Massachusetts, USA — A survey by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) has found that before the onset of the Coronavirus disease or Covid-19, disaster risk reduction (DRR) actors in the Philippines had very limited connections and collaborations on pandemics. The survey was part of HHI’s recently published study that analyzed…

Massachusetts, USA — For the Philippine disaster risk reduction (DRR) system to further strengthen and be sustainable, local humanitarian actors need to conduct more cohesive and reciprocal collaborations with each other, researchers from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) have recommended based on their recent study. “Local organizations are best placed…

Massachusetts, USA — A study by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) has found a reliance on international actors within the disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) system in the Philippines. …

By Mark Toldo, Communications Specialist at HHI’s Program on Resilient Communities Since the establishment of the United Nations (UN) International Strategy for Disaster Reduction in 1999, awareness of and response to disasters has grown globally. …

The Education in Crisis Project (part of the Risk and Resilience Program) conducted interviews with Syrian faculty, students and administrators to understand how medical and nursing education are maintained during an active conflict in which there is a lack of health care workers. The main themes will be explored in the forthcoming HHI report entitled, “Window of Hope”: Maintaining Education of Health Care Workers in Syria”, which is scheduled to be released in September 2020. The potential policy implications for humanitarians are discussed in a July 2020 article from the Oxford Middle East Review. The report authors discussed their work at a panel hosted by the Harvard Medical School chapter of Physicians for Human Rights last December.

On May 21, 2020 HHI hosted a (virtual) closed academic roundtable on Opportunities for Increasing Diversity and Inclusion in the Humanitarian Sector. This roundtable was remotely attended by 28 participants from a cross-section of local humanitarian agencies, UN agencies, NGOs, INGOs, academic institutions, advocacy groups, and research centers. The main…

Corruption, impunity, mistrust threaten fragile peace. — Report Authors: Abdulrazzaq Al-Saiedi, Kevin Coughlin, Muslih Irwani, Waad Ibrahim Khalil, Phuong N. Pham, Patrick Vinck. Harvard Humanitarian Initiative | Peace and Human Rights Data Program “Never Forget: Views on Peace and Justice Within Conflict-affected Communities in Northern Iraq”, a report by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative’s Peace and Human Rights…

Disasters, Livelihood Changes and Vital Knowledge for Humanitarians By Mark Toldo, Program on Resilient Communities at HHI Even before the institutionalization of disaster risk reduction and management in the Philippines began in 2010, vulnerable communities have been experiencing the adverse impacts of disasters and climate change. With limited resources, people…

By Chris Mawhorter, Research Associate for the Program on Resilient Communities at HHI In the final hours before I returned to the Ninoy Aquino Airport in Manila, members of a grassroots peacebuilding nonprofit explained to me, “Everyone who works in Mindanao [Philippines] has an anecdote about conflict and climate change…