Fertility and reproductive health issues more broadly have tended to be of low priority in humanitarian crises. Public attention is drawn by information concerning the magnitude of refugee flows, of death tolls, and of numbers of injuries. Reproductive health has been regarded as a longer term issue that could safely be put on the back burner during the crisis phase of an emergency, when issues of providing adequate food, clean water, and shelter, plus treating acute infectious diseases of crowding, take priority. This report reviews what evidence there is concerning the effects of humanitarian crisis on fertility, with a view to identifying common patterns that may exist across settings and be of value in guiding responses to future crises.
Fertility and reproductive health issues more broadly have tended to be of low priority in humanitarian crises. Public attention is drawn by information concerning the magnitude of refugee flows, of death tolls, and of numbers of injuries. Reproductive health has been regarded as a longer term issue that could safely be put on the back burner during the crisis phase of an emergency, when issues of providing adequate food, clean water, and shelter, plus treating acute infectious diseases of crowding, take priority. This report reviews what evidence there is concerning the effects of humanitarian crisis on fertility, with a view to identifying common patterns that may exist across settings and be of value in guiding responses to future crises.
Providing medical support to the local population during a chronic crisis is difficult. The crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which is characterized by high excess mortality, ongoing armed violence, mass forced displacement, interference by neighboring countries, resource exploitation, asset stripping, and the virtual absence of the state, has led to great poverty and a dearth of funds for the support of the health system. International nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have stepped in to address the dire humanitarian situation. This study looks at four organizations that support local health care in the eastern DRC: the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Malteser, Medical Emergency Relief International (Merlin), and the Association Régionale d'Approvisionnement en Médicaments Essentiels (ASRAMES). The study makes a comparison of the management and financing approaches of these four organizations by collecting and comparing qualitative and quantitative data on their interaction with the (remaining) local health providers and the local population. Specific objectives of the study are: 1. To identify which management and financing approaches, including the setting of fees, are used by the four NGOs supporting healthcare in the eastern DRC. 2. To determine how these financing approaches affect utilization rates in the health zones supported by the four NGOs. 3. To assess how these utilization rates compare with donor and humanitarian standards. 4. To determine at what level fees must be set to allow for cost recovery or cost sharing in health facilities. 5. To identify the managerial problems confronting the four NGOs. Many epidemiological and public health studies focus on the interaction between health providers and target groups. Supporting Local Health Care in a Chronic Crisis: Management and Financing Approaches in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo concentrates more on how the relationship between the supporting NGOs and the local health system actually develops. In addition, a common aspect of many of the epidemiological and public health studies is the search for an optimal, or at least appropriate, management and financing approach.
This authoritative and comprehensive edited volume presents current research on how demography can contribute to generating scientific knowledge and evidence concerning refugees and forced migration, developing evidence based policy recommendations on protection for forced migrants and reception of refugees, and revealing the determinants and consequences of migration for origin and destination regions and communities. Refugee and other forced migrations have increased substantially in scale, complexity and diversity in recent decades. These changes challenge traditional approaches in response to refugee and other forced migration situations, and protection of refugees. Demography has an important contribution to make in this analytic space. While other disciplines (especially anthropology, law, geography, political science and international relations) have made major contributions to refugee and forced migration studies, demography has been less present with most research focusing on issues of refugee mortality and morbidity. This book specifies the range of topics for which a demographic approach is highly appropriate, and identifies findings of demographic research which can contribute to ever more effective policy making in this important arena of human welfare and international policy.
This one-volume encyclopedia examines key topics, major world players, and imminent problems pertaining to the world's ever-growing population. According to the United Nations, the population of our planet reached 7 billion people in 2011. What areas of the world have the most people? What measures, if any, are in place to control the population? Why is Europe's population shrinking, while the rest of the world is growing? This eye-opening encyclopedia answers questions like these by examining significant issues and topics relating to the population and exploring profiles of the most populated countries and cities of the world. More than 100 alphabetically arranged entries focus on such topics as census, demography, megacity, overpopulation, and urban sprawl. Author Fred M. Shelley, an accomplished academic in the field of environmental sustainability, reveals the steps taken by major cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Tokyo, Beijing, Mexico City, Seoul, Manila, and New Delhi in handling their population, and what is being done in China and other countries to prevent overcrowding. The text includes a discussion of how factors like migration patterns, war, and disease impact population change. This comprehensive encyclopedia also includes primary document excerpts from court cases, legislation, and political speeches relating to population issues.
In Africa many of the refugee flows in recent years have had a strong ethnic dimension; interethnic conflict or conflict between politically powerful groups with minority populations is often an important aspect of who is forced to flee. In most cases the origins of conflict occur in a multiethnic environment, and repatriation (if it happens) occurs in that multiethnic context, with implications for subsequent relationships between the groups in terms of political, economic, and numeric power. As the primary source of recruitment to a population, fertility is an essential component of postconflict restructuring. The disruption of fertility during the disorder of forced migration can itself be seen as part of the disintegration of society and identity; the impact of conflict and flight on reproduction may be an important indicator of the degree of crisis faced by the population. Postcrisis fertility and changes from the reproductive regime prior to the forced migration indicate not only how the population has responded to the multiplicity of changes and traumas, but also its ability to adapt and manipulate its new sociopolitical position. This report focuses on the specific experience of a single persecuted population whose sociopolitical history, along with their underlying marital and fertility regimes, will inevitably condition responses to conflict.
Alongside other types of mass atrocities, genocide has received extensive scholarly, policy, and practitioner attention. Missing, however, is the contribution of economists to better understand and prevent such crimes. This edited collection by 41 accomplished scholars examines economic aspects of genocides, other mass atrocities, and their prevention. Chapters include numerous case studies (e.g., California's Yana people, Australia's Aborigines peoples, Stalin's killing of Ukrainians, Belarus, the Holocaust, Rwanda, DR Congo, Indonesia, Pakistan, Colombia, Mexico's drug wars, and the targeting of suspects during the Vietnam war), probing literature reviews, and completely novel work based on extraordinary country-specific datasets. Also included are chapters on the demographic, gendered, and economic class nature of genocide. Replete with research- and policy-relevant findings, new insights are derived from behavioral economics, law and economics, political economy, macroeconomic modeling, microeconomics, development economics, industrial organization, identity economics, and other fields. Analytical approaches include constrained optimization theory, game theory, and sophisticated statistical work in data-mining, econometrics, and forecasting. A foremost finding of the book concerns atrocity architects' purposeful, strategic use of violence, often manipulating nonrational proclivities among ordinary people to sway their participation in mass murder. Relatively understudied in the literature, the book also analyzes the options of victims before, during, and after mass violence. Further, the book shows how well-intended prevention efforts can backfire and increase violence, how wrong post-genocide design can entrench vested interests to reinforce exclusion of vulnerable peoples, and how businesses can become complicit in genocide. In addition to the necessity of healthy opportunities in employment, education, and key sectors in prevention work, the book shows why new genocide prevention laws and institutions must be based on reformulated incentives that consider insights from law and economics, behavioral economics, and collective action economics.
This book presents a case study-based analysis of the consequences of external interventions, critically evaluating them from community perspectives. Communities – from rural to urban, and around the world – that are experiencing disasters and changes in climatic variables can perceive the associated risks and evaluate the impacts of interventions. Accordingly, community perspectives, including their perceptions, concerns, awareness, realizations, reactions and expectations, represent a valuable resource. The case-based analysis of impacts on communities can provide a ‘means of learning’ from the experiences of others, thus expanding professionals’ knowledge base, especially regarding disaster mitigation and climate change adaptation practices in varied settings. This book offers valuable insights and lessons learned, in an effort to promote and guide innovative changes in the current planning, management and governance of human settlements, helping them face the future challenges of a changing environment.
Demographic changes directly affect political and socioeconomic dynamics. Whether they are the nationalities of migrating refugees, the percentage of women in the workforce, or aging as a phenomenon (population decline, age of marriage, number of children, or the resources of youth), demographics can change the political dynamics of a country, creating in some cases increased freedoms but also potentially causing conflict or civil war. Power to the Population is a comprehensive guide to predicting and evaluating different possible futures for humanity. These differing scenarios are of particular importance to decision makers, and Tadeusz Kugler focuses on the optimism of what can be created by and for the population. The book investigates the dynamic relationship between political choices and changing populations. Kugler explores how government policies seemingly focused on localized power and economic development profoundly shape the demographic makeup on local and global scales. The demographic future of a population—not only regarding numbers but also in its diversity and how historically marginalized communities are undermined—is not merely about one place, time, or people. Demography has the potential to change the economic and political future of the world.
The fields of Global Health and Global Emergency Response have attracted increased interest and study. There has been tremendous growth in the educational opportunities around humanitarian emergencies; however, educational resources have not yet followed the same growth. This book corrects this trend, offering a comprehensive single resource dedicated to health in humanitarian emergencies. Providing an introduction to the public health principles of response to humanitarian emergencies, the text also emphasizes the need to coordinate the public health and emergency clinical response within the architecture of the greater response effort. With contributing authors among some of the world's leading health experts and policy influencers in the field, the content is based on best practices, peer reviewed evidence, and expert consensus. The text acts as a resource for clinical and public health practitioners, graduate-level students, and individuals working in response to humanitarian emergencies for government agencies, international agencies, and NGOs.
