Environmental Dimensions of Sustainable Recovery: Learning from Post-Conflict and Disaster Response
Aug 2, 2014
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Thomas Curran - New Security Beat
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Events like Typhoon Haiyan, Hurricane Sandy, and the civil wars in Darfur and Syria have shown that the environment plays an increasingly critical role in humanitarian disasters. “We are finding that as the world changes, we are facing disaster relief in a different context,” said van Breda, director of the World Wildlife Fund’s disaster reduction and response efforts. There has been growing recognition of the cross-sectoral challenges posed by complex crises, which can involve political, demographic, conflict, health, and environmental dynamics, but implementation is still difficult.
A modeling tool in development at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, for example, provides a “Sim City-like” view of refugee camps, allowing users to analyze the footprint of camps and plan layouts. Thomas talked about the UN Refugee Agency’s Safe Access to Food and Energy (SAFE) program, which provides a process for meeting the energy and food needs of displaced persons. And Wendy Cue, chief of environmental emergencies at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), referred to the joint UN Environment Program-OCHA Environmental Emergencies Center, a database of resources for integrating environmental issues into humanitarian response.