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From May 2015 to December 2017, RedR UK ran Context, an innovative professional development training programme, in the Middle East and East Africa. The programme was part of the Talent Development project, one of the many projects in the Disasters Emergencies Preparedness Programme . Context - an initiative of the Start Network, led globally by Oxfam GB with the support of UK Aid - is a comprehensive, dynamic staff development programme for humanitarian organisations. It aims to raise standards and quality in future humanitarian responses by building core skills as well as leadership and management capacity among humanitarian staff - especially national staff, who are increasingly at the forefront of humanitarian response. The project uses the Core Humanitarian Competencies Framework (CHCF) to develop staff skills across the wide range of competencies needed to work effectively in the humanitarian sector.

Start Network is to welcome Qatar Charity into its membership at a meeting being held today.

In January, the Start Fund was alerted to an outbreak of Lassa fever in Nigeria, 350 people were reported to have been infected. The Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA) has been awarded Start Funds to respond to the crisis on the ground and are targeting three areas which have been most affected; Ondo, Edo and Ebonyi.

A spike in armed violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between September and December led to 30,000 people fleeing their homes while at least 10,000 people fled the country into Uganda. The UN OCHA reports that there are already 4.3 million people internally displaced in the country.

In 2015 the Start Network launched a three-year Transforming Surge Capacity (TSC) project financed with UK aid from the UK government as part of the Department for International Development’s (DFID) Disasters and Emergencies Preparedness Programme (DEPP). The project has seen engagement by eleven UK-based aid agencies with a collective focus on finding ways to ensure effective civil society surge capacity in order to deliver more efficient, collaborative and localised emergency responses. 

Interview with Dr Mariam Aldogani, Save the Children's Hudaydah Field Manager and Start Network Program Manager in Yemen.

In December an outbreak of diphtheria was reported in Yemen, another blow for people living in a country already experiencing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Humanitarian Futures has launched its new website, www.humanitarianfutures.org, to help people meet humanitarian capacity challenges of the future.

I am finishing this year with a profound sense of urgency and purpose. Our turbulent world, with escalating dimensions and dynamics of humanitarian crises, needs more and better capability to manage and respond to crisis risks.

By David Wastell.