Briefs

A Collective Responsibility: Delivering safe, effective and principled humanitarian assistance in South Sudan

For over five years, South Sudan has been locked in a year-on-year worsening humanitarian crisis due to prolonged conflict. Throughout this time, the humanitarian community has been on the ground, determined to reach the growing number of people in need despite a persistently challenging and dangerous operating environment.

Yemen’s civilians face death and a crushing siege as fighting expands to the city of Hudaydah and its main roads

The Saudi and UAE-led Coalition has intensified its assault towards Hudaydah’s city and port, with already devastating consequences for civilians. Despite their assertions, international actors should not believe that this can go on without disproportionate harm to civilians, or with any confidence that it will bring Yemen’s conflict to an end.

One Year On: Time to put women and girls at the heart of the Rohingya response

Beginning on August 25, 2017, over 700,000 Rohingya refugees fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh seeking safety and lifesaving assistance. While safe from the violence they were subjected to in Myanmar, Rohingya women continue to face huge protection risks and challenges in Bangladesh.

Doubling Down on DRM: Are we making the right bets?

Education, health, sanitation, infrastructure and other critical public services are severely underfunded in many countries each year. A major reason for this shortfall is weak collection of tax and non-tax revenues – also known as Domestic Revenue Mobilization (DRM). In 2015, developing country governments and international donors made three political commitments to strengthen DRM, as part of the Addis Tax Initiative (ATI). This report assesses the donor “track record” since ATI commitments were made in 2015. We find that donors are not on track to meet their commitment to double support for DRM, and that there is too little consideration of equity, gender and country ownership in DRM interventions.

Hungry for Peace: Exploring the Links Between Hunger and Conflict in South Sudan

South Sudan’s independent history is short, but most of it has been spent at war. In December 2017, the country marked four years of devastating conflict and today, only a few months later, it has reached another critical point: more South Sudanese are hungry than ever before.

While the February 2018 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – the country’s official source for food insecurity data – does not declare famine, this is not the only situation where food insecurity threatens lives. Any classification of IPC 3 upwards means people need aid to survive. This means that 6.3 million people are struggling to get enough to eat, and are dependent on humanitarian aid that is increasingly difficult to access.

The IPC shows that South Sudan is locked in a year on year worsening trend with a clear cause: conflict. But it doesn’t show which factors other than the ability to get food can be the difference between crisis, emergency and catastrophic levels of hunger. It doesn’t show that, even within families, some people are more at risk than others. And it doesn’t show that the peo-ple behind the numbers don’t care what you call it. Because no matter where they sit on the scale, they need food, they need assistance, and more than anything, they need peace.

The links between conflict and hunger are well-known. Yet humanitarian funding and political commitment have not kept pace with the increasingly urgent needs of communities. When warring parties and the international community gather to discuss peace in South Sudan, they are not only nego-tiating a ceasefire, power-sharing between parties or accountability mecha-nisms – they are negotiating an end to the hunger and suffering of millions of South Sudanese civilians.

The future of Central African Republic is still at risk

More than half of Central African Republic’s population is in need of urgent humanitarian aid – amidst chronic underfunding, persisting violence across the country and unsuccessful peace agreements.

This briefing calls for a huge and concerted effort by the government, donors and all stakeholders to consolidate progress, to support peace and reconciliation and to ensure that CAR does not revert back into a deeper crisis. It presents a fair share analysis and urges donors to step up their commitments and meet their funding responsibility to stabilize the fragile situation in the country