Our response to emergencies and conflict plays a key part in our fight against poverty. We don't just respond to disasters, we help communities prevent them.
Almost without exception, the world's worst human rights abuses and humanitarian crises take place during conflict. People resort to violence when their rights are violated, when they have to compete for scarce resources to survive, or when fighting is the only way to make a living.
Why does it happen?
Disasters are not random events that affect people equally. It was not by chance that most of those who lost their lives, jobs and homes when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana in 2005 were poor, black communities living in cheap housing on the flood plains.
Weakening environments and climate change are causing millions more people to be at risk of disaster. We are already seeing a steady rise in the number of disasters in the developing world and the number of people affected by them.
With each new disaster, precious gains that have been made in ending or reducing poverty are lost or severely set back.
What can we do?
Humanitarian emergencies can be prevented, or largely mitigated, if vulnerable people have access to information about risk, support to manage it, and resources to protect their lives and assets. Likewise, conflicts can be transformed if their root causes are tackled.
We work hard to prevent emergencies. When they do happen, we respond in the short term by providing medicines, food and shelter to people in need. But long after the TV cameras have left, we continue to work closely with poor communities to help them rebuild their lives and reduce their vulnerability to future disasters and conflicts.
Reducing risk of disaster
In 2006, ActionAid began an ambitious program designed to reduce people's vulnerability to natural disasters by targeting schools. Set to reach over 3 million people in seven countries, the five year plan will use schools as a focus for disaster preparedness - making them and their communities safer.
In Bangladesh ActionAid has been working with local poor communities since 2001 to improve disaster preparedness and emergency response programs. This project has led to practical initiatives such as:
Training communities to manage emergencies, including first aid and rescue techniquesBuilding over 2000 schools-shelters or multi purpose cyclone sheltersDeveloping community volunteers equipped with radios to track information related disasters
ActionAid has spent more than 10 years developing Participatory Vulnerability Analysis (PVA), an exercise for field staff and poor communities to discover how vulnerable they are to local hazards and what they can do to reduce their impact.
In Guatemala, PVA exercises helped the communities who were most affected by Hurricane Stan to identify why they had been so badly hit and to draw up plans for the future.
As a direct result of the PVA workshop, contingency plans to deal with future hazards are being developed at the community level. These community-based plans will allow the people in the district of Tacaná to be better prepared for future emergencies and to ensure that disaster preparedness measures are incorporated in the municipal development plan for future years.
ActionAid responds to conflict
We work with communities, helping them to cope with the impact of conflict on their lives by securing their access to food, shelter and a means of making a living.
Poor people themselves should be involved in analysing the impact of conflict. Conflict should be viewed primarily from their perspective. We seek to strengthen the capacity of communities to withstand the effects of violent conflict. And if possible we conduct a peace and reconciliation process that allows people to move on from the conflict and strengthens poor people and their social institutions.
"The [ActionAid] program has promoted peace and reconciliation in our area with a basket weaving project. The decision to do this project came out of cordial discussions. Weaving baskets is very involved, and requires close interaction with each other. We have done this without considering ethnicity, and have forgiven the ills that members of the circle may have committed against one another."
Emmanual Ndayambaje, Butare province, Rwanda
ActionAid holds those who are in power to account
We have examined and commented on the UN Peacekeeping missions in Haiti, the DRC, Burundi and Liberia, and ensured that poor people feed directly into these reports.
The fact that local people now have more say of the new UN mission in Haiti is evidence that poor people are being heard.
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See how ActionAid is giving hope to Haitian earthquake survivors like Immacula Jeanty and her children.
Protection
ActionAid Australia is a world leader in protection. During conflicts and disasters, our protection program works to improve the safety and dignity of those affected.
Today, around 40 million people are displaced worldwide. Approximately 10 million of these people are displaced in the Asia Pacific region alone.
Why do people need protection?
Poor people affected by war, political instability and natural disasters are particularly vulnerable to human rights violations.
During times of conflict poor people experience a greater risk of intimidation, physical and sexual abuse and forced recruitment. They are more exposed to landmines, attacks by armed groups and disease.
The deliberate discrimination and deprivation of health, education, property rights, access to water and economic opportunities is a common experience in times of disaster.
In these situations the structures that hold society together can break down. Power is abused and many poor people become vulnerable to violence and discrimination.
For some poor people, flight is the only option.
Unable to return home, refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) can spend years, even decades staying in refugee camps. Conflict and insecurity can create repeated cycles of displacement, frustration, fear and violence.
What is protection?
Protection means improving the safety and security of poor people. ActionAid works to reduce poor people's vulnerability to disaster. We reduce threats by targeting those in power and we make sure governments take responsibility for their people.
We give poor people a voice and bring them to the halls of power where they take charge of their own lives and enforce their right to safety and security with dignity.
Through our rights based approach we work with individuals and communities as agents of change. We work with poor people to prevent the risks and threats that cause disaster.
Who has the responsibility to protect?
Governments are responsible for protecting their people. Unfortunately governments and people in power can't always be relied upon to protect the safety and rights of their people.
In these instances the international community has the duty to ensure that the rights, dignity and safety of all people are respected.
However a significant hurdle has been the limited ability for humanitarian agencies to quickly deploy experienced, well qualified protection staff in times of disaster.
In 2005 at the World Leaders Summit, leaders from around the globe agreed that they have a responsibility to protect people when another government is unable or unwilling to do so.
Protect Now- ActionAid Australia's Response
In 2005 we established the Protect Now program. We recognise the global challenge of ensuring protection for people who are affected by conflict and natural disaster. We challenge the ongoing failure of governments to take responsibility for their people.
Protection and empowerment are two key features of ActionAid Australia's mission in working with poor people affected by conflict and natural disaster. We build human security.
Our Protect Now program covers four integrated elements:
1. Protection mainstreaming - Protection is a core element of our work. For this reason, ActionAid Australia has commenced an initiative to integrate a protection lens into our preparedness, emergency and early recovery programs.
2. Rapid Response Register - Our Rapid Response Register (RRR) is a roster of professional protection practitioners available for deployment to United Nations agencies and ActionAid programs for periods of 3-12 months.
3. Research and Policy - ActionAid's research encourages critical reflection by our programing team as well as the contribution of their expertise into the research. This research informs ActionAid's work with people and communities helping to develop our strategies targeting protection concerns, human security, and sustainable poverty reduction.
4. Advocacy and campaigning - ActionAid raises awareness both at home and abroad. We highlight the concerns of poor and vulnerable people, gather support for new initiatives, and work with humanitarian agencies to develop a common protection framework.
