KUNO's Podcast

Presentation of the Scoping Study to an International Ombuds for Humanitarian and Development Aid, November 21, 2018 (The Hague).

This Ombuds could be a way of preventing (sexual) abuse by humanitarian professionals during humanitarian interventions or a way to assist victims of abuse in humanitarian settings.

The study was performed by prof. Dorothea Hilhorst, Asmita Naik and Andrew Cunningham,
The study was commissioned the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Speakers: Thea Hilhorst (ISS), Asmita Naik, Reintje van Haeringen (CARE Nederland), Marinus Verweij (ICCO-Kerk in Actie), Bart Romijn (Partos), Doris Voorbraak (Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
Presentation: Peter Heintze (KUNO).

Three years of conflict and lawlessness in Yemen brought the Yemeni hunger, diphtheria and cholera. Nearly three of four Yemenis rely on humanitarian aid to survive. The dire situation is deteriorating every day. In March 2018, the UN Security Council made a strong plea for humanitarian access: Humanitarian support and peace must take the place of destruction. 

 Four representatives of NGOs from Yemen, who visited a pledging conference in Geneva (April 2018), also visited Brussels and other European capitals to share their story with politicians and policy makers. During their tour, facilitated by Oxfam, they made time for a small expert meeting for KUNO, the platform for humanitarian knowledge exchange in the Netherlands. 

 Speakers: Nabil Al-Kumain, Yemen Family Care Association; Tameem Abdulraqeep, Wedyan Association for Society Development; Layla Al-faqeeh, Generations Without Qat; Safa Murad Rafiq, TOBE Foundation for Rights and Freedoms. 

 For more information about KUNO, the platform for humanitarian knowledge exchange in the Netherlands, please visit: https://www.kuno-platform.nl/ 

In February 2018, prof. Alex de Waal presented his new book “Mass Starvation” that provides an authoritative history of modern famines: their causes, dimensions and why they ended. He analyses starvation as a crime, and breaks new ground in examining forced starvation as an instrument of genocide and war. 

 Alex de Waal is a world-renowned expert on humanitarian crisis and response, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation and professor at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. For more information see: http://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/mass-starvation/ . 

 For more information about KUNO, the platform for humanitarian knowledge exchange in the Netherlands, please visit: https://www.kuno-platform.nl/ 

At the request of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), the UK-based platform for mobilising funding at times of major international humanitarian crises, Ed Schenkenberg of HERE-Geneva visited Bangladesh in January 2018. HERE reviewed the humanitarian response to the Rohingya refugees. The preliminary findings and emerging conclusions are reason for alarm. Few of the lessons that arose out of the 1994 response to the Rwandan refugees in Goma, then Zaire, seem to have been applied in this response from the start of the crisis in August 2017, while the situation is comparable to the one in Goma in terms of size, scale, and speed by which it has evolved. 

 On 20 February 2018, Ed Schenkenberg shared the main findings of the real-time review with organisations and other stakeholders (including DRA, MoFA, Red Cross, Unicef, MSF) in the Netherlands. Zia Choudhury, Country Director Bangladesh of CARE attended the meeting to share his reflections on the findings of HERE Geneva. 

 For more information about KUNO, the platform for humanitarian knowledge exchange in the Netherlands, please visit: https://www.kuno-platform.nl/