Overview: Emergencies
Disasters and conflict across the world disrupt the lives of more than 500 million people every year. These emergencies consistently and disproportionately impact poor people and communities. Limited access to information, lack of resources to prepare and respond, and inadequate government protection often leave the world’s poor at the greatest risk.
ActionAid’s rights-based approach insists that disaster preparedness, risk reduction and recovery efforts must serve poor individuals and people. While ActionAid is positioned to respond quickly and effectively to emergency situations, we are also committed to ensuring that our work proactively prepares communities to reduce their vulnerability and risk before disaster strikes.
Long after media attention moves elsewhere, ActionAid carries on with our efforts to help poor communities rebuild their lives and reduce their vulnerability to future disasters and conflicts.
In many countries where we work, ActionAid works in the midst and immediate aftermath of armed conflict. In Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo, ActionAid works to reintegrate child soldiers and to help them reclaim their lives. In Somalia, ActionAid’s work meeting basic human needs and building the components of civil society essential to peace continues through the conflict. In Afghanistan, our work getting street children in school is bringing stability to war-torn cities.
ActionAid’s Emergencies Alert, Review and Response Mechanism (EARARM) enhances our organizational preparedness by proactively analyzing the capacity, resource and partners needed to respond to likely disasters. A monthly internal assessment of possible disaster situations allows ActionAid to anticipate, organize and prepare rather than simply reacting to disasters.
When emergencies do happen, we respond efficiently and effectively in the short term through our Strategic Crisis Fund, which allows immediate disbursement of funds for rapid or slow-onset humanitarian response, such as providing medicines, food and shelter to people in need.
ActionAid has readied itself to respond swiftly to emergencies and disasters through our International Emergencies and Conflict Team (IECT) and our Emergency First Action Support Team (E-Fast).
ActionAid’s IECT supports our country programs to improve the quality and impact of disaster and emergency work. The team consists of six regionally-based advisors who enhance the capacity of country programs before crises and are deployed to address major disasters. The agile and adept team brings expertise, tested practices and methods from past emergency and conflict programs to bear on emerging crises.
E-Fast is a pool of experienced and skilled ActionAid staff from various country programs who can be quickly deployed to supplement the work of IECT staff.
Additionally, we have ActionAid employees in each country program who focus on emergencies and conflict response, and over 2,000 grassroots partners, ready to work alongside ActionAid when an emergency or disaster hits.
Our robust human security program addresses four key dimensions of emergencies work:
Reducing disaster risk through work in communities to reduce hazards and support efforts to adapt to the effects of climate change.
Reducing vulnerability of poor communities by working together to build their resilience to future disasters, and demanding that their governments offer protection and services in times of disaster.
Minimizing trauma by supporting the emotional recovery of survivors through post-emergency relief, rehabilitation and recovery programs.
Building peace by addressing the underlying causes of conflict.
