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How Aid in Cash, Not Goods, Averted A Famine In Somalia

“ Increasingly, it became clear that a new flow of international aid, cash, and not goods, worked to mitigate the risks of an immediate famine. For now, in spite of acute risks in some parts of the country, Somalia has successfully averted a food crisis,” How Aid in Cash, Not Goods, Averted A Famine In Somalia 08 September - Source: IPS News - 594 Words In February, when the government of Somalia sounded an alarm to the UN about risks of a famine in the country, the UN’s Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), besides quickly shuffling a response team, was acting from a steep sense of history. The Office, instead of sending out massive aid packages, distributed cash vouchers to families who could spend it to buy goods according to their needs. The famine between the years 2010 and 2012, which killed more than a quarter of a million people in the country, offered important lessons to the aid community. This spring, when poor rainfall led to large scale crop failure
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Uncovering Somalia's Forgotten Music of the 1970s

18 August- Source: Al Jazeera English- 2840 Words In 1331, famed Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta arrived in Mogadishu, on the Banaadiri coast, in what is today Somalia. Battuta came across the richest, most powerful port in East Africa, at the fore of the Indian Ocean trade system, then the centrepiece of the global economy. Anchored off the coast, he was greeted by "boatloads of young men … each carrying a covered platter of food to present to one of the merchants on board," writes Ross Dunn in The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century. Such renowned hospitality welcomed seafarers and merchants from across the Arabian peninsula, Persia, India, Southeast Asia, and even China. Mogadishu derives from "Maq'ad-i-Shah", Farsi - one of the lingua francas of Indian Ocean merchants and traders - for "Seat of the King". Its local name, Xamar, was given by Arab traders, after the Arabic word "ahmar" for the red soil al
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The Guardian: UN 'utterly horrified' by video appearing to show murder of two experts in Congo

The United Nations has said it was horrified by a grisly video screened by the government of Democratic Republic of Congo that appeared to show the murder of two UN investigators. To read the full article from the Guardian, please click on this link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/24/un-experts-killed-congo-video-michael-sharp-zaida-catalan
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Life on the Congo - Roads & Kingdoms

ON THE CONGO RIVER, Democratic Republic of Congo— It begins with shouting. Almost everything here seems to. This time they are shouts of encouragement: “Vite! Vite!” —“Faster! Faster!” But the teenage girl in the pirogue , a type of dugout canoe, is unable to pull alongside the barge, which is making its way down the Congo River at a speed of about 10 miles per hour. Read more http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2015/life-on-the-congo/
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UN Peacekeeping Set To Benefit From New Environmental Practices, According To New UNEP Report

New York, 1 May 2012 - The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has today released the findings of a two-year analysis of how peacekeeping missions around the world affect, and are affected by, natural resources and the broader environment. In addition to highlighting the utmost importance of reducing the environmental impact of UN Peacekeeping operations, the new report states that the implementation of good practice in this area also has additional benefits, including increased financial savings for missions, and improved safety and security for local communities as well as UN Peacekeeping staff. The 16 missions currently led by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and supported by the Department of Field Support (DFS) constitute the largest environmental footprint in the UN system. Entitled Greening the Blue Helmets: Environment, Natural Resources and UN Peacekeeping Operations, the report notes that through the adoption of a 2009 Environmental Po
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EarthSpark Lights Up Haiti for Women and Girls

February 7th, 2012 Within weeks of the earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12th, 2010, reports of violence against women in Port-au-Prince's internally displaced camps emerged. EarthSpark immediately focused its efforts to increase public safety in less secure areas by distributing solar lamps. We targeted this distribution to women, who are most vulnerable at night when they walk through the unlit camps to latrines or washing areas. Nearly two years later, EarthSpark and its partners have distributed over 8,000 solar lights to women and their families in camps throughout Port-au-Prince and other affected areas. We partnered with the Clinton Global Initiative, Partners in Health, the Ministry of Womens Affairs, and smaller organizations like KOFAVIV and KONPAY, to distribute lamps to women as individuals and in solidarity groups. Three main distributions of a few thousand lamps each were carried out in April 2010, September 2010 and most recently in December 2011. Tha
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