Complex Emergencies
Activity 1.2
There are a number of complex emergencies that are often reported and in this section, we will offer a description of three complex emergency cases that have been reported recently in different parts of the world. The first complex emergency entails the flooding that was reported in Argentina in January 2018. The flooding was attributed to intense accumulation of rainfall of 290mm in Presidencia Roque Saenz Pena. The flooding instance had several negative impacts including cutting the electricity supply, and the collapse of the sewerage system. This instance is categorized as a complex emergency because it affected the lives of people by causing diseases such as gastrointestinal pains and skin rashes. A second instance of flooding event was also reported in January 2018 in Bolivia. The flooding incidence was termed as complex because it resulted in the lives being affected in a serious way. The impact of the flooding included the destruction of roughly 337 homes which affected roughly 17000 families. Another instance of flooding was also reported in Belarus in March 2018. This incidence is being considered a complex emergency because it has resulted to around 140 villages and 36 gardener’s partnerships being affected by the floods in a total of 43 districts. Further, the flooding incidence is also leading to a rise in the water levels in the rivers (Reliefweb 2018).
Following these flooding events in the various regions, several international organizations have been reported to have played a role in helping reduce the extents of the catastrophe. In Argentina for example, the world health organization (WHO), played a role in responding to the event. In Belauris and Bolivia, the Red Cross society played a big role during the flooding sessions. The governments of these countries also responded to the flooding event (Reliefweb 2018).
Activity 2.1
The millennium declaration was made in the year 2000 with the aim of promoting International Corporation and development efforts for millions of people worldwide. The declaration entailed goals which have been termed as the millennium development goals. They include: alleviation of poverty and hunger, availability of quality education, presence of productive and decent employment, provision of good health and shelter, the right of women giving birth without risking their lives, and an improvement in the environmental sustainability (DESA 2010).
Of all the above listed millennium goals, some of those that have been making best progress over the past few years include those of the reduction in the poverty levels although complete poverty eradication has not been attained yet. Also, the health status conditions are also being improved through increased funding to major health concerns such as HIV/AIDS and malaria. Additionally, there has been an improvement in the environmental sustenance through the reduction in the rate of deforestation and increasing the use of improved water sources in the rural settings. Further, there has been an improvement in the mobile telephony through the increased use of the m-banking services which has helped in creating employment opportunities (DESA 2010).
Some of the countries where the millennium goals have been most effective is in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia, CIS Asia, Southern Eastern Asian, Eastern Asia and Latin America & the Caribbean where it has helped in the reduction of poverty levels, reduction in the unemployment levels and hunger, and economic levels improvement (DESA 2010).
Activity 2.3
Complex emergencies require the presence of the humanitarian aid. While using the humanitarian aid approach to address the complex emergencies, proper strategies ought to be implemented in order to ensure the efficiency of the approach. One of the most important strategies entails the use of the humanitarian aid approach in providing relief and protection to the people who are in most need by adopting a more politically informed approach that facilitates the humanitarianism of the project. This is an important strategy because the emergency aid cannot be a sufficient approach on its own ( Keen 2008). Secondly, moving the focus beyond the target group is paramount. This strategy focuses on other groups that may block the aid from reaching the target groups such as the economic, political and military interest. This strategy can be implemented well through widespread distributions, close monitoring and political/ diplomatic pressures as problems arise. Another important strategy involves the use of the smart aid approach. This approach implies coming up with an aid plan that can go through the political structures and other barriers that may come along the way such as relief stealing. A case in point has been with Somalia’s strategy to supply cooked relief food to the affected individuals which has been very impactful in minimizing the cases of relief theft. Further, another effective strategy entails the introduction of humanitarian agencies that may help in times when the complex emergencies arise by making the entire emergency assistance process easy and manageable (Keen 2008).
Activity 2.4
Though the complex disaster management situation is becoming manageable as time goes by due to an increase in the resources being allocated to disaster management, and the number of volunteers ready to offer their services during instances of complex emergencies, the situation of the complex emergency management is not improving as much. This is because most of the resources being allocated to the complex disaster management are not properly managed which in turn results in them being invalid or undergoing destruction. Secondly, though the number of volunteers ready to offer their services is high, some end up not offering any services due to crowding which makes it hard to manage their numbers and the emergency occurrence optimally (Haski-Leventhal 2011). Additionally, though the volunteers offer their services during the time of the catastrophe, they no longer are available after the catastrophe is settled. This is a negative thing because some of the victims of the emergencies may need them way later even after the occurrence of the emergency. Further, most of the trained volunteers end up suffering trauma and psychological torture following the devastating emergencies they attend to, which has a negative impact in the management of complex emergencies (Haski-Leventhal 2011).
Activity 3.1
Since flooding instances in the highlighted regions in activity 1.2 have been shown to have several negative effects such as destruction of property, diseases and even loss of assets, it is very important to strategize on how to mitigate the flooding incidences in the regions. Some of the strategies that have been implemented in the previously discussed states include: the introduction of a regional flooding center which has been equipped with the flood mitigation equipment in Argentina. The second strategy has included the construction of structural measures and flood proofing such as the gabions and terraces which has been done in Bolivia. Another effective approach has been the mediation of the transboundary flood issues in order to take a full account of the flooding eradication process which has been implemented in Belarus. Also, the flooding emergency management strengthening approaches has been done in all the three states. Land management has also been introduced in order to prevent the negative land effects of the flooding occurrence (Aslam 2008). Further, all the three countries have also introduced the flood preparedness programs that were introduced with the aim of reducing the disaster risk. In addition, the countries have invested in capacity building in a bid to reducing the flood risks. Moreover, there have been campaigns and flood awareness education programs being introduced to create awareness on how to manage the flooding incidences. With these strategies in place, it is hypothesized that the flooding incidence occurrences in the countries will be reduced (Aslam 2008).
Activity 3.2
To completely address an emergency situation, it’s important for all the involved stakeholders to coordinate in order to have a good emergency response. Following the Haiti earthquake occurrence and the Victoria’s bushfire, the stakeholder coordination could be termed as substandard. As such, several recommendations in both cases were laid on how to improve the stakeholder coordination. In the case of Haiti, the various stakeholders included the inter agency standing committee, the global clusters, the emergency relief coordinator, the humanitarian coordinator and the humanitarian country team. One of the recommendations to strengthen the stakeholder coordination in this case entailed the Inter-Agency standing committee and the global clusters need to support the cluster coordination in the management of the influx. There was also a strategy in this instance for the emergency coordinator and the global clusters to support the humanitarian country team (Grunewald et al. 2010). In the second instance, the stakeholders included the members of the neighboring communities, the fire agency personnel, and the municipal council. The recommendations offered to improve the stakeholder coordination in this case entailed the community members working with the municipal council members in ensuring that the appropriate criteria is used for bushfire shelters. The fire agency personnel also ought to work with the community members in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the community education programs in helping reduce the instances of fire occurrences. All these strategies might deem very effective in enhancing the stakeholder coordination which is important in addressing complex emergencies (VBRC 2009).
Activity 4.5
In my opinion, just war is an existing thing that is resorted to during some problem-solving incidents entailing the desire to enhance responsibility in given set ups, preventing undesirable outcomes or preventable autocracies. It is mostly important in addressing cases where the human lives are taken for granted, defending the lives of the citizens of a given country and defending important moral values (BBC 2014). Though it has all the applications listed above, in my opinion it should preferably be employed in redressing a wrong suffered and is only waged by a legitimate authority. However, this approach of solving a wrong in my opinion should only be utilized as a last resort after all the non-violent options have failed. A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. As such, if the chance of winning is low, then it should not be implemented in the first place. Additionally, the violence used in this kind of war must be proportional to the injury being suffered in order to ensure that the war proves successful in what it was being used for. Moreover, the weapons in use in this kind of War must discriminate between the combatants and the non-combatants in order to prevent harming the civilians who are never permissible targets of Just War. Therefore, it is very important to take keen considerations and evaluate the importance that the just war might have before implementing it (BBC 2014).
Annotated Bibliography
Sharpcott, R, 2010, ‘International Ethics: A Critical Introduction,’ Chapter 5: Humanitarianism and Mutual Aid. Polity Press: Cambridge & MA
The aim of this study was to offer an overview of the ethical issues that are attached to the principle and practice of humanitarianism as well as the philosophical and moral background of the concept. The author in his work argues that humanitarianism is an important and successful cosmopolitan principle that is applied and institutionalized in the international order. The author thus has defined humanitarianism as the act of positive duties in assisting and aiding rather than causing harm to fellow human beings. The author further argues that humanitarianism and the principles of the ICRC usually go hand in hand. This is because humanitarianisms as a principle infers that human beings ought to be humane enough in offering help to individuals. The principles of ICRC according to the author include universality, neutrality, impartiality and consent. These principles govern all the humanitarian agencies. Universality as a principle entails the fact that humanity scope is universal and it applies to all the human race. Neutrality refers to the attribute of all the activities of the humanity activities being non- political. Impartiality on the other hand entails the fact that the victims from all sides of a conflict being entitled to humanitarianism assistance. Lastly, consent infers the fact that all the humanitarian agencies must seek the consent of the affected parties before delivering their relief. In my opinion, this work has been insightful in bringing out the important aspect that relate to the humanitarianism and how humanitarianism relates to the principles of ICRC.
References
Aslam, P, 2008, ‘Flood preparedness and emergency management: people- centered approach in integrated flood risk management,’ Annual Flooding Report, retrieved from: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/82e8/60a8f92ccb468733128236951d03d6089984.pdf
BBC, 2014, ‘Just war- introduction.’ Retrieved 6 April, from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/war/just/introduction.shtml
Grunewald, F, Binder, A, & Georges, Y, 2010, ‘Inter-agency Real-time
Evaluation (RTE) in Haiti: 3 months after the earthquake,’ Inter-Agency
Standing Committee (IASC). Retrieved from: http://www.alnap.org/pool/files/haiti-ia-rte-1-
final-report-en.pdf
Haski-Leventhal, D, 2011, ‘The pathways and pitfalls of managing volunteers in a disaster zone,’ The Conversation. Retrieved from: https://theconversation.com/the-pathways-and-pitfalls-of-managing-volunteers-in-a-disaster-zone-704
Keen, DJ, 2008, ‘Aid,’Complex Emergencies, pp. 116 – 148. Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Reliefweb. Retrieved from: https://reliefweb.int/
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), 2010,
Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report 2010. New York: Author.
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Report%202010%20En
%20r15%20-low%20res%2020100615%20-.pdf
Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission (VBRC), 2009, ‘Victoria’s bushfire safety policy.’
Final Report Recommendations. Author.
