensive because it had to be done quickly. 

"Early action can lead to direct cost savings on commodities and logistics, and prevent dislocation in markets," said Shadreck Mapfumo, Head of Risk Management and Capacity Building at ARC. "Evidence suggests the savings that result from early action could be significant," he told a recent workshop for African countries in Johannesburg. The ARC said they have done some evaluations and will be sharing these in due course.

How it works

WFP has developed software called Africa Risk View (ARV) to define the payout rules. The package takes the 10-day rainfall estimates from the US government's National Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and uses them to plot a drought graph. "Measuring total rainfall at the end of a season has proven to be too crude an indicator for estimating the potential impact of rainfall deficits on production and livelihoods," said Syroka.

ARV then uses the Water Requirement Satisfaction Index (WRSI), which monitors water deficits throughout the growing season, and captures the impact of the timing, amount and distribution of rainfall on annual rain-fed staple crops and pasture. "Although a simple index, it is used by many national meteorological offices across Africa to monitor rainfall seasons and their impact on agriculture, and is the basis of many drought early warning tools for the continent," she noted.

The resulting drought index is applied to vulnerable populations - identified in household surveys - that depend on rainfall. The "ARV then uses this information to estimate how many people may be directly affected, or have been affected, by drought or deficit rainfall in a given season. Using cost-per-affected-person numbers as a final step, ARV estimates how much response costs to the observed drought event may be," Syroka said.

The software tool can be customized by each country to define drought events, as modelled by ARV, for which they would want a payout from ARC, and the size of the payout, which is made at the end of the season. Information from the software will calculate the size of the premium to be paid.

Sitting on the fence

Countries have yet to sign up to this African Union (AU) initiative. Some have valid concerns. Malawi deals with chronic drought in at least two of its regions nearly every year. "The question is, 'Should we put our money into hefty premiums when we know we will not get the money to respond to the crisis in these two regions every year, or rather spend that money on safety nets in the two regions?'" a Malawi representative said at the workshop in Johannesburg. 

Kenya says it needs an insurance scheme that can pay out for multiple natural disasters. Mary Mwale from Kenya's National Drought Management Authority noted that in any given year her country could be dealing with a chronic drought in the north and floods in other regions, or even drought and flood in the same region simultaneously.

Fatima Kassam, chief of government affairs and policy at the ARC and advisor to the AU Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, said they were talking to countries about developing a package that could suit them, and hoped to expand their coverage to other natural disasters in the future. She said 18 countries have expressed interest in signing up.

To the make the ARC effective, it needs a diverse portfolio to reduce risk, which will keep the premium down, Kassam explained. For example, if all the countries in the Sahel - who share exposure to similar climatic conditions - were to sign up, the premium would be high and payouts low. If other countries, with different risks, signed up, more money from premiums would be available to cover payouts.

Steve Wiggins, research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a UK-based think-tank, said the ARC was "like governments running their own insurance scheme", with the advantage that they would not have to pay for the services of the insurance industry, and could be flexible in operation and use of the fund - although too much discretion would undermine the scheme.

"I guess one of the advantages of formal schemes such as ARC is that they take away the scope for local discretion, and introduce reliability in political contexts where public action is often highly discretionary and arbitrary."

Some officials, like Joseph Kanyanga, Zambia's chief meteorologist, are concerned about what influence regional politics might have if the ARC is housed in the AU. "We would like it to be totally independent of the AU, as it could perhaps influence the amount of payouts made when and to whom."

AU advisor Kassam says the ARC is based on hard, parametric triggers.

"There will be no discretion at the time of payout", which means that payouts will be made based on facts and not influenced by any other factors. ARC will be a specialized agency of the AU - a financial subsidiary independent of any political influence. The details of the relationship between the ARC and the national legislation of member countries are yet to be worked out.

Alternatives

"[The ARC] provides an alternate route to manage drought-related disasters besides the UN-mediated Consolidated Appeals Process," said Christopher Barrett, a food expert who teaches development economics at Cornell University in the US.

"But it is equally important to recognize the limitations of these sorts of products. They insure against low rainfall over a particular period and space - low rainfall is imperfectly correlated with crop yields, income shortfalls, loss of key productive assets, livelihoods crises and the magnitude of a humanitarian emergency, if any."

Both Barrett and the ODI's Wiggins said the ARC should not be seen as a "silver bullet", and countries should not lose sight of other options. Wiggins said one such option was to consider an offshore account earning interest, which would be used to import maize in poor rainfall years, and pay the difference between the landed cost of maize, usually US$100 a ton or more than the typical local wholesale price.

"The offshore fund would be built up by the country setting aside the funds in the good years," Wiggins said. He proposed this option for inland countries in Southern Africa in 2004, where crops failed at least twice in a decade.

Climate change

Drought events that occurred once in 10 years could soon become more frequent, said Koko Warner, head of environmental migration, social vulnerability and adaptation at the UN University in Bonn. Insurance schemes like the ARC, which at present provide answers for short-term climate variability, need to factor in the impact of long-term climate change.

"We need to start taking action now to design safety nets and risk reduction schemes that will be able to respond to extreme and intense events, which could perhaps be occurring almost every other year in the not too distant future." 

Source: irinnews.org
 

DRC (Congo) Cholera Outbreak Worsens

A growing cholera outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed nearly 400 lives and affected more than 19,100 people since January, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"The total number of cholera cases in 2012 is around 90 percent of cases reported last year. Since January 2011, 983 people have died from the outbreak affecting eight of 11 provinces of the country," Yvon Edoumou, OCHA spokesman, told a news conference.

Since the outbreak started, more than 40,795 cases have been reported. Edoumou said the growing epidemic had put a strain on ongoing humanitarian interventions funded mainly by a US$9.1 million grant by the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, which provides rapid response grants for humanitarian emergencies.

Experts have blamed the continued spread of cholera in the DRC on poor hygiene, lack of awareness about transmission mechanisms, limited access to protected and monitored water sources and a general lack of sanitation infrastructure.

sw/kr/cb 

Source: irinnews.org

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Call to Reverse Soaring Adoption Rates

As the number of African children adopted by people outside the continent reaches record levels, experts, activists, government officials and academics have called for the practice to be stemmed, warning that adoption was too often motivated by financial gain rather than the best interests of the children involved.

Between 2003 and 2011, for example, at least 41,000 African children were sent abroad for adoption from Africa, according to a study entitled Africa: The New Frontier for Inter-country Adoption by the African Child Policy Forum (ACPF).

“Commercial interests have superseded altruism, turning children into commodities in the graying and increasingly amoral world of inter-country adoption,” the ACPF study said.

In 2010 alone, it said, some 6,000 African children were involved in inter-country adoption, representing an almost threefold increase in just seven years. Global rates are at a 15-year low, the report said.

Participants at the fifth International Policy Conference on the African Child, held in Addis Ababa at the end of May, called for “a reversal of the current trend of resorting to inter-country adoption as an easy and convenient option for alternative care in Africa, and for giving absolute priority to enabling all children in Africa to remain with their families and their communities”.

Inter-country adoption should only take place when “an alternative family environment cannot be found in the home country, and, in line with the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, is used as a last resort”, the participants said in a joint declaration.

They also expressed concern that “sometimes children are being procured for adoption abroad through manipulation, falsification and other illicit means of securing financial gains” and that “in some instances there are both internal and external pressures put on families and governments to make their children available for inter-country adoption.”

According to the ACPF study, the number of adoption cases from Africa has risen by almost 300 percent in the last eight years because of the suspension or limitation of international adoptions from traditional source countries. This has made host countries turn en masse to Africa to fill the need for adoptive children. The USA is the leading host country.

Money matters

“Money determines not only the way these adoptions are carried out, but also the reasons for which many are initiated. Money does not just matter - it is a key factor that must be tackled if the human rights of African children are to be effectively protected vis-à-vis inter-country adoption,” said another ACPF report, entitled Inter-country Adoption: An African Perspective.

The report noted that many orphanages in Africa have been set up to generate profit, receiving up to $30,000 per adopted child from prospective parents.

While the 1993 Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption also says inter-country adoption should be a last resort, only 13 African states are party to the convention, and, aside from South Africa, they include none of the continent’s five leading sources of adopted children (Ethiopia, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Mali).

Experts at the Addis Ababa conference called on more African countries to harmonize existing national legislation with applicable international human rights instruments alongside a comprehensive child protection system.

“We have a lot of homework to do despite our recent progress in ensuring children’s rights. But the problem is not an issue left to government alone and requires a collaborative effort of concerned bodies,” said Bizunesh Taddesse, the Ethiopian minister of women, children and youth affairs.

Ethiopia was in 2010 ranked the second top origin country for inter-country adoptions after China. Other top 10 African countries in 2009 and 2010 were Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda

Source: irinnews.org

Brendan Reports from Sikkim

We join Brendan this week on his continuing travels.  He is on the go all the time, so barely has time to talk to me.  This week he told me, “The only access here are Jeeps.  We are travelling up steep hills, driving into clouds and then down into valleys with stunning rivers running through, before driving up another steep mountain.  Sikkim is a world of beauty”.

After travelling a day by jeep Brendan and his party finally arrive at their destination Khecheopalri Wishing Lake, which is a place of worship for both Hindus and Buddhists.  At the lake there are no tourist traps, shops, Internet or televisions, just nature at its best.  After a 45 min hike they finally reached their home stay, which was a world up in the clouds.  There were breath taking views, a range of small wooden houses with vegetable gardens, a small school and, most importantly, really amazing people!

Brendan’s bedroom was no more than a garden shed, with 2 basic wooden beds and blankets, apart from that it was totally bare.  The toilet was outside and the shower was literally a bucket, for which you collect water from the large container, which was replenished by rainfall.  “It really is back to basics”, Brendan told me.

Brendan explained the drastic contrast between this work and the world he knows so well.  He told me, “Obviously it is a bit of a shock and a world far apart from the world we know.  After a short time and quite a bit of adjustment, you realise that we could learn so much from these people and the way they live.  There are not shops, advertising, or television, just a life of survival making do with what they have. In my eyes this is the real world”.

Brendan went on to explain that the people of Sikkim grow their own vegetables.                   They have cows and goats, which are kept for milk, plus a horse used to transport heavier items from the low land.  He said, “All our meals were fresh and very healthy”. 

Brendan told me that life for children in Sikkim is very different to the life our children know.  They carry large baskets of wood and other materials often in a large basket on their back held by a strap that would be positioned on their head.  When work is done, they play like other children.  Brendan said, “It was so nice to see children playing in the mud, no distractions of TV and the Internet, watching them run to school in the morning with huge smiles was so refreshing”.

Brendan finished by telling me, “This was such a unique experience, a world that could be looked upon as poor compared to our way of life - but after spending 4 days there watching the special bond in the community and the family bonds, plus the team work, maybe we are not so rich after all!

Clinical Study Report - Zinc Improves Infant Infectious Treatment

In a newly released clinical study conducted in India, hundreds of seriously ill infants who received zinc - an essential micronutrient for the immune system and human growth - as well as antibiotics, responded better and more quickly to treatment than those who did not. This finding is the first proof that zinc supplements may boost infant survival from infections.

“It does not need to be serious zinc deficiency. Even mild deficiency can compromise a child’s immunity,” the study’s lead investigator, Shinjini Bhatnagar, of the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, told IRIN. The infants’ weak immune systems, among other reasons, can lead to first-line treatments not working.

More than 300 infants no older than 120 days (4 months), hospitalized in New Delhi, the capital, for suspected meningitis (an infection of the brain or spinal cord lining), pneumonia (a lung infection) or sepsis (blood poisoning), were given zinc in addition to antibiotics. They were found to be 40 percent less likely to experience “treatment failure” - needing a second antibiotic within one week of the first treatment, or intensive care or death within 21 days - than those given a placebo.

Multiple medical studies have identified widespread zinc deficiency in low- and middle-income countries, and how this increases the risk of infection, but the research has thus far focused on children at least six months old.

In 2010, infections like pneumonia and meningitis accounted for 47 percent of all deaths in children aged under five worldwide, and almost a quarter died during the first 28 days of life, according to recent research by the Child Health Epidemiology Group, a global advisory body on interventions.

Rolling out zinc

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended zinc and oral rehydration salts (ORS) to treat diarrhoea, a symptom of infections and a leading child killer, in 2004. Many low and middle-income countries have since changed their diarrhoea treatment policies to include zinc, according to a map by the US-based Zinc Task Force.

Yet only a “very small proportion” of children who need zinc have access to it, according to a 2009 WHO bulletin.

Policy changes are just one part of rolling out zinc supplements, Kenneth Brown, a professor of nutrition and child health at the University of California-Davis, told IRIN. “The distribution system - from central stores to peripheral facilities - must be functioning efficiently, and clinicians must be trained in when and how to use the [zinc] supplements if the programmes are actually going to be effective."

Ideally, a child’s immunity should be bolstered with zinc supplements (available in syrup and tablets) to help prevent infections, he added. “However, therapeutic intervention programmes have the advantage of being less costly, and allowing targeting of those infants/children at greatest short-term risk of mortality.”

Bhatnagar has applied to expand the study to include more children in different parts of India as well as elsewhere in South Asia. 

Source: irinnews.org

Thousands Displaced by Clashes in West

Clashes between two communities in western Kenya’s Rift Valley Province have led to the displacement of thousands of people, the closure of several schools and calls for the government to beef up security.

Relations between the Tugen and the Pokot in what is now known as Baringo County have for decades been marked by tit-for-tat cattle raids and the occasional attendant fatality. Over the years, firearms have replaced more traditional weapons, especially among the Pokot.

An escalation - in intensity and frequency - of hostilities since January has, according to the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), left more than 7,500 Tugen people displaced from their homes, living either with other members of their community or in rudimentary shelters in the bush.

A dozen schools have been forced to close, affecting around 2,000 children, said KRCS.

Local media listed the worst-affected locations as Rondinin, Chepkewel, Kaborion, Tuluk, Kapturo, Chepkesin, Kamwetio, Boruiyo, Chemoe, Barketiew, Kagir, Kosile, Yatia, Loruk and Kalabata.

Five deaths and at least 16 serious injuries have been reported.

KRCS has warned of a risk of communicable diseases among the displaced, which could be exacerbated by inadequate sanitation as well as limited access to health care. The conflict has forced some health centre staff to flee their posts, meaning the only functioning health facility is up to 40km away.

The displaced are in need of health care, mobile toilets, food and other humanitarian aid, according to KRCS.
 
“The clashes are foreseen to continue if security measures are not addressed well,” KRCS warned in a statement.

KRCS assistant secretary-general for the Rift Valley, Patrick Nyongesa, told IRIN a dispute over the boundaries of administrative areas established under a 2010 devolutionary constitution had contributed to the escalation of hostilities. 

“The government must… look into the boundaries issues so that communities may not fight for land resources in the name of cattle rustling,” said Nyongesa, adding that in the absence of adequate government intervention the Tugen were likely to try to acquire firearms.

Even children among the Tugen community are determined to use force to protect their families and livestock, with many using bows and arrows to do so. “I will not wait for the Pokot to kill my family, I have to take charge and remain alert,” Brian, a 12-year-old boy, told IRIN. “Raiders stole our 11 cattle. Only three remained and I have to guard them,” he said, adding that he had dropped out of primary school because of the conflict.

Mary Chemos, who was displaced from the village of Setek after an attack by cattle raiders, told IRIN: “I am lucky to be alive, the attackers shot at my house but somehow, no bullets hit either me or my three children…
 
“I know the Pokot will come again if I restock my cattle. I am now poor and without peace. I wish I would get somewhere to live peacefully even without owning a single head of cattle.” 
 
Security

In a recent pastoralist peace meeting in Rift Valley’s capital of Nakuru, Internal Security Minister George Saitoti said additional security officers had been deployed to Baringo North. 
 
But residents insist the government is not doing enough. 
 
“We have been reporting to security agents but no action has been taken. Sometimes we have given the names of suspects,” said Richard Chepchomoe, a local leader.
 
Ten government security officers have been killed in the past year in cattle-rustling incidents, according to Rift Valley Provincial Commissioner Osman Warfa. 
 
“Our officers don’t want to be posted in cattle-rustling prone areas,” said Warfa. “Leaders must learn to preach peace rather than division… It is a shame that we are still talking about cattle-rustling in this century.” 
 
At least 82 people have been killed in cattle-rustling incidents across Kenya in the past year, with 47 injured and 24,000 heads of livestock stolen, according to Saitoti.

Ethnic clashes, fuelled by pre-election politics and planned development schemes have also been reported in the northcentral county of Isiolo.

Source: irinnews.org

Water & Poverty, an Issue of Life & Livelihoods

Water is essential for all socio-economic development and for maintaining healthy ecosystems. As population increases and development calls for increased allocations of groundwater and surface water for the domestic, agriculture and industrial sectors, the pressure on water resources intensifies, leading to tensions, conflicts among users, and excessive pressure on the environment. The increasing stress on freshwater resources brought about by ever rising demand and profligate use, as well as by growing pollution worldwide, is of serious concern.

What is water scarcity? Imbalances between availability and demand, the degradation of groundwater and surface water quality, intersectoral competition, interregional and international conflicts, all contributes to water scarcity. 

Scarcity often has its roots in water shortage, and it is in the arid and semiarid regions affected by droughts and wide climate variability, combined with population growth and economic development, that the problems of water scarcity are most acute. 

Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, and, although there is no global water scarcity as such, an increasing number of regions are chronically short of water.  

By 2025, 1 800 million people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could be under stress conditions. The situation will be exacerbated as rapidly growing urban areas place heavy pressure on neighbouring water resources. 

Addressing water scarcity requires actions at local, national and river basin levels. It also calls for actions at global and international levels, leading to increased collaboration between nations on shared management of water resources (rivers, lakes and aquifers), it requires an intersectoral and multidisciplinary approach to managing water resources in order to maximize economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. 

Integration across sectors is needed. This integration needs to take into account development, supply, use and demand, and to place the emphasis on people, their livelihood and the ecosystems that sustain them. On the demand side, enhancing water productivity (the volume of production per unit of water) in all sectors is paramount to successful programmes of water scarcity alleviation. Furthermore, protecting and restoring the ecosystems that naturally capture, filter, store and release water, such as rivers, wetlands, forests and soils, is crucial to increasing the availability of water of good quality. 

First and foremost, water scarcity is an issue of poverty. Unclean water and lack of sanitation are the destiny of poor people across the world.

Lack of hygiene affects poor children and families first, while the rest of the world's population benefits from direct access to the water they need for domestic use. One in five people in the developing world lacks access to sufficient clean water (a suggested minimum of 20 litres/day), while average water use in Europe and the United States of America ranges between 200 and 600 litres/day. In addition, the poor pay more. A recent report by the United Nations Development Programme shows that people in the slums of developing countries typically pay 5-10 times more per unit of water than do people with access to piped water (UNDP, 2006).

For poor people, water scarcity is not only about droughts or rivers running dry. Above all, it is about guaranteeing the fair and safe access they need to sustain their lives and secure their livelihoods. For the poor, scarcity is about how institutions function and how transparency and equity are guaranteed in decisions affecting their lives. It is about choices on infrastructure development and the way they are managed. In many places throughout the world, organizations struggle to distribute resources equitably.

Water for life, water for livelihood. While access to safe water and sanitation have been recognized as priority targets through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Johannesburg plan of action of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), there is increasing recognition that this is not enough. Millions of people rely in one way or another on water for their daily income or food production. Farmers, small rural enterprises, herders and fishing people - all need water to secure their livelihood. However, as the resources become scarce, an increasing number of them see their sources of income disappear. Silently, progressively, the number of water losers increases - at the tail end of the irrigation canal, downstream of a new dam, or as a result of excessive groundwater drawdown.

It is probably in rural areas that water scarcity affects people most. In large parts of the developing world, irrigation remains the backbone of rural economies. However, smallholder farmers make up the majority of the world's rural poor, and they often occupy marginal land and depend mainly on rainfall for production. They are highly sensitive to many changes - droughts, floods, but also shifts in market prices. However, rainwater is rarely integrated into water management strategies, which usually focus exclusively on surface water and groundwater. Countries need to integrate rainwater fully into their strategies to cope with water scarcity.

You can help us fight this problem!  Please click HERE

Source: fao.org

Meet Water Maniac Walter!

On October 17, 2011, we saw the launch of "Generation Awake. Your choices make a world of difference!" an EU campaign designed to encourage consumers to make resource efficiency habit. The campaign was unveiled in Poland by European Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik and Polish Environment Minister Andrzej Kraszewski. Its aim is to raise awareness about the need to use scarce natural resources wisely, and to encourage citizens to think about their impact on the planet when making purchasing decisions.

Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik said: "With our economy in difficulty and our resources dwindling, it's time to start rethinking some of our habits. Using resources more carefully not only helps protect the environment, but saves money and reduces business costs. It's about using less to do more. Everyone can do their bit. We just need to wake up!"

Generation awake

The key message is 'consume differently, and think before you choose'. By making the right choices we can all help preserve natural resources, save money, reduce our impact on the environment and make our future more sustainable.

The main tools are a viral clip, a dedicated website and a Facebook page where visitors are encouraged to join "Generation awake'' and accept challenges, like using only public transport for a month or reducing showering time to save water.

The Europe-wide campaign is being launched in Poland, which currently holds the rotating EU Council Presidency. The launch event in Warsaw features a stand where visitors will be given tips on sustainable cooking, fashion, and efficient energy use, and a public debate on "Your choices make a world of difference", featuring Janez Potočnik, Minister Kraszewski, and representatives of NGOs and the private sector.

Resource efficiency is about using resources sustainably – doing more with less and minimising impacts on the environment. It is about making the right choices to ensure a good quality of life, not just for now, but for generations to come.

Using natural resources more efficiently is the only way to achieve the health, wealth and well-being we all aspire to within the limitations of the planet. Becoming resource-efficient means changing our way of thinking and patterns of behaviour and taking account of how our choices affect natural resources. It's not about consuming less – it's about consuming differently.

Our future depends on how we use resources now. In our eagerness to improve our standard of living, we tend to consume without thinking about the consequences. We forget the impact of our behaviour on natural resources such as water, fertile soils, clean air and biodiversity. And this has a price: as these resources become more scarce, we put our future welfare at risk.

Businesses can use this opportunity to their advantage. Increasing efficiency can save costs. Sustainable products and new services open up new markets. Innovation can increase competitiveness and create new jobs.   Source:  generationawake.eu

Help TSF to provide clean safe water to adults and children in Ghana by clicking HERE

Healthcare in the Crossfire

As Mohammed Mohammedi lay trapped in the car with his co-worker, pinned down by heavy gunfire, they promised each other that whoever made it out alive would tell the other’s family. Now, 12 years after he was captured and beaten by militias in Somalia while carrying out a polio vaccination campaign, he realizes this was a “futile promise”. 

“If you ask someone at WHO [World Health Organization], ‘What is the extent of the problem?’ [of attacks on health facilities and workers],” said Rudi Coninx, with the Emergency Risk Management and Humanitarian Response team at WHO. “If they were honest they would say, ‘I don’t know,' as nobody collects these data in a systematic way."

Mohammedi said he was released after clans who knew the polio vaccination health staff paid the militias. If he or his co-worker had died, there was no international mechanism, then or now, to record that he had been hurt while doing his job as a health worker.

“One of the first victims of war is the healthcare system itself,” wrote Marco Baldan, the chief war surgeon at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in an August 2011 agency report, which noted that violence against healthcare is “one of the most crucial yet overlooked humanitarian issues of today".

Less than one year after launching this report, and a campaign to document and rein in violence against healthcare facilities and workers, the agency suspended its work in Pakistan after one of its programme managers was kidnapped and killed while travelling home in an ICRC vehicle. 

Mohammedi, a WHO polio operation and technical officer now working in Pakistan, told IRIN that regardless of the precautions, humanitarians always face danger. “An agreement with the war-lords, clan, [or] military leader is the best valid agreement, though even that is not a 100 percent guarantee of a person’s safety.”

Fighting often hampers access for health workers in two of the four countries where polio is still endemic - Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Despite international conventions in place to protect health facilities, workers and marked vehicles, as long as they maintain a “neutral function and treat all patients equally, irrespective of political, religious or ethnic affiliation”, the Geneva Convention carries little authority with militias, said Mohammedi.

“Free access is not and will never be possible if the agreements are made by people sitting around a table outside of conflict areas. The militias have a different way of thinking - the only agreement for a militia at war is to kill… For the militia, a prisoner of war is still the enemy.”

The Geneva Convention forms a major part of negotiating access for the medical humanitarian NGO, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), but it is difficult when “non-state actors” never agreed to it in the first place, said Michiel Hoffman, a Brussels-based operational advisor to MSF.

Somalia is the only country where MSF is forced to use private guards to protect its health facilities, which is not ideal, but necessary, Hoffman told IRIN. “It is hard to provide healthcare when there is a general disregard for everyone’s lives,” he said. “To have any weapons near a health structure makes them the target of conflict.”

Health facilities have become even more vulnerable as soldiers increasingly enter hospitals to “settle scores”, said Robin Coupland, an ICRC medical advisor, in a January 2012 WHO bulletin.

From a review of internal and public sources, ICRC documented 655 violent events affecting healthcare in 16 countries in conflict from 1 July 2008 to December 2010, of which 41 percent were reported only in internal agency reports.

Documenting the extent of the problem is the first step to start doing something about it, said Coninx.

The “compounded cost” of violence on healthcare, such as healthcare staff fleeing, inventory stock-outs and curtailed vaccination campaigns are also hard to measure, ICRC noted.

On 21 January 2012, WHO’s executive board passed a resolution committing the agency to collecting and distributing data on attacks on health workers, facilities, vehicles and patients in the next two years.

UN member states will vote on this proposal on 25 May 2012 at the ongoing World Health Assembly in Geneva. 

Source: irinnews.org

Want to Try Organic Gardening?

1. Improve your soil. Good soil promotes healthy plant growth. Leaf mould, composted bark and garden compost can be dug into the soil or spread across the surface, where weather and worms will work them in. Their bulk will improve the drainage of heavy soils and allow dry soil to hold onto moisture and nutrients.


2. Make your own compost. Prunings, peelings, tea bags, old flower heads and even bits of newspaper can be turned into nutrient-rich compost. Fill a compost bin with a good mixture of green and brown materials, not just lots of green stuff such as grass clippings, which will produce a smelly sludge. Go for the largest compost bin you can fit in your garden. If it's tiny, try a neat and compact worm bin.


3. Choose the right plants. Strong plants are less likely to succumb to diseases or pests, so always grow a plant that suits your site and soil. Choose naturally disease resistant varieties whenever you can, such as blight-resistant tomato 'Ferline' or carrot 'Resistafly' which is resistant to carrot fly.


4. Control weeds naturally. Prevent weeds by spreading a carpet of bark mulch, leaf mould or composted straw across soil. If weeds appear, pull them up or hoe before they set seed. Compost weed seedlings, but discard tough weeds with long roots in the dustbin as they could reproduce in the compost heap.


5. Control insects naturally. If you have pest problems you can use biological controls bought from mail-order suppliers. There are many available, including tiny parasitic wasps that can be used to control whitefly in greenhouses and a microscopic worm that kills vine weevil grubs.


6. Make wildlife work for you. Don't reach for a chemical spray when your plants come under attack. Instead make your garden a haven for animals, birds and insects and they'll do the work for you. Hedgehogs and toads will devour slugs and snails, while lacewings and ladybirds have a voracious appetite for greenfly. Install bug boxes and habitats for creatures to hibernate.


7. Control diseases naturally. Rotate your crops by changing the position of your vegetable crops each year to prevent the built up of diseases in the soil and don't let plants dry out - they'll become stressed and vulnerable to disease.


8. Try companion planting. Grow strongly scented plants alongside crops so they either confuse pests or attract them away from the vegetables. For instance, plant French marigolds near tomatoes to deter whitefly.


9. Patrol your garden. Prevent major problems by regularly inspecting plants. A few greenfly can be squished before they become an infestation and diseased parts of plants can be pruned out before they have a chance to spread.


10. Learn to live with imperfection. Organic gardeners want their plants to grow well, but learn to accept the odd nibbled leaf, and be prepared to sacrifice a few seedlings or fruits, and you'll learn to garden without fertilisers and pesticides.

Source:  bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/
 

TraumaTravels Too

Georgette* is jumpy and on the verge of tears even before she starts recounting her long and harrowing story of loss and violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), her desperate flight to South Africa, and the struggles and setbacks she has endured since arriving in Johannesburg a year ago.

When rebel soldiers surrounded her village in South Kivu Province in eastern DRC, the men, including her husband, were rounded up and locked in a room that was then set alight. Georgette and the other women were taken to the rebel stronghold in the mountains, where they were raped and enslaved for a month before some of them escaped into the forest and ran for their lives.

With the help of a priest and some nuns, the women made it to Lubumbashi, a town near the Zambian border. Truck drivers took Georgette the rest of the way to South Africa, where she believed she would have the best chance of starting a new life.

She does not know what happened to her four children, who were being cared for by their grandmother in a neighbouring village when she was abducted. “I’m not well when I’m thinking of them,” she told IRIN. “I’m always crying.”

Psychosocial needs forgotten

Migration, especially when it is forced, is always stressful and very often traumatic. Reaching a place of relative safety does not mean the trauma of having survived rape, torture or the loss of loved ones is over. Studies have found that migrants are far more likely to suffer from chronic anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) than non-migrants.

Yet the psychosocial needs of migrants and refugees are usually overlooked as governments and NGOs focus on meeting their more obvious need for food, shelter and documentation.

Dr Manuel Carballo, director of the Geneva-based International Centre for Migration Health and Development (ICMHD), argues that neglecting migrants’ mental and emotional wellbeing is a serious oversight that can not only hamper their chances of surviving and thriving in a new country, but is also likely to make them more dependent on host governments for longer. 

Carballo’s organization works with local authorities to assess the psychosocial needs of refugees in their communities and trains staff to be more sensitive to those needs. “We need to professionalize the whole process of trauma counselling, because [refugees] can very quickly fall through the cracks and be forgotten, and you see this all the time,” he told IRIN.

Convincing governments and donors to fund such programmes was “a difficult one to sell” he admitted, especially in the current economic climate. “But there can only be so many people suffering in camps and shelters before it starts to become contagious to the larger society. Ultimately, there needs to be a sharing of collective pain.”

Setbacks to recovery

Georgette is able to share some of her pain during weekly counselling sessions at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation’s (CSVR) Trauma Clinic in Johannesburg.

The Clinic will treat about 150 torture survivors in 2012 through its Refugee Project, but funding is uncertain from one year to the next and the need is great, said Marivic Garcia, a senior trauma professional at CSVR. Besides dealing with past events, many of the refugees suffer new traumas in South Africa that can set back their recovery.

Although they are spared the indignity and psychological consequences of confinement in refugee camps, their existence in urban areas is often extremely precarious. Obtaining asylum seeker documents can be a major source of stress, while many struggle to find work and live in abject poverty. They are also targets for crime and xenophobia.

“Since I left Kinshasa, I never had peace of mind,” said Celeste*, a refugee who was driven from her flat in Cape Town in 2008 during a wave of attacks on foreigners that swept the country. “There’s no war here, but the way people talk to you and look at you, you don’t feel like a human being.”

Celeste and her family decided to move to Johannesburg after the attacks, but the stress of starting over strained her marriage to breaking point. Nine months ago her husband walked out and never returned, and without his small income as a security guard she could not afford to pay the rent. She and her son ended up on the streets, while her daughter stayed with a neighbour.

Celeste and Georgette have both found temporary refuge at the Bienvenu Shelter in Johannesburg, which accommodates about 20 refugee women and 20 children, and provides food and crèche facilities for up to three months while newly arrived or needy refugee women get on their feet and look for work. Many of the women stay longer, admitted Adilia de Sousa, the Shelter’s director.

“They feel they’re drowning in a pool where no one reaches a hand to pull them out,” she said. “Quite a few can’t hold down a job with their mental health issues, but the bigger problem is employers not wanting to hire asylum seekers.”

Georgette initially stayed 10 months at the shelter before obtaining a small loan from Jesuit Refugee Services to start a business selling shoes in the city centre and moving into a rented room. But the high cost of rent forced her to share the room with several other people and one night one of her room-mates tried to rape her.

Her screams summoned neighbours and the man was arrested, but he was soon released and started harassing her, forcing her to return to the shelter and abandon her business. “I was feeling better until this happened. Now I feel it’s better to die, because I don’t feel safe to go out,” she said. “If the shelter wasn’t here, maybe I would have already died.”

Sources of support

Georgette is receiving treatment for PTSD at the Trauma Clinic but also draws strength from a prayer group run by fellow Congolese. For many traumatised refugees who never access the limited mental health services available from NGOs and the public health sector, churches and prayer groups may provide their only source of support.  

“When their identity is gone, a common thing is for people to turn to their religion,” said Garcia. “It helps them find meaning in what has happened to them. It often evolves from, ‘Why did God allow this?’ to ‘God wanted me to live for a reason’.”

Carballo of ICMHD believes that giving refugees more assistance to find work or start businesses would go a long way towards not only restoring their sense of purpose and self-esteem, but relieving the burden on host communities.

He cautioned however that recovery from trauma can be fragile. “The fact they’re smiling or working does not mean they’re fine. There’s a whole background just under the surface that’s very easily brought out again.”

Just watching news reports from the DRC is enough to trigger painful memories for Celeste. Prayer and counselling help, she said, “but there’s still pain”.

*Names have been changed 

Source:  irinnews.org

Brendan - Living Life Not Existing! - Part 2.

It’s been nearly 3 months since Brendan arrived in India.  The initial shock he experienced when he arrived in Delhi has now gone.

Brendan told me, “India is just totally crazy on so many levels. It’s hard to describe or show through pictures - you can only relate to it if you have been here. The trip has taken me through so many emotions it’s been like life itself:  I’ve experienced sadness and happiness; I’ve been tired and frustrated. One minute you hate certain aspects of India and then, a few hours later, you love it so much!!!  Where else in the world can you find cows and pigs sat on the railway platforms?”

So far, Brendan has travelled from Varanasi to Darjeeling, at the foot of the Himalayas.  To get there Brendan took a 16-hour sleeper train followed by a 3-hour jeep drive up the steep mountains.  Brendan recalled, “It was a pretty scary drive, there were sharp bends and huge drops with nothing to stop you toppling off the edge! However, it didn’t seem to slow the driver down”.

When Brendan’s party arrived in Darjeeling, it was very cold, which was a welcome break from the 45-degree heat, so they changed t-shirts for hoodies. The heat they had experienced in Varanasi made them appreciate the cooler temperatures in Darjeeling.  

Last year, Brendan took part in the John O’Groats to Lands End and London Marathon double.  He said, “I love the mind set I have developed since completing the marathon.  I’ve learned that you have to experience the bad to appreciate the good, so having it so hot has made me appreciate cooler temperatures.  I even appreciated the rain yesterday, which we had for the first time in months, because I knew it would make me appreciate the sun more.

Brendan told me that during his first visit to Africa, his primary emotion was guilt because of the poverty he experienced whilst there.  He said, “Appreciation is the key word of this trip, it’s very similar to the feeling I have when I am in Africa. It’s not like my first visit when I felt guilty.  This time round, being here has given me a great appreciation of life.  I have met so many incredible people here, in particular, at the guesthouse at Bandhavgarh, the lads there had travelled 40 km to look for work and had left their families behind.  They worked 15 hour days, they didn’t have days off, they cooked, cleaned and looked after the guesthouse.  They slept on the floor and had no belongings apart from a small bag packed with a few items”.

The people Brendan are referring to earn 3,000 rupees a month, (£36 a month), for working 15 hours a day everyday.  They still smile when serving food and are just happy that they have work.  One of the men told Brendan, “I have met so many foreigners here and I love gardening and looking after the plants". He was just 20 years old.

Brendan learned a lot from his conversation with this young man.  He told me,  “At first I was sad as he explained that he came here when he was 15. I watched how hard he worked and it made me sad - but during that one conversation I learnt so much about myself.  I learned that in the west we are so lucky to have such a privileged way of life.  The main reason is because we have choices and opportunities.  Most people struggle in the UK like I have in the past, but it’s through bad choices and then we moan when we don’t have any money.  People living in the Western world spend far too much on rubbish.  I am guilty of that myself!  We don’t appreciate how well off we are.  Seeing poverty daily makes me appreciate every small thing from water out of a tap, to being able to make the choice to go to work, study or see the world.  The struggle here is on a completely different scale, it’s so far removed from the world we live in that it’s hard for us to even relate to it.  It’s as though we live in a bubble, a consumerism bubble led by greed, celebrity and competition with each other. The desire to have the best of everything is so strong in the west that we forget about the important things in life”.

Having observed the incredible community spirit in so many villages, Brendan’s whole approach to life has changed.  He has been welcomed into villages with open arms, been given seats on trains, had full conversations with whole train carriages full of people, which usually starts off with them asking where he is from and then he is asked if he likes cricket and then sits and listens while his fellow passengers list the whole England team!  Stares always turn into conversation, which then leads to him feeling totally welcomed into their culture and lives.

Brendan told me with a grin, “I have never smiled so much or said hello so often as I have since I started this amazing adventure”.

With 3 months to go Brendan’s incredible trip continues, so check back next week to learn more about Brendan’s experiences.  Subscribe to our blog to make sure you don't miss any of our posts about Brendan.