Aid Professionals

The Aid Pros Blog

A collection of news and comment of interest to people working in the world of humanitarian aid.   Subscribe

Cote D'Ivoire: The Importance Of Repeaters (And Reliable Friends)

Last month emergency telecoms specialist Ivan Klicko was in Man in the west of Cote d’Ivoire, working as part of WFP's FITTEST team to expand the coverage of radio networks across the country.  In situations like these, you need to be able to count on your fellow team members, writes Ivan in this blog.

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Building Bandwidth in Benghazi

Rob Buurveld, Senior Specialist for WFP’s Fast IT and Telecommunications Emergency and Support Team (FITTEST), travelled from Cairo, Egypt to Benghazi, Libya with one of the first missions into the country after the conflict began. His job was to help establish internet connectivity for the team that was assessing humanitarian needs in the area.

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Cash & Vouchers: When Food is Available but Economically Inaccessible

WFP is increasingly using Cash and Vouchers (C&V)  to feed hungry people, writes senior programme officer Guillaume Foliot. C&V allow the hungry to meet their food needs in the local the local food markets. They are a supplementing WFP’s traditional capacity of direct food distributions to the hungry.

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WFP At The Global Platform For Disaster Risk Reduction

In Geneva for the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, WFP’s Carlo Scaramella talks about the link between natural disasters and the fight against hunger. According to Scaramella, around half of all the work WFP does is in response to natural disasters and the effects of climate change.

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I’m a ‘sling-shot’ radio trainer in Guinea…

Mick Eccles, Radio Trainer for WFP’s Fast IT and Telecommunications Emergency and Support Team (FITTEST), was recently in Guinea delivering essential training to staff from UN agencies and NGOs. He sent us this dispatch, describing what it's like when you're on deep-field operations and have only office chairs to sleep on.

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Emergency Preparedness: Landmark Publication Charts Inter-Agency Successes

Some of the best examples of UN agencies and their partners working together to be better prepared for emergencies have been collected in a new publication set to be launched in Geneva next week. Stories range from Samoa and Bhutan to D.P.R. Korea and Kyrghyzstan.

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Construction Of Asian UNHRD Begins In Malaysia

The United Nations World Food Programme has ‘closed the circle’ on its network of United Nations Humanitarian Response Depots (UNHRDs), with the launch of construction at the Asia centre in Subang, Malaysia.

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DFID Assesses Effectiveness Of Aid Efforts

The UK’s decision to protect its aid budget, recommitting to spend 0.7 percent of GNI on overseas aid from 2013, represents an important political pledge to development. Nonetheless, these funds will have to be spent wisely and well.

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Josette Sheeran interviewed on crisis on Libya's borders

WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran gave the following interview to the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano after her March 2 visit to the Libya-Tunisian border, where she personally assessed the scale of the humanitarian crisis unfolding.

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Shrinking Food Stocks, Surging Prices In 2011 FAO Warns

World food prices surged for the eighth straight month in February amid growing demand and a drop in cereal production, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization reported, with its latest February Food Price Index the highest on record since monitoring began in 1990.

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