Under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, access to information and freedom of expression are recognised human rights. Yet, in times of disaster, affected populations and displaced people in particular often have no formal avenues to seek or obtain information, to share their knowledge or to raise their concerns or complaints.
In 2010, the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) undertook research to learn why implementation of maternal health interventions in humanitarian settings remained below standard; to map the personalities, values and attitudes of maternal health workers and the specific challenges they face in providing maternal services in crises; and to develop strategies to facilitate behavioural change among practitioners in order to better provide high-quality maternal health services.
Some 44% of UNHCR staff work in the field, often in remote, ‘hardship’ duty stations. They may be separated from their families and friends for months at a time, sometimes at very short notice, and have limited or occasionally no…
Practitioners and policymakers have a wealth of research on forced migration at their disposal online: literature reviews, case studies, conference proceedings, working papers, government documents, policy briefs, unpublished reports, and much more. What they will not find in abundance – at least, not for free – are the final products of research, that is, articles published in scholarly journals. Price and permission barriers have effectively rendered research findings inaccessible to many of those who need them most.
In many instances, armed non-state actors (ANSAs) play a significant role generating forced displacement around the world; they are also responsible for many abuses of human rights. On the whole, however, ANSAs have not been considered as being central to finding solutions for these problems. As non-state entities, they cannot participate in the creation of the international legal norms regulating these issues, nor can they become parties to international treaties – yet efforts to improve the protection of civilians during armed conflict cannot afford to ignore ANSAs.
As of 31 July 2010, an estimated 1.9 million people were internally displaced in North and South Kivu, Orientale, Katanga and Equateur provinces of DRC. And it should not be forgotten that IDPs represent just a fraction of the people in need in DRC. The situation of returnees, host families and large numbers of populations in non-conflict affected areas is often dire.
The Kivus
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The use of new communications tools and platforms can be woven in with traditional sources of information and while new tools such as crisis mapping and crowdsourcing have yet to be used to their full potential in emergency scenarios, inroads are being made. |
The response to the Haiti earthquake was particularly characterised by the first-time involvement of technology actors such as Ushahidi1 and Crisismappers2 who capitalised on the widespread ownership and use of phones in Haiti as well as the ability to involve…