From the beginning of time, their have been food crises in one form or another. Ancient books such as the Bible have records of various famines devastating portions of the world. And while it’s easy to attribute these crises to a single cause, such as war or drought, the causes are usually much deeper and much more complex. Nelson Mandela said, “Overcoming poverty is not an act of charity, it is an act of justice.”
In order for us to achieve the kind of justice envisioned by Mandela, it’s essential that we first understand the underlying causes of food crises. Only after we have understood can we then begin creating meaningful solutions.
With that in mind, here are 8 primary factors behind almost every global food crisis. While not all 8 of these will be present at a time, you will almost always find several of these at work.
The Sphere Humanitarian Charter states that: All people should have access to health services that are prioritised to address the main causes of excess mortality and morbidity. There are a number of handbooks to aid prioritisation in crisis situations (highlighted in section 2 of this report):The Johns Hopkins and Red Cross Red Crescent public health guide outlines essential tasks for prioritising health services and shows a simple technique for ranking health problems in emergencies.The Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN) guide proposes questions for identifying health problems for prioritisation and a framework for answering these.
The UNICEF Emergency Field Handbook gives a priority action checklist.The WHO Health and Nutrition Tracking Service (HNTS) highlights priority indicators for assessing the nutritional and general health situation in complex emergencies. Medecins Sans Frontieres list intervention priorities for refugee health for the emergency and post-emergency phase of a situation.Further resources,
The objective of this strategic review is to produce evidence-based options and recommendations for DFID’s strategy for engagement in Pakistan’s health and population sector over the next 3-5 years.The report suggests approaches that will work with- rather than just through– Government, enabling other stakeholders to complement and strengthen government services. For example, national/international NGOs might be contracted in certain districts by the provincial governments to help the latter deliver more and better sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services through the primary healthcare network.
Where primary healthcare is already contracted out the contractee/service provider should be encouraged to follow the same principle and contract in or out certain services (like SRH) so as to ensure synergy between SRH and maternal, neonatal and child health services and outputs.The 2 main themes recommended for support would include:Supporting the transition between emergency support and sustainable health programmes in flood-affected districts.Supporting the transition from centralised vertical programmes to more effective locally-led more integrated services.
For some years, awareness about the need for comprehensive sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services for women in situations of war and armed conflict has been growing. As a result, humanitarian aid programmes are paying more and more attention to the provision of SRH services in the field, but a more holistic and integrated approach to SRH is often still lacking.
This guide has been developed as a practical tool for programme officers in humanitarian aid to screen programmes and policies in order to promote a more integrated approach of SRH. It is the result of an interdisciplinary policy research project for the Belgian Development Co-operation, which highlights SRH from a human rights approach. It includes medical aspects of SRH and also emphasises the need to develop an enabling political, legal, social and cultural environment.
Initial high human development index scores and per capita income have a strong impact on the outcomes of aid to the health and education sectors.An increase in the share of the government budget allocated to education and health improves overall human development.
Aid appears to be effective in reducing maternal mortality as well as the gender gap in youth literacy, regardless of initial conditions.
