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The new Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC), Martin Griffiths, has officially started his role as the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, the most senior humanitarian role at the United Nations. He will be leading the policies and strategic decisions of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) which will have an impact across the humanitarian sector and the way the sector responds to crises.

As part of our move toward becoming a locally led network of networks, we've incubated and supported five Start Network hubs. Bhavya Srinivasan, Interim Head of Network Development, shares what she's learned in the two years she's worked to support them.

The quarterly FOREWARN meeting in May 2021 focussed on epidemics in a deliberate effort to share recently-acquired learning on anticipating disease outbreaks and to apply them beyond the current pandemic. When considering which disease outbreak or epidemic the Start Fund could represent, cholera was the obvious choice for a few reasons.

Start Network is pleased to welcome Sanjayan Srikanthan, CEO of Shelterbox, as the new chair of the board of trustees. Sanj previously worked for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) during which time he served as Senior Vice President IRC Europe and Executive Director of IRC UK. As part of his role at IRC, Sanj served as an assembly representative and as the chair of the Start Fund Committee.

In 2020, Start Network undertook a number of consultations with communities that were supported by its funding. This included a large household survey in Senegal evaluating the quality and impact of assistance in anticipation of drought through ARC Replica, as well as the perceptions of people assited in Pakistan, India and DRC as part of our due diligence pilot. Central to the planning of these evaluations was an intention to be as inclusive as possible by amplifying marginalised voices, and to ensure that the people interviewed were able to express themselves in their local language by hiring local consultants to conduct interviews.

In 2020, Start Fund Bangladesh (SFB) conducted an Organisational System Strengthening Initiative (OSSI) facilitated by an external consultant. This initiative took a participatory approach in assisting six of SFB’s local members to identify gaps in the operating functions of their respective organisations. Bolipara Nari Kalyan Somity (BNKS) was one of these organisations. It is a women-led organisation that has been operating in Chittagong Hill Tracks of southeastern Bangladesh since 1991.  

Yesterday's announcement at the G7 summit included a package of support from the UK, Germany and the USA to scale up pre-arranged finance to protect the world’s most vulnerable communities against the impacts of climate change. This is a necessary step if governments are committed to saving more lives.  However, the announcement could have gone further and we are now waiting for concrete targets and a timetable around this support.

A la date du 6 décembre 2020, le Togo comptait 3 095 cas confirmés de COVID-19, dont 65 décès. Dans un premier temps, le gouvernement a pris des mesures pour réduire la transmission du virus, notamment en fermant les écoles. Le 15 juin, les écoles ont été rouvertes uniquement pour les classes d’examens pour permettre aux élèves de passer les examens de fin d'année.

As of 6 December 2020, Togo had 3,095 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 65 deaths. Initially, the government took steps to reduce transmission of the virus, including by closing schools. However, on 15 June, schools were reopened to allow students to take end-of-year exams.

After a long year tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, the province of Albay in the Philippines was faced with several more unexpected challenges toward the end of 2020. Four consecutive typhoons left many communities damaged, and mudflow from the Mayon Volcano threatened surrounding municipalities causing five casualties. As a result, there is now a clear demand for a multi-hazard approach when planning for hazards in the province.