Section: IRIN (Switzerland)
Congo Ebola outbreak offers first test for emergency fund to prevent pandemics
A new financial mechanism that frees up emergency funding to ward off a pandemic has been activated for the first time, in response to an outbreak of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Efforts to halt the outbreak received an injection of $12 million from the new World Bank fund and, if Ebola spreads to other countries and infects...
As Syria looks to rebuild, US and allies hope money can win where guns lost
President Bashar al-Assad is winning Syria’s seven-year war on the battlefield, but his American, European, and Arab opponents are ramping up the pressure on the economic front. Their plan to block aid and investment that could help the regime’s plans for reconstruction will frustrate al-Assad’s regime and his allies, but...
Forgotten Ukrainians feel the bite of winter food cuts
As winter tightens its grip on war-torn eastern Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of people are struggling to put food on the table due to a lack of funding for emergency humanitarian aid. Last week, the World Food Programme wound up its food assistance operations in the east of the country, where a four-year conflict has killed more than 10,000...
Crises on the horizon in 2018: the view from Davos
Political violence, increased weather threats, and the rise of strongmen will be key drivers of crises in 2018, experts told IRIN at the World Economic Forum this week. The Global Humanitarian Outlook, convened by IRIN News and the Overseas Development Institute in Davos, Switzerland, brought together UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian...
An Ethiopian thaw, a Syrian flare-up, and an Afghan reprieve: The Cheat Sheet
Every week, IRIN’s team of specialist editors scans the humanitarian horizon to curate a reading list on important and unfolding trends and events around the globe: New year, more war in Syria The new year has not been kind to civilians in northern Syria, where a spike in fighting between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and...
Improving the mixed fortunes of Ukraine’s 1.7 million war-displaced
Imagine at 50 years old having to leave a region you’ve called home your entire life. And imagine having to leave almost everything behind, including your livelihood. That’s the story of Oleksandr Dovzhenko, now 53, who left war-torn Donetsk at the height of Ukraine’s almost four-year-old conflict to relocate in safer Poltava...
Security lapses at aid agency leave beneficiary data at risk
Aid agencies have put some projects on hold while reviewing the security of a popular online system for handling aid distributions, IRIN has learnt. Sensitive personal and financial data on tens of thousands of people in humanitarian aid projects is at risk from hackers, according to a damning security analysis by a financial technology startup....
Frozen and forgotten: The neglected displacement crisis on Europe’s doorstep
Many of the world’s humanitarian catastrophes are described as forgotten emergencies, but only this one is playing out relatively unnoticed on the doorstep of Europe, over an area roughly the size of Switzerland. The frozen, low-intensity conflict in Ukraine’s Donbass region will mark a grim, four-year milestone in April. And the...
Hostility in US, Europe makes Mexico a new refugee destination of choice
Aisha woke up bruised and disoriented in a hospital bed in Kinshasa. Her husband, a driver for a prominent opposition politician in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was dead. Her five children were missing. One thing was clear: She had to leave her home. On a cold November morning last year, Aisha set foot in an airport half a world away....
EU fails to identify and protect gay, lesbian, and transgender asylum seekers
Daar* was scared to tell anyone he was gay, let alone the foreign officials who held his future in their hands. So when the 28-year-old Syrian from Damascus had his first interview for European asylum on the Aegean island of Lesvos, he kept mum, even though revealing his identity would have helped him start a new life away from the island’s...
