Feed for the city

Feed for the city is Claudia Martinez Mansell's blog. It covers food security and livelihoods issues in urban contexts, with a particular focus to what happens in humanitarian emergencies.

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I attended this course at Harvard and would definitely recommend it. Now on edX!

Humanitarian Response to Conflict and Disaster | HarvardX on edX

The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative is pleased to announce the second running of our free online course on humanitarian response. After the record-breaking success of the first version of the course, we would like to invite you to join us as the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and HarvardX re-launch our Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), titled Humanitarian Response to Conflict and Disaster, on October 26th, 2017. The course aims to prepare global learners to recognize and analyze emerging challenges in the humanitarian field.

Please click on the following link to learn about the course and to register: http://bit.ly/2xZJatc

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I am a huge fan of the work of the International Crisis Group, and they are now producing a great series of reports on conflict and famine.... I cant recommend it enough! 

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Address and Prevent Famine in Four Countries

More than 20 million people in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen are experiencing famine or the risk of famine over the coming six months. UN agencies and their humanitarian partners are ready tp scale up the response to avert a catastrophe, but the necessary funds and access to do so are required immediately.

OCHA launches an interactive site on preventing and addressing famine. You can find a comprehensive overview of the four crises (Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen), along with resources, including updated maps, infographics, humanitarian reports and media updates.

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From the New York Times: https://nyti.ms/2oUle6z

Climate change is not equally felt across the globe, and neither are its longer term consequences. This map overlays human turmoil — represented here by United Nations data on nearly 64 million “persons of concern,” whose numbers have tripled since 2005 — with climate turmoil, represented by data from NASA’s Common Sense Climate Index. The correlation is striking. Climate change is a threat multiplier: It contributes to economic and political instability and also worsens the effects. It propels sudden-onset disasters like floods and storms and slow-onset disasters like drought and desertification; those disasters contribute to failed crops, famine and overcrowded urban centers; those crises inflame political unrest and worsen the impacts of war, which leads to even more displacement. There is no internationally recognized legal definition for “environmental migrants” or “climate refugees,” so there is no formal reckoning of how many have left their homes because climate change has made their lives or livelihoods untenable. In a 2010 Gallup World Poll, though, about 12 percent of respondents — representing a total of 500 million adults — said severe environmental problems would require them to move within the next five years.

1. Amazon Basin

As glacial melting reduces freshwater reserves for the Andean plain, tensions are growing between locals and the mining and agribusiness operations that consume much of what remains. Researchers predict that this resource conflict will drive more migrants to the Amazon Basin where many have already turned to informal mining and coca cultivation, fueling the rise of criminal syndicates.

2. Lake Chad

A vital resource for Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria, Lake Chad has shrunk by more than 90 percent since 1963. The ecological catastrophe is a compounding factor in the Boko Haram insurgency crisis, which has led to the displacement of 3.5 million people.

3. Syria

In 2007, eastern Syria — along with Turkey, northern Iraq and western Iran — entered a three-year drought, the region’s worst since scientists began measuring them. In Syria, water scarcity, crop failures and livestock deaths drove an estimated 1.5 million people to the cities from rural areas. Food prices soared, contributing to economic and social tensions and leaving Syrians dangerously vulnerable to the subsequent war.

4. China

The country’s deserts have expanded by 21,000 square miles since 1975, crowding out cropland and producing devastating sandstorms. The government has resettled hundreds of thousands of “ecological migrants” — many of them religious or ethnic minorities — from across the affected areas of northern China.

5. Philippines

Many climate models predict that warming oceans will make typhoons and tropical storms more intense, raising their destructive potential. Since 2013, nearly 15 million people have been displaced by typhoons and storms in the Philippines. The deadliest of them, Typhoon Haiyan, killed more than 7,000 people.

Jessica Benko is a journalist whose work has appeared in National Geographic and Wired and on “This American Life.”

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A Revised “Good Food for All Agenda” for LA

The LA Food Policy Council is revisiting their founding document: the Good Food for All Agenda. A lot of progress had been made since the agenda was created back in 2010 and the political landscape has changed. 

What's our collective agenda now? This year, they will be reaching out to people to identify the good food movement's priorities for the years ahead, and create a bold blueprint for policy makers to support Good Food. 

If you want to know more, get in touch by emailing [email protected]

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What an honour!

Lately I have just been concentrating on the work at Bourj Al Shamali and this blog feels a bit abandoned. Still, today, I found out that the “Camp Code” article has been included in Cureditor’s 2016 list of top ten articles on urbanism. I am very honoured to be included in such a list!

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This document summarizes the online consultation Urbanization, Rural Transformation and Implications for Food Security – Online consultation on the background document to the CFS Forum, held on FAO’s Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum) from 15 March to 12 April 2016. Over the four weeks of consultation, participants from 21 countries shared 51 contributions. 

The purpose of the consultation was to gain input on the background document prepared by the CFS Secretariat to support the discussions at CFS 43 in October 2016 on Urbanization, Rural Transformation and Implications for Food Security

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(Revised)                               Guidance on IDP Profiling

A useful resource....

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The Feinstein International Center is pleased to announce a new publication:

Forced Displacement, Go Figure! Shaking the Box of Profiling IDP Situations

By William S. Chemaly, Karen Jacobsen, Natalia Baal

This publication reviews the successes and calls for updates of the international guidance on profiling internally displaced persons (IDPs). The current Guidance on IDP Profiling, published by OCHA and NRC-IDMC in 2008, promotes the importance both of protection in data collection, and of collaboration with relevant actors. Building on this, the publication highlights eight areas in need of revision:

Whether IDP profiling is only about IDPs

The problem of precise population figures

The importance of a diversity lens

The need to promote qualitative research methods

The need for practical guidance on collaboration and consensus building

The role of profiling in emergencies

The role of profiling in durable solutions

The need for more guidance on methodologies

This publication is a joint effort by JIPS and the Feinstein International Center. It is based on seven years of JIPS’ operational experience supporting profiling exercises in IDP and refugee contexts globally.

Read or Download here.

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FAO: Assessing Woodfuel Supply and Demand in Displacement Settings

FAO launches technical handbook and natural resource management project to support sustainable wood fuel use in displacement camps

This manual presents a methodology for assessing woodfuel supply and demand at the level of the displacement camp through the collection of primary data in the field and remote sensing analysis. The methodology uses a multi-sectoral approach to assess the energy-related needs and challenges of people in both displaced and host communities.

Read more about the handbook >

A project that aimed to support the energy needs of over 200 000 South Sudanese refugees in five camps and host communities has been launched by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Ethiopia’s Gambella Region.

The region currently hosts over 270 000 South Sudanese refugees in six camps, where the lengthy stay of the refugees and continued influx as a result of the ongoing conflict in South Sudan have placed considerable pressure on the region’s natural resources, as camp residents rely entirely on forest trees for their domestic energy needs.

Read more about the project >

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HarvardX Online Course: Humanitarian Response to Conflict and Disaster

Humanitarian Response to Conflict and Disaster, is a cutting-edge Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) created by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and HarvardX. This course launches in late August, and aims to prepare global learners to recognize and analyze emerging challenges in the humanitarian field. 

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Photo: Malkit Shoshan, BLUE: Architecture of UN Peacekeeping Missions.

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Not long for the opening of the Venice International Architecture Biennale, this exhibition looks fascinating. 

Malkit Shoshan BLUE: Architecture of UN Peacekeeping Missions May 28–November 27, 2016 Opening: May 26 Dutch Pavilion at the Venice International Architecture Biennale blue.hetnieuweinstituut.nl seamlessterritory.org On May 26, General Tom Middendorp, Chief of Defence, will open the exhibition BLUE: Architecture of UN Peacekeeping Missions in the Dutch Pavilion. Architect Malkit Shoshan has been invited by Het Nieuwe Instituut (architecture, design, digital culture) to curate the Dutch contribution to the fifteenth edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale. BLUE explores the architecture of the peacekeeping base as a component of the United Nations missions. The exhibition in the Dutch Pavilion turns the spotlight on contemporary UN peacekeeping missions as an urban phenomenon and takes the Dutch UN peacekeeping base Camp Castor in Gao, Mali, as a case study. Camp Castor is located in the Sub Saharan region of the Sahel, where the encounter between the "blue people" (the Tuareg) and the "blue helmets" (the UN), the desert and the Dutch approach, the nomads and settlement spark the appearance of new spatial forms The legacy of UN peacekeeping missions Nowadays UN peacekeeping operations are taking place at a large scale in hundreds of cities around the world that are struck by militarized conflicts, long period of drought and famine. The UN's bases are planned as self-sufficient islands, closed off from their direct surroundings. The urgent need to invent new spatial solutions that will also have long-term significance for local communities is an important motivation of Malkit Shoshan's research. Malkit Shoshan focuses on the specific ways the Netherlands contributes to the UN peacekeeping missions. The UN speaks of an integrated approach, fusing Defense, Diplomacy and Development. Shoshan proposes adding a fourth D for Design. She aims to consider the UN base not as an insular fort but as a catalyst for local development. BLUE BLUE presents a series of new stories and proposals about architecture in conflict areas. The stories have emerged from conversations with military engineers and architects, anthropologists and economists, activists, policy-makers and local populations. The color blue is used as a metaphor for the encounter between the "blue men" and the "blue helmets." This metaphor has also guided designer Irma Boom who, together with Malkit Shoshan, has developed the exhibition's design. Contributors to the BLUE exhibition: Moussa Ag Assarid, Tuareg politician and writer, Joel van der Beek, board member of Economists for Peace and Security, Travis Bunt, former officer in the US Navy's Civil Engineer Corps, Peter Chilson, writer and journalist (Chilson covered in 2012 the war in Mali for the Foreign Policy-Pulitzer Center Borderlandsproject), Foundation Dogon Education, realizes schools and other provisions in the villages situated on the plateau of Bandiagara (it was founded by Joop van Sticht and his wife Gonny in 1997), Dr. Erella Grassiani,anthropologist and a Post-doc researcher at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the University of Amsterdam, Arnon Grunberg, writer of novels, essays, and columns (Grunberg is the author of Among Soldiers, a series of stories on the Dutch Mission in Afghanistan), Marcel Rot, engineer at the Royal Netherlands Army for the Dutch Ministry of Defence, Debra Solomon, designer and artist (Solomon researches food and food culture), Malkit Shoshan, the founder of the architecture think-tank FAST (her work deals with the relations between architecture, politics and human rights), Jonas Staal, visual artist whose work deals with the relation between art, democracy and propaganda and founder of the artistic and political organization New World Summit, Jurriaan Van Stigt, co-founder of LEVS architecten and chairman of the Foundation Dogon Education, David Turnbull, designer, writer and professor from the Cooper Union, Marion de Vos, freelance writer and poet, as well as an Honorary Diplomatic Member of the Holland Dames (De Vos lived in Bamako for several years in the early 1990s), Rob de Vos, Dutch diplomat who set up the first Dutch Embassy in Mali (durrently he is the Consul General of the Netherlands in New York). BLUE has been made possible by: the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Netherlands Embassy in Rome.

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Announcing Urban SOS: Fair Share

The sharing economy is revolutionizing industries worldwide, and people’s appetite for borrowing, renting, and sharing continues to grow.

With this in mind, we're excited to launch Urban SOS: Fair Share, a design competition that challenges students to apply the tools and technologies of the sharing economy in support of more equitable access to resources, sustainable built environments, and enriched lives for urban residents. The competition is co-presented with AECOM, in partnership with 100 Resilient Cities — pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Fair Share asks interdisciplinary teams of students to join forces and address the social complexity of the sharing economy. Successful proposals for this project will:

1) Identify a problem or need at a specific site and city around the world, and a population that current infrastructure struggles to address.

2) Develop an idea for how design and technology can create a sharing system with both digital and physical components that addresses this need.

3) Go beyond the app or digital device and create an engaging physical intervention in the city you choose.

Entries should be submitted by midnight EDT on September 12, 2016, here. Expert juries of global thought leaders in five cities around the world will select competition finalists, who will advance to the final round in Los Angeles to present their proposals before an interdisciplinary panel. Winning teams will receive a combination of cash and in-kind support from AECOM to help bring their project to life.

For more information, please see here.

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Image from the article “Is the Era of Great Famines Over?” in the New York Times.

Caption of image: 1896-1901: Two famines in quick succession in British-ruled India caused approximately 6.5 million deaths. The effects of a drought were compounded by cruel “relief work” policies that forced the destitute to work for food rations or face starvation.CreditArt Media/Print Collector, via Getty Images.

I am a great fan of Alex de Waal and his writing. What I found particularly interesting in this article were these two quotes:

1. “How did Ethiopia go from being the world’s symbol of mass famines to fending off starvation? Thanks partly to some good fortune, but mostly to peace, greater transparency and prudent planning. Ethiopia’s success in averting another disaster is confirmation that famine is elective because, at its core, it is an artifact and a tool of political repression.”

2. “Some risks remain. Ethiopia’s early-warning system is designed to detect and respond to drought in farming areas, rather than, say, small cities. Urbanization, dislocation and other economic changes are happening faster than the government’s prevention and relief measures can adapt.”

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Join the online dialogue on the New Urban Agenda at: https://www.habitat3.org/zerodraft

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“You don’t want to wait until people have lost their homes, until they flee and become refugees,” he said. “The idea is to plan ahead and provide people with some measure of choice.”

Walter Kaelin, the head of the Nansen Initiative, a research organization working with the United Nations to address extreme-weather displacement, explaining the complexity of future climate refugees.

Must read article on The New York Times” “Resettling the first American Climate Refugees”

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World Humanitarian Summit: Urban Side Event

The gFSC is co-organizing a side event at the World Humanitarian Summit with the title “Urban Fragility, Vulnerability and Resilience: Tools for Assessment from Macro to Micro Scale”. The event is organized jointly by the gFSC and WFP as co-leaders of the Adapting to an Urban World Project, the UN University and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap (HOT). The side event is organized in line with the principles of the Urban Crises Charter and in support of the Global Alliance for Urban Crises.

The event will take place on May 24th at 11:00-12:30 in Lüfti Kirdar Convention and Exhibition Center (LKCC), Istanbul, Turkey.

The panel will touch upon different dimensions of urban vulnerability including global measurement tools that enable humanitarian, development and security actors to understand the distribution of fragility and resilience at the city scale; mapping and sampling methodologies that enable us to understand where the most vulnerable urban environments are located; indicators that are best adapted to assess the most vulnerable households and subsequently select households for assistance; and management/coordination of targeting which will help to ensure that those in need are reached most effectively with humanitarian assistance.

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(via Calais: A humanitarian 'no-man's land'?)