Upcoming Events

Climate change (CC) threatens progress on development particularly in developing countries because they have the least capacity to cope. Adaptation to climate change in these countries is therefore critical. These adjustments in response to the negative impacts of climate change are necessary as they are locally focused and inexpensive. Adaptation efforts based at the local level address exposure of vulnerable recipients to the adverse impacts of climate change. Community-based climate change adaptation identifies and facilitates local development activities that strengthen the capacity of local people to adapt to the capricious climate. This approach employs participatory processes and disaster risk reduction.

All countries in the world face risks emanating from natural or anthropogenic sources. Some countries have improved their response rates and thereby survival by being more organized, investing and developing sound response systems and human resources, investing in research and investing in technological innovations as a way of adapting to their environment. Despite these gains, hazards are increasingly becoming common that they threated development investments.

Children, unlike adults, are affected uniquely by conflicts and emergencies, however; they could facilitate quick and lasting recovery of the community. Children find themselves in vulnerable situations during emergencies and bear the greatest brunt of disasters because of their vulnerability. As such, these children are exposed to displacement, separation, discrimination, forced labor, sexual and economic exploitation, trafficking and conflicts.  Child protection measures have to be undertaken from the onset of an emergency to ensure their wellbeing is guarded. To achieve this, professionals working with children have a duty to prevent violence and abuse and to enable children to access protection services through government and community systems.

Humanitarian workers require competent and professional support system that will ensure the right supplies are delivered at the right time and manner to the right location and to the right beneficiaries to alleviate prolonged suffering to survivors. The supply chain is therefore central to effective humanitarian work. This is different for corporate organizations whose bottom line is profit making. To achieve effective humanitarian performance, organizations have invested heavily in supply chain logistics. However, most of the personnel responsible for this critical function in these organizations are not professionally prepared to complement their organizations because they lack humanitarian preparedness background and training and those qualified and experienced are stationed at national offices or headquarters.

Water and Sanitation (WASH) is vital in sustainable development and communities that experience Water and Sanitation insecurity are mostly found on the periphery of development. Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST) is a course that provides non WASH professionals who find themselves working in WASH sector, technical expertise, techniques and methods that will lead to community management of water and sanitation projects. The course equips professionals with technical skills in developing and enhancing facilitation and communication skills by providing methods that lead to community management of water and sanitation facilities.

Developing countries are struggling to adapt to Climate Change (CC) while the international community committed to stemming the gas emissions is wavering due to various self-interests. As lack of strong commitment to arresting this phenomenal problem persists, climate change impacts including drought, floods continue to ravage developing countries unabated resulting in food shortages, increases in vector-borne diseases, infrastructure damage and the degradation of natural resources. This situation is affecting mostly the rural folks who are defenseless with their only hope being governments and organizations that carry out development projects in rural and informal settlements in urban areas.

Modern day organizations and governments have embraced Cash transfer programming (CTP) to address the needs of communities during disasters and early development period. CTP has become popular because it gives dignity back to people and is seen as an appropriate emergency response to provide for the immediate needs for food and non-food items. This approach is also used to support the recovery of livelihoods after disasters and put communities back on the path to development.

The 21st Century has witnessed impacts of Climate Change in many sectors. Having healthy ecosystems play a significant role in providing services to adjust to climate change. Communities have always sought to protect themselves and their valued assets from natural pressures and reduce their vulnerabilities. Recently, increasing interest is being directed towards adaptation approaches that use ecosystem services to build socio-ecological resilience for extreme climatic events.