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Documentation of Humanitarian Crisis: at Crossroads

Documentation of Humanitarian Crisis: at Crossroads. Prof. Debarati Guha-Sapir. Global Response 2010, Copenhagen January 23 rd , 2010. Earthquake in Haïti. Major Events May-June 2004: General Flooding September 2004: Cyclone Jeanne January 2010: Earthquake.

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Documentation of Humanitarian Crisis: at Crossroads

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  1. Documentation of Humanitarian Crisis: at Crossroads • Prof. Debarati Guha-Sapir Global Response 2010, Copenhagen January 23rd, 2010

  2. Earthquake in Haïti Major Events May-June 2004: General Flooding September 2004: Cyclone Jeanne January 2010: Earthquake Source: EM-DAT International Disasters Database (2009). Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).

  3. Documentingdeaths in post-earthquake scenarios (14 countries) Haiti, 2010 Source: EM-DAT International Disasters Database (2009). Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).

  4. Source: Action Contre la Faim International Network surveys carried out in 2009 in all departments and Port-au-Prince

  5. Causes of mortality in Cité Soleil (Port-au-Prince) • In Cité Soleil, the first reported cause of mortality is violence. Infectious diseases together account for 27.5% of the causes of mortality, hence an equal weight to violence in the total mortality. • For the 15 to 39 age group, violence is the first cause of mortality and represents 47.1% of the causes of death. Source: Médecins Sans Frontières: Haïti - Mortalité, violences et accès aux soins à Cité Soleil - Avril 2008

  6. Trends in humanitarian aid spending Hurricane Mitch Kosovo Afghanistan & Iraq GHD principles agreed Cold war ends Source: Query Wizard for International Development Statistics (QWIDS), OECD (2008)

  7. Documentation: at Crossroads of purpose Criminal Prosecution Academic Understanding Programme Planning Advocacy

  8. Documentation: at Crossroads of purpose • Programme planning/policy • Countrywide population surveys by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) revealed that almost a million people in Burundi – a fifth of the rural population – were excluded from healthcare as a direct consequence of the government’s policy of cost-recovery • Advocacy • Darfur Atrocities Documentation Team. The Coalition for International Justice (CIJ)and the American Bar Association - Report to the United Nations and International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur • Academic • Cribb Roberts (2009). The Indonesian Massacres inCentury of genocide: critical essays and eyewitness accounts, ed. Totten S. and W. Parsons. Routledge, New York. • Criminal Prosecution • Human Rights Reports • Forensic data collection for Genocidestatistics

  9. Documentation: Unresolved issues • Monitoring MDGs better in conflict – influencing global policy • Usefulness of ratios – simple and practical • Significance of denominators – missing the emergency threshold • A question of definitions – comparing apples and oranges • A question of exposure – how big is the problem?

  10. Monitoring MDGs better in conflict – Influencing global policy Emergency Threshold Source: Complex Emergency Database (2009), CRED ; World Development Indicators (2009), World Bank

  11. Usefulness of ratios – simple and practical

  12. Significance of denominators – Missing the emergency threshold 7 births 32 deaths 3490 HH residents 3750 HH residents 30 joined HH 1000 left HH Beginning of the recall period Id el Fater Ramadan (t-90) Survey Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2008

  13. A question of definitions –Comparing apples and oranges • Defining the “dead” • Natural disasters mortality signifies people killed at the moment of the disaster or as a direct result of it (eg collapse of buildings, flying debris, drowning etc.) (adapted from D. Alexander, 1992) • Conflict? • Defining the “displaced” • persons forced to flee their homes as a result of armed conflict or natural disasters and who have not crossed an international border (adapted from IOM, 2010) • Distance? • Duration?

  14. A question of exposure – How big is the problem? • Who should we consider “affected” by conflict ? • Areas with armed, rebel hostilities • Displaced populations, Refugees • Areas with pol. unrest, violent government oppression (Myanmar) • Communities hosting refugee/IDP camps (Bangladesh, Tanzania) Mortality Rates Displacement Food Security Conflict areas CE-DAT (2009) IDMC(2008) USAID (2009) HIU (2009)

  15. Costs and benefits of documentation • Opportunity costs • What could the personnel be doing instead ? (Is consolidation of efforts a resource saving solution?) • Human lives cost • Risking the lives of staff who go out get data from insecure areas In 2008, 260 humanitarian aid workers were killed, kidnapped or injured in violent attacks (Stoddard et al. (2009) HPG Policy Brief 34) • Cash costs • How much do surveys cost ? (Large scale surveys ≈ 1 million) • What decisions are really made from those results? (Cost-Benefits of expenditures)

  16. Conclusion Overall and most importantly ! What are the ethical constraints of undertaking these surveys?

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