Even before the outbreak of COVID-19, older Venezuelan migrants, returnees and those in need of protection in La Guajira, Colombia were struggling to access basic necessities such as food, healthcare and WASH facilities. Since the pandemic hit, their living conditions have worsened as they can no longer live off informal trade or access social canteens due to lockdown restrictions.
Start Network is pleased to announce that 12 new local and national aid agencies, based in India, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have joined the network. The new members have joined as part of Start Network’s plans to build a more balanced network made up of more local and national actors.
More than 30 Start Network members have supported a letter to the UK Prime Minister, raising our concern over the decision to merge the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office because of its potentially devastating consequences for humanitarian aid.
Every June, humanitarian agencies gather together at the UN headquarters in New York to discuss and agree on how to best tackle the most recent and pressing humanitarian concerns—it’s called the ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) Humanitarian Affairs Segment (HAS). Start Network joined UN member states and organisations, IFRC and the Risk-informed Early Action Partnership (REAP) for a side event, which discussed an ‘Anticipatory Approach to Humanitarian Crisis and COVID-19’.
COVID-19 has caused massive disruption to large-scale national and international mobilisation. Reduced international travel and the lockdown of stations, ports, borders, transportation and supply lines has disrupted the operations of many INGOs, making it virtually impossible to deploy surge capacities. As a result, many local organisations have been forced to step up and carry out locally coordinated responses to this pandemic.
Gang Karume est natif de la République Démocratique du Congo (RDC) et a travaillé pendant plus de 12 ans, entre 1998 et 2009, comme Coordinateur des opérations dans l’équipe globale d’urgence d’International Rescue Committee (IRC). Ici, nous parlons avec Gang sur comment il s’est engagé avec Start network et sa vision de l’action humanitaire en RDC.
Gang Karume Augustin is a DRC national and worked for 12 years as the Global Emergency Coordinator for IRC from 1998-2010. Here we speak with Gang about how he got involved with the Start Network and where he sees the future of humanitarian action in DRC.
Concern Worldwide was one of the founding members of the Start Network when it was first conceived under the Consortium of British Humanitarian Agencies 10 years ago. Here Bob Ruxton, Director of Programme Support at Concern, shares with us some thoughts on being a member of the Start Network and highlights the importance of working collectively in challenging the system and the potential of the hubs as the source of future energy for the Start Network.
I, like many of you, have been reading about and watching videos on the riots, the police brutality, the incidents of racial injustice and racially motivated violence of the last several weeks linked to the murder of George Floyd by US police in Minneapolis. This makes me deeply sad and deeply angry.
The monthly risk briefing reports on new, emerging or deteriorating situations; therefore, ongoing events that are considered to be unchanged are not featured and risks that are beyond the scope and scale of the Start Fund are also not featured. It is collated by the Start Network Anticipation and Risk Financing team using information from academia and research institutes, government departments, ACAPS, global risk indexes, risk information provided by Start Members and their partners, and the media. Key risks are shared and collated each month with FOREWARN input.
