Tagged: conflict

  • Putting a future within reach for refugee and displaced students around the world

    Conflict, forced relocation and climate change have disrupted the lives of millions of people around the world. In Ukraine, for example, a year of armed conflict has resulted in the displacement of more than 13 million people and the destruction of much of the nation’s infrastructure, including schools and universities. As a result, the education of many young Ukrainians has been interrupted, as has their ability to build their futures.

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  • Humanitarian crises are proliferating. Here’s how we’re responding.

    Disease. Drought. Conflict. It is not your imagination; there are more emergencies today than in years past. Storms are growing more frequent and extreme in some regions, while other areas are becoming more arid, with growing seasons disappearing before farmers’ eyes. More competition for scarce resources means more displacement and more conflict.

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  • How do evolving security challenges shape the way that the military and the global development community work in the same spaces to address human needs?

    In this episode of A Deeper Look podcast, I speak with retired Lieutenant General David Barno about military involvement in development. We discuss lessons learned from General Barno’s experience in Afghanistan, address the threat of non-state actors and describe the different doctrines that influence the military’s tactics. We discovered that seeing the communities where we serve as the center of gravity of our operations creates many similarities in how we think about achieving positive, sustainable change, such as the importance of listening to people, the requirement for country ownership and the centrality of good governance to resolving the conflicts of the 21st century.

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  • The future of global development: Trends shaping the decade ahead

    It’s a new year and a new decade. A century ago, the 1920s — also known as the Roaring ’20s — brought momentous changes. What will the 21st century’s next decade bring?

    To kick off this season of A Deeper Look podcast, I talk with Carolyn Miles, outgoing President and Chief Executive Officer of Save the Children US, and Masood Ahmed, President of the Center for Global Development. We discuss the progress and achievements that have been made in human development and the pressing challenges that lie ahead. We consider major trends, ideas and forces that will shape development in the 2020s, including climate change and conflict and migration, and we explore how the development community can respond.

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  • Exploring the next frontier in education in emergencies: Social-emotional learning research and practice

    A teacher at a blackboard in Maiduguri, Northeast Nigeria

    Maryam Mustapha teaches at a nonformal learning center in Maiduguri, Northeast Nigeria. Her classes include social emotional learning, a critical component of programming for education in emergencies. Photo credit: Anna Eisenberg/FHI 360

    In emergency contexts, when many support structures fracture, education can provide protection, heal trauma and inspire hope. Education programs that feature social-emotional learning (SEL) interventions — the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions and develop self-control and interpersonal skills — have the potential for large-scale impact in fragile and humanitarian contexts. SEL is an especially powerful healer for migrants, refugees and children who can be scarred from prolonged insecurity, trauma, loss, violence or separation from family or homeland.

    As new crises seemingly arise every day and existing ones become more protracted, we at FHI 360, the LEGO Foundation and UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report are exploring evidence-based ways to incorporate SEL research and programming for education in emergencies.

    A new policy paper from the GEM Report, Education as Healing: Addressing the Trauma of Displacement through Social and Emotional Learning, draws on the global analysis in the 2019 GEM Report assessment on migration, displacement and education and rigorous new research done in partnership with FHI 360 to compile evidence-based findings on effective SEL approaches. The paper also presents recommendations for policymakers and other stakeholders to invest in SEL evidence-generation and programming at global, national and regional levels.

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  • Eleven takeaways about humanitarian crises and emergency response

    This year, I dedicated my monthly podcast, A Deeper Look, to examining humanitarian crises and emergency response. I had the opportunity to talk with senior leaders, youth and seasoned humanitarians who offered multiple perspectives on how this issue impacts communities and people in such areas as gender, technology, food security and education.

    Although the topics covered in our conversations varied widely, my guests were unified in their belief that the nature of humanitarian crises has changed over the years. We are seeing historic levels of people who are displaced by conflict for longer periods than in the past, and the number of natural disasters is increasing. We discussed how the changing characteristics of these crises are radically altering the way we do development. My guests and I also talked about some of the courageous, innovative responses that give us hope for the future.

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  • Lessons learned throughout a career in humanitarian response

    This year, we’ve taken a deeper look at Humanitarian Crises and Emergency Response. In the final episode of the season, I speak with Ambassador Rick Barton, who is currently co-director of the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School and the author of a new book called Peace Works: America’s Unifying Role in a Turbulent World.

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  • Preventing and resolving violent conflict

    A decade ago, around 80 percent of the international humanitarian budget went to victims of natural disasters. Now, that number has flipped, with about 80 percent of funding going to victims of violent conflict.

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  • Responding to the largest humanitarian crisis in the world

    Twenty-two million people in Yemen — roughly 4 out of 5 Yemenis — are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, making this the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. As the conflict enters its fourth year, with little sign of a peace agreement, this complex emergency demands attention and action from the international community.

    In this episode of A Deeper Look, I sit down with my colleague Greg Beck, the Director of Crisis Response and Integrated Development here at FHI 360. Greg has recently been working in Yemen.

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  • Humanitarian response in Nigeria

    More than 1.7 million people are internally displaced, 14 million people in acute need of humanitarian assistance and 26 million people are affected by conflict in Nigeria.

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