We have all been shocked by the earthquake that hit Nepal and the region last Saturday. Now the aid effort is starting up. International Alert has put out a statement gently raising the warning signs: humanitarian aid can go wrong if the aiders don’t take into account the full reality on the ground. Continue reading
Nepal
Climate, community, conflict & resilience
For the past two and half years, International Alert has been conducting field research in four South Asian countries on vulnerability to the effects of climate change, possibilities for adaptation, obstacles and how to overcome them. What shines out of these studies is the need for policies that integrate responses to climate and conflict challenges into developing a broadly based quality of resilience – in local communities and on the national stage. Continue reading
Climate change, resilience and peace
International Alert convenes an expert roundtable, Building resilience – building peace, in Kathmandu on Monday 8 July. It’s the culmination of two and half years of research on the impact of climate change on local communities in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. I can’t be there so we recorded four minutes to camera as my contribution to the day’s events.
My brief comments emphasise the importance of thinking about the impact of climate change on four critical system – supply of water, food security, energy availability and supply natural resources supply. Responding to the challenge of climate change is about building resilience in those systems on which people everywhere depend.
New Deal – real deal ?
In both low and middle income countries, well established arguments and solid evidence confirm that there is no real development without peace and only the peace of the graveyard without development. These conclusions have shifted the fulcrum of discussion about development over the past several years. But they have not yet added up to telling anybody how to do it. Continue reading
Thinking of the peace builders
On 21 September – the UN International Peace Day – International Alert launched a video for showing in cinema and around the internet, for tweeting and generally going viral, to spark interest in peacebuilding. Take a look:
Climate change and conflict: respecting complexity
The climate deal won’t happen at Copenhagen in December. The work will continue. And as more people become aware of and motivated by the links between climate change on the one hand and conflict, peace and security on the other, both the possibility and the necessity of clarity about those links increase. It is an area of discussion where making an extra effort of care and precision is justified. Continue reading
