Category: Humanitarian

Covid-19, Gender, Women and Girls, Humanitarian, New social contract

Preventing a child marriage pandemic

By Gabrielle Szabo, Senior Gender Equality Adviser and Chiara Orlassino, Research Adviser, Save the Children UK

This blog is part of a series on tackling COVID-19 in developing countries. Visit the OECD dedicated page to access the OECD’s data, analysis and recommendations on the health, economic, financial and societal impacts of COVID-19 worldwide.
Shumi, 16, avoided child marriage with the support of Jasmin, a neighbour and Save the Children-trained peer leader who runs an advocacy group for girls in the village. Photo: Tom Merilion/Save The Children/Bangaladesh

By New Year’s Eve, half-a-million girls may already have married as a result of the economic crisis caused by COVID-19. New analysis from our Global Girlhood Report suggests that by 2025, 2.5 million girls may marry as children. These marriages will add to the estimated 12 million child marriages that take place every year, 2 million of which involve girls under 15 years of age.

These increases will continue over the next decade, but they are not a challenge for future leaders and communities – they are a challenge for today. The risks that set girls on a path to child marriage are already mounting, and materialising. Decision-makers and gender equality advocates must ask ourselves what we can do to stop COVID-19 triggering a child marriage pandemic now. Fortunately, our history already holds many of the answers and we are learning more about how to respond to new challenges from each other every day.

Continue reading “Preventing a child marriage pandemic”
Development Matters
Development finance, Humanitarian, ODA

Fit for purpose means continuous change

by Susanna Moorehead, Chair, OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC)

As I arrived in Paris last week to take up office as Chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), the 30 DAC Members gathered for a Senior Level Meeting. It was a great opportunity for me to meet people and understand the DAC’s role in helping to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Continue reading “Fit for purpose means continuous change”
Lia Beyeler
Data, Humanitarian, Migration, Policy

Let’s be transparent about refugee and IDP statistics

By Justin Schon, Postdoctoral Associate, University of Florida

refugeesIn March 2018, the Expert Group on Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Statistics (ERGIS) released detailed reports on the status of refugee and IDP statistics and challenges in compiling these statistics. The reports made many valuable recommendations for how to increase the quality and quantity of migration data, but several recent developments highlight the need to also be more transparent about the types of uncertainty that exist in our measurements.

Uganda announced in October that a recent census had revealed that it currently hosts 1.1 million refugees, not 1.4 million as had previously been believed. IOM data on displacement from Mosul in Iraq during the 2016-2017 military offensive to retake the city from ISIS forces show a sudden jump in the estimate of IDPs due to a counting adjustment. Fabrice Balanche notes that UNOCHA decreased its estimate of Syrian IDPs from 7.5 million to 6.5 million during the fall of 2015, simply due to blatant overestimates that it knew were being provided.

Uncertain estimates even exist in refugee camps, where there are large numbers of humanitarian personnel. Officials in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp have significantly revised its estimated population multiple times after new counts. For example, the REACH initiative conducted a camp census from December 30, 2014 through January 18, 2015, and counted 7 954 fewer people in the camp than during the June 2014 count. On July 10, 2018, UNHCR deactivated nearly 11 000 camp registrations due either because they were absent from the camp, they were bailed out, they had registered elsewhere in an urban location, or they had returned to their country of origin. Continue reading “Let’s be transparent about refugee and IDP statistics”

Development Matters1 Comment
Development finance, Humanitarian, SDGs

Aid rising in 2016: No room for complacency

Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Chair, OECD Development Assistance Committee
Jorge Moreira da Silva, Director, Development Co-operation Directorate, OECD

oda generic 22015 was a year of big promises: eradication of global poverty, delivery of more effective development finance and calls for resolute action against climate change, all for a better world by 2030. But with growing concerns about inequalities at home, and rising protectionism and unilateralism abroad, the last few months cast some doubts about whether OECD countries still firmly stand behind their commitments.

The latest OECD figures on international aid are reassuring: 2016 preliminary data on Official Development Assistance (ODA) provided by OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries reveals yet another increase in aid volumes, reaching the highest levels on record. This is an 8.9% increase in real terms. Indeed, since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, ODA volumes have more than doubled. It is also positive to note that support to multilateral agencies has increased, reflecting the vital role played by multilateral aid in responding to the global challenges that require collective responsibility.

Yet, there is no room for complacency. A closer scrutiny of the increases reveals that humanitarian appeals and response plans remain consistently underfunded, with only 60% of global humanitarian appeals funded in 2016. Inadequate resources are being over-stretched to cover a larger diversity of needs and greater instances of crisis. Continue reading “Aid rising in 2016: No room for complacency”

Lia Beyeler