All posts in Environment and Disasters

in category Aid and Policy, ALNAP, Climate, Environment and Disasters and 0 comments.

Exploring the Evolving Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus: A Meta-Evaluation

Since 2018, a growing number of evaluations have explored how organizations have adopted humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) or double nexus approaches. These evaluations delve into progress, barriers and ways to improve connectedness and complementarity of humanitarian, development and Peace sectors.

Commissioned by ALNAP, Lezlie Moriniere (IRMA co-founding partner) worked with a wide team to conduct a meta-evaluation on the HDP nexus. IRMA support to this study included the tireless efforts of Marilise Turnbull and associates Agathe Mazars and Rachael Hinkel. 

The paper curates findings from 90 evaluations undertaken between 2018 and April 2022, exploring how organizations have advanced their version of a nexus approach. It provides insights into the operationalization and implementation of the triple nexus in practice, offering lessons learned and trends for the wider sector.

ALNAP will conduct a webinar on 7 December featuring the presentation of the mapping and synthesis paper, followed by a moderated panel discussion on actionable steps to advance HDP nexus ways of working.

Click here to register to the webinar.

Click here to explore the paper.

in category Conflict, Environment and Disasters, Uncategorized and 0 comments.

Scoping: Integration of Animal Protection in Disaster Risk Management

The number and intensity of natural hazards has increased exponentially in recent decades. While headlines highlight the impact on people and infrastructure, animals are also affected by these events and subsequent disasters. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction represented a significant evolution in risk management, including understanding the need to expand the focus beyond on people and physical infrastructure to include the protection of livelihoods and productive assets, including livestock and other animals. The conflict in Ukraine has also highlighted concerns and lessons related to both companion animals and livestock during conflict. Yet, despite a growing willingness to include animals in national disaster management plans, there remains a big gap in understanding and in implementing animal-sensitive risk management/programming.

In order to better understand the current status of how animal welfare is considered within disaster risk management, the Humane Society International (HSI) Europe has commissioned IRMA to undertake a comprehensive scoping exercise to assess the current state of animal protection within disaster risk management legislation and practices within the EU and four member states (Poland, Germany, Romania and Italy). The scoping exercise explores the extent to which disaster-related EU and member state Legislation includes animal protection and what good practices in disaster risk management are the most sensitive or protective of animals. Building on this, IRMA will support HSI Europe to identify key opportunities to positively contribute to this emerging and expanding area of DRM.

The IRMA team is made up of Lezlie Moriniere, TL, Hannah Vaughan-Lee (Research Lead) and Ambre Caillot (Ethologist/Research Associate).

in category Environment and Disasters and 0 comments.

Baseline assessment for GNDR’s “Locally-led humanitarian solutions: Building resilience in fragile contexts affected by climate change” project

In 2007, the Global Network of Civil Society Organizations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR) was born with a mission to support CSOs around the world make the world a safer place in the face of disasters. Today, GNDR comprises 1,734 organizations from 130 countries.

GNDR was granted USAID BHA funding for the project “Locally-led humanitarian solutions: Building resilience in fragile contexts affected by climate change”. The project will be implemented over the span of 60 months in 11 fragile countries impacted by climate change across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. The project will be implemented by GNDR members, more specifically 22 CSOs (11 in the first phase, 11 additional CSOs in phase 2), two from each participating country.

GNDR has commissioned IRMA to conduct a baseline assessment for this project, which consists of:

  • Completing Indicator Tracking Tables for 21 BHA indicators (aligned with PIRS),
  • Gathering non-indicator data to describe country context, including key information about hazards, exposure, vulnerability but also gender, conflict, the state of the nexus and civic space in each country,
  • Performing a Capacity Development Needs Assessment of CSOs selected in the first phase.

The methodological approach includes Key informant interviews with GNDR National Focal Points (NFP), HDP Risk Analysis (Infographics), workshops with selected CSOs and a Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice survey.

in category Environment and Disasters, Oxfam and 0 comments.

Evaluating the impact of DRR Interventions after disasters

The Oxfam Global Humanitarian Team (GHT) has a Performance and Innovation Team that sets the standards and gathers evidence to document learning in the different thematic areas of Oxfam work, including Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

Oxfam’s GHT sought IRMA’s support to develop a methodology to evaluate the impact of its DRR work in communities that are subsequently affected by a disaster. Oxfam wanted to know how it could assess the extent to which investments in DRR had helped beneficiaries to withstand the effects of a hazard event, and whether they were less affected than others who had not participated in a DRR project. In addition, because it would be used in a post-disaster context, Oxfam wanted the methodology to avoid creating a burden for teams on the ground engaged in response work.

IRMA developed an innovative methodology – a Rapid Impact Assessment – for this purpose and supported its successful pilot application in India. Learning from the pilot was incorporated, and in Spring 2022 IRMA will deliver training on Rapid Impact Assessment to Oxfam’s M&E and DRR teams to support a global roll-out.

in category Environment and Disasters, EU and 0 comments.

Technical assistance to address environmentally induced displacement in EC external cooperation

Climate change has become an increasingly important driver of human mobility. Those displaced due to environmental, or climate factors are not legally represented in the Refugee Convention and no internationally agreed terminology captures their status.

This project will map how the European Union and partners address environment-displacement linkages to establish a more insightful organizational position as EU moves to chair the Platform for Disaster and Displacement (PDD).

IRMA will technically assist to map global actions and policies, to advise EU on specific related technical requests and to develop/deliver online training and briefing materials for the INTPA Academy.

The Contracting Authority is the European Union (EU), represented by the European Commission (EC). The stakeholders involved in this contract include Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), International Organization for Migration (IOM), and Platform for Disaster and Displacement (PDD).

in category Environment and Disasters, IOM and 0 comments.

IRMA conducts “Environmental Considerations in Humanitarian Response” Training of Trainers for International Organization for Migration (IOM)

As part of our ongoing technical support to International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Guatemala, IRMA designed and conducted the first round of a “Training of Trainers” on the incorporation of environmental considerations in humanitarian response to population displacement in Guatemala. Following a positive evaluation of the first round, IRMA will conduct a second round of the training in November 2021.

The training, which is provided in Spanish, aims to:

1) Strengthen participants’ knowledge about environmental impacts that result from humanitarian response to migration,

2) Develop participants’ capacities to identify ways to prevent and mitigate such impacts,

3) Equip participants with resources and techniques to replicate the trainings within their respective institutions.

Each session applies an environmental lens to assess unintended negative impacts that result from humanitarian responses in shelter, WASH, health and wellbeing, food, livelihoods, gender, and protection programming. Critical thinking exercises, use of visual and game-like applications (Miro, Kahoot) and a peer-to-peer learning approach encourage and sustain participant engagement and interest.

The course culminates in a virtual simulation of a humanitarian response to a sudden, massive migration flow. Participants test their newly acquired knowledge and skills to design and deliver an environmentally-responsible response.

The training is led by IRMA partner Marilise Turnbull, with research and technical support from Chandler Smith.