Sudhanshu Singh

Date: 05 April 2020

HAI has mobilised a large group of volunteers and established coordination with the Delhi government and local administrative units to complement the efforts of the state and national government in dealing with the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. HAI is currently focusing on the National Capital Region of Delhi, while trying to expand its activities in the states of Assam, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Haryana. HAI’s current focus is on the population working in informal sector and daily wage earners who have suddenly become income and food insecure since the lockdown has been announced. Since the state response capacity has been overwhelmed, HAI is also helping the state government and the local administrative units with relief supply and use of technology, particularly for surveillance. HAI’s key achievements are presented below:

Activities at a glance: 

• Starting from 26 March 2020, HAI has provided cooked food to at least 12,900 people until 4 April, and continues providing food 2,500 people on daily basis
• 192 refugee families have been made food secure through a provision of food kit consisting of pulses (10 kg), edible oil (4 litres), wheat flour (40 kilos), turmeric (200 grams), coriander powder (200 grams), spices (1 pkt), chilli powder (200 grams), salt (1 kilo) and sugar (5 kilos). Please see the video of HAI’s food distribution in Majnu ka Tila here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyfOsaqGiq4
• Answered at least a dozen desperate calls from food insecure families and arranged for at least two weeks food, milk and necessary provisions to such families across Delhi
• Provided hygiene materials, including soap and sanitisers, to at least 225 refugee families  
• Conducted multiple awareness camps on COVID-19 Do’s and Don’ts, symptoms and proper hand washing 
• Disseminated COVID-19 IEC materials in refugee camps in Majnu Ka Tila and Signature Bridge camp on 17 March 2020
• Starting from 18 March, ensured regular clean drinking water supply in Signature Bridge refugee camp, which otherwise had no source of clean water. HAI also distributed jerrycans to 60 family for water collection
• Conducting online psychosocial meetings to address stress and psychological impact of the pandemic on the general public – HAI has conducted two sessions, so far, with the help of a qualified doctor
• Developing a COVID-19 virtual care platform – an app to support health care workers for tracking, monitoring and responding to COVID-19 
• Supported the Delhi police for surveillance of crowded areas and a quarantine centre through the Drone for Humanity platform of HAI. Please see the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMkqtjkQpmA

Plans:

• Continue with the cooked food distribution up to 14 April 2020
• Provide dry ration for a month to at least 300 families more 
• Initiate programme for sanitation workers to ensure their protection through the provision of awareness and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) 
• Pilot disinfecting public spaces through drones 

The Bulletin can be downloaded from here.

A4EP Position Paper

The Alliance for Empowering Partnership (A4EP) is a network of organisations committed to strengthen the humanitarian architecture and locally led response. On 21^st of March A4EP held a meeting with Directors of 14 local/ national organisations from 11 countries, some of whom are part of larger networks in country and representatives on the national, regional and international coordination mechanisms. This position paper contributes to the discussions and decision making on COVID-19 at international, regional, national and local level. It is aimed at the governments, their international development partners, aid donors, INGOs, the private sector and citizens. 

Most countries of A4EP members have reported only a limited number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths. We recognise, that this may be the result of lack of testing rather than reflect the real epidemiological situation. The measures taken so far, to control gatherings of people and restrict mobility, tend to be less drastic than in China, South Korea or Europe for example, but this may change rapidly. While the message on hand washing is already circulating more widely, maintaining physical distance is lagging. Some of our CSO members are already limited to working from home. Overall, our populations, and our own staff, are deeply concerned. Many people in our society are not digitally well connected, and do not receive the health messages already circulating. Partial and often uncoordinated messaging adds to rather than reduces the confusion, stress and anxiety.  Also for us this is an unprecedented situation, for which we have no standard operating procedures – so far.

Local and national civil society organisations have a critical role to play in the response to this pandemic. This all the more so because drastically reduced international travel and supply lines make large scale international mobilization impossible. Many international actors are also dealing with their own operational disruptions and domestic COVID-19 crisis. We know that this will be not only a public health, but also an economic and social crisis. It may also lead to a rise in ethnic, gender based and domestic violence, and may cause social unrest among daily wage earners and people working in informal sector faced with loss of jobs, income and food security. All local and national capacities need to be mobilized to mitigate these impacts as much as possible.

Through our position paper we ask for:

1. Clear, coordinated and understandable communications and protection for health care personnel and humanitarian workers and uninterrupted supplies.
2. Support to maintain or restore our operational continuity through technical support and funding
3. Social welfare and protection for economically vulnerable
4. Governments, fellow citizens and fellow humans to treat everyone with dignity and respect during this crisis

Please click here to download the complete paper.

#COVIDー19 #COVID19outbreak #CoronaVirus

Synopsis: 

The Grand Bargain (GB) is coming to an end in 2021 without achieving much on the 51 commitments made in 2016. The GB commitments largely remained confined to the headquarters of the signatories without proper dissemination to humanitarian actors on the ground. The Agenda for Humanity aimed at shrinking the humanitarian needs, but the humanitarian needs have continued to grow, as also highlighted in the most recent Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO2020). In absence of further extension of the Grand Bargain, or lack of a long-term humanitarian framework, it is challenging to seek sustainable reform of the humanitarian architecture. This is why, it is recommended to modify the GB commitments into humanitarian goals and align them with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) and Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Therefore, it is necessary that GB gets extended up to 2030 to have the same timeline as the three most endorsed global frameworks. The humanitarian architecture also ought to be more inclusive of emerging donors, Southern governments and CSOs to create wider ownership and have more informed discussion that would usher more efficient, effective and impactful humanitarian action on ground. 

The Alliance for Empowering Partnerships (A4EP) is a network of organisations committed to rebalancing the humanitarian architecture and practices to enable locally-led responses. Considering the discussion above, this paper asks for “A Grander Bargain 2030”, reducing the commitments so they are practically achievable. 

Humanitarian Overview:The Global Humanitarian Overview^[1] (GHO) 2020 launched by UN OCHA on 4 December 2019 provides staggering data on the humanitarian funding and the projected needs in 2020. In 2020, 167.6 million people would be in need of humanitarian assistance, out of which 108.8 million would be targeted through a budgetary need of $28.8 billion. 

Please click here to read the full paper.

---

^[1] https://www.unocha.org/sites/unocha/files/GHO-2020_v8.8%20%281%29.pdf

#HAI is thankful to the BusinessLine of The Hindu newspaper for publishing the story of Pakistani-Hindu refugees in India, and highlighting the work of Humanitarian Aid International with them. Please click here to read the full article.

#HAI and Christian Aid analysed the progress against the #localisation commitment of World Humanitarian Summit for UN OCHA. Different stakeholders made individual commitments to five Core Responsibilities and 25 key transformations of Agenda for Humanity. This report is analysis of self-reports against two transformations, i.e., Reinforce Local Systems and Invest in Local Capacities. Please click here to read the full analysis and the recommendations:

300 civil society actors, philanthropists, academics and reporters joined the World Humanitarian Action Forum on 15-16 October in Istanbul. Led by the Humanitarian Forum and the Turkish Red Crescent Society, WHAF consisted of 4 separate parallel discussions around 4 critical humanitarian themes – conflict, finance, localisation and resilience. HAI was one of the collaborating organisations of this global event. The key recommendations of the localisation work stream could be read here.