Magnitude 7.3 - OFFSHORE HONDURAS

Obrigada João pela informação.

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake rocked Honduras on Thursday, killing at least four, and causing homes to fall in neighboring Guatemala. Read more on the Honduras earthquake 2009 below.

Local officials fear the death toll will be rising as reports come in from the moutainous areas near the coast.

The quake ruined buildings across the north of Honduras, a poor country of about 7 million people.

Four children between the ages of 3 and 15 died when their homes collapsed after the earthquake struck at 2:24 a.m. local time offshore near the Honduran Caribbean resort island of Roatan.

“They were all asleep. Most of them died crushed,” said Randolfo Funes, a top official at Honduras’ civil protection agency. “There will be many more dead.”

Security guard Pedro Ramirez, 52, was in his truck outside an office building in Tegucigalpa when the tremor hit.

“I felt the car rock and I started to hear little bits of debris from the building next door hitting the roof,” he said. “It was frightening because it was shaking a lot. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

The earthquake hit 39 miles northeast of Roatan, the biggest of the country’s three Bay Islands where many tourists go to snorkel to see dolphins and a big coral reef. It had a shallow depth of 6.2 miles.

On Roatan,officials said the quake had knocked out power and caused minor damage to buildings.

A tsunami watch was issued for Honduras, Guatemala and Belize, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said, but it was lifted about an hour later.

Vídeo das imagens, Reuters.

Reuters

* Quake of 7.1 magnitude strikes just off coast

* Sixty houses destroyed

* Death toll might rise (Adds 25 injured, 60 houses destroyed)

By Gustavo Palencia

TEGUCIGALPA, May 28 (Reuters) - A powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook Honduras on Thursday, killing at least five people, knocking down flimsy homes and causing damage in neighboring Guatemala.

The offshore quake destroyed some 60 houses and damaged scores of other buildings across the north of Honduras, a poor country of 7 million people, and briefly triggered a tsunami alert for Central America's Caribbean coast.

A quake of that size can cause serious damage over a wide area.

Four children, aged 3 to 15, died when their houses collapsed after the quake struck in the early hours of the morning near the resort island of Roatan.

"They were all asleep. Most of them died crushed," said Randolfo Funes, an official at Honduras' civil protection agency who said a fifth person died.

At least 25 people were injured and officials said the death toll could rise as reports came in from poor villages and towns in the mountainous area around Honduras' Caribbean coast.

Security guard Pedro Ramirez, 52, was in his truck outside an office building in the capital of Tegucigalpa.

"I felt the car rock and I started to hear little bits of debris from the building next door hitting the roof," he said. "It was frightening because it was shaking a lot. I've never felt anything like it."

The earthquake hit 39 miles (64 km) northeast of Roatan, the biggest of the country's three picturesque Bay Islands, where snorkelers and divers come to see dolphins and a big coral reef. It had a relatively shallow depth of 6.2 miles (10 km). Earthquakes that close to the earth's surface are often more powerful than deeper tremors.

On Roatan, rescue officials said the quake had knocked out power and caused minor damage to buildings.

Houses also collapsed in Puerto Cortes and Santa Barbara, where the ceiling of an old colonial church caved in, while fires broke out in the northern business city of San Pedro Sula.

The tremor sent people running into the street and the power was cut in some areas.

SRI LANKA: UN Human Rights Council to discuss plight of IDPs

Photo: Zelmira Sinclair/UNHCR

Thousands of Tamil civilians are now staying in government camps after fleeing the fighting in the north

BANGKOK, 25 May 2009 (IRIN) - Human rights groups have welcomed a decision by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) to address the condition of more than a quarter of a million conflict-displaced in Sri Lanka in a special session.

"This is an important opportunity to examine issues of accountability on both sides to the conflict and to ensure protection of displaced persons and their rights in the post-conflict transition," Julie de Rivero, Geneva advocacy director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IRIN, one day before the session was due in Geneva.

On 25 May, the watchdog group said government restrictions on humanitarian access to government camps and to the wounded in the conflict area had worsened the already serious conditions.

"For the sake of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in Sri Lanka, the Council should ensure that the Sri Lankan government takes immediate and concrete steps to address this crisis, beginning with providing immediate, unhindered access to international aid workers and monitors," Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director, added.

More on Sri Lanka conflict

UN calls for faster screening process, greater access

Tens of thousands of children among IDPs

Conflict timeline

Thousands in mortal danger inside combat zone, says UN

Risks to civilians still "extremely high" - top UN official

According to Amnesty: "The displaced civilians are suffering from widespread and serious human rights violations at the hands of government security forces and allied paramilitary forces, including enforced disappearance; extra-judicial executions; torture and other ill-treatment, and forced recruitment to paramilitary groups."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed after his weekend visit that the first priority was to help the government meet urgent humanitarian needs. "To do so effectively, I have told the President and Foreign Minister that the UN and other international humanitarian agencies need immediate and unimpeded access to the camps."

In addition, Ban said he urged the government to return people to their homes as soon as possible, and in this regard welcomed its announced plan to return 80 percent of displaced people by the end of the year.

The government was also urged to expedite screening and registration processes, and make it easier for families to reunite and to allow people more freedom of movement in and out of the camps.

More than 270,000 Tamil civilians have fled the fighting between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and are now staying in more than 40 government camps across the island's north, the UN reports.

Amnesty describes the camps as "de facto internment camps", adding that "civilians who survived weeks under heavy combat reached the camps sometimes badly injured, malnourished, exhausted and traumatised".

But according to the government - which declared victory over the LTTE on 18 May - the camps are needed to separate non-combatant civilians from former LTTE soldiers, who have fought for an independent Tamil homeland for more than two decades.

President Mahinda Rajapakse's statement warned warned of "the likely presence of Tamil Tiger infiltrators among the large numbers who had come to the government areas".

The government describes the camps as "welfare villages" and says it wants to resettle all displaced civilians as soon as possible. It responded to Ban's appeal by saying that "as conditions improved, especially with regard to security, there would be no objections to such assistance".

Special session

Photo: Contributor/IRIN

"This is no question of war crimes, it is not an option that will arise."

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama

This week's special session follows a request by Germany on behalf 17 members of the HRC, including Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Mauritius, the Netherlands, South Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, the UK and Uruguay.

At least 16 members, or one-third of the council's membership, are required to convey such a session.

"It is hoped that the holding of this special session will contribute towards the cause of peace," Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi, the HRC's president, said.

"The Human Rights Council cannot be silent when innocent civilians are caught up in armed conflicts. The international community must strive to deliver justice to victims of human rights violations whenever they occur and ensure that those found guilty of such crimes are held accountable for their actions," he added.

This will be the 11th special session of the council; others related to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Darfur, Myanmar, Democratic Republic of Congo, the global food and economic crises.

Meanwhile, HRW continues to receive many credible reports of violations of the laws of war by both the LTTE and Sri Lankan government forces, including the LTTE's use of civilians as human shields, and child soldiers, and the Sri Lankan government's indiscriminate shelling of densely populated areas, including hospitals.

"These allegations demand an impartial investigation," the group stated.

However, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said at a weekend press conference marking the visit by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: "This is no question of war crimes, it is not an option that will arise. The Sri Lankan forces have followed a policy of zero civilian casualties and been mindful of that."

SOMALIA: Aid work in Mogadishu grinding to a halt

Photo: Hassan Mahamud Ahmed/IRIN

A displaced family: Aid work in Mogadishu has virtually ground to a halt because of increasing violence, according to civil society officials

NAIROBI, 25 May 2009 (IRIN) - Local NGOs in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, have set up a task force in a bid to mobilise urgent help for thousands of displaced civilians.

"The situation is so bad that if nothing is done many will die," Asha Sha'ur, a civil society activist, told IRIN on 25 May. "We are appealing to the international aid agencies to help these desperate people before it is too late."

Aid work in Mogadishu has virtually ground to a halt because of increasing violence. An estimated 57,000-60,000 people have fled their homes since the latest fighting flared on 8 May, according to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.

According to Ali Sheikh Yassin, deputy chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Organisation (EHRO), 207 people have been killed since the latest clashes began on 8 May. He said that on 22 May alone some 59 people were killed in the city but the figure reflected only the deaths the group could verify. "Many people have been buried where they died."

Yassin said the death toll included seven policemen killed by a suicide bomber on 24 May.

The violence has forced Médecins Sans Frontières to close its outpatient clinic in Yaaqshid district. The health facility would re-open once there was minimum security, it said.

Photo: Hassan Mahamud Ahmed/IRIN

A family flees Mogadishu following fighting between government troops and insurgents

"Even local NGOs are afraid to respond because of the uncertain security situation," a local humanitarian worker said.

Last week, the UN Children's Agency (UNICEF) reported the looting of its compound in Jowhar, 90km south of Mogadishu, when Al-Shabab militia captured the town.

More than 50,000 severely malnourished children and at least 85,000 moderately malnourished children in south-central Somalia have been affected by the interruption in nutritional and medical supplies.

The 17 May looting resulted in the destruction of humanitarian supplies, assets and equipment. "The cold chain [vaccine storage] equipment was affected, destroying thousands of doses of measles, polio and other vaccines meant for Somali children," UNICEF said.

Sha'ur and other civil society leaders urged the international community and Somalis in the diaspora to help the thousands of desperate people displaced by the violence that has pitted government forces against insurgents.

"The reason we set up this task force is to make sure that we accompany [aid agencies] wherever they want to go," Sha'ur said. "We were at some of these camps [on the outskirts of the city] and found the conditions heart-wrenching."

The newly displaced were living in dire conditions. "Many of them have no shelter and so are sharing small spaces with others and have very little food, if any," Sha'ur said. "They need help in all areas but shelter is most urgent."

Nasteho Osman, a 29-year-old single mother of four, returned last week to the camps for the displaced which she left only a month ago.

"I was in Bakara market when the fighting began [on 8 May]; I had to rush back to my house to make sure my children were safe," Osman said. "I got out six days ago with only what we could carry."

The situation deteriorates whenever it rains. "We only have one small shack that we use for shelter and when it rains, no one can sleep," Osman added.

NIGERIA: Thousands flee violence, hundreds suspected dead

Photo: Wikimedia

Niger Delta states

ABUJA, 22 May 2009 (IRIN) - Thousands of civilians have fled their villages in Nigeria's Delta state after government troops launched an offensive against militant groups in the state on 13 May.

Villagers in Delta state's Gbramatu kingdom reported Oporoza and Okerenkoko villages being attacked with heavy machine-gun fire from low-flying helicopters on 15 May. Eyewitness accounts reported at least 100 bodies, according to Amnesty International's Nigeria campaigner Lucy Freeman.

The Nigerian Red Cross estimates that 1,000 displaced people have fled to Ogbe Ijoh - capital of Warri south government area - where they are sheltering in a primary school and hospital.

Witnesses report that about 3,000 people have fled and Amnesty International estimates that as many as 10,000 could be on the move.

Patricia Okolo from Okerenkoko told IRIN from Ogbe Ijoh: "I had to run from my home. I did not take a single item with me. I have 10 children but I don't know where any of them are. I could not count the number of people who were killed or injured but there were many. I could not even count."

"I don't know where my husband is. I am the only one who got here."

Most of the displaced are women and children as most men are too frightened of being attacked or killed, said Nigerian Red Cross officer Egbero Ococity from Ogbe Ijoh. Many men are hiding in the forest with no access to clean water, food or shelter, he said.

Joint Task Force troops, made up of the army, navy, air force and mobile police, launched an offensive on communities across Warri south and southwest government areas on 13 May after JTF troops were reported to have been attacked by armed groups in Delta state, according to Amnesty International.

In response, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), an umbrella group representing a number of militant factions, declared an "all-out war" in a 15 May press statement. The militant groups claim they are fighting for more local control of oil wealth in the impoverished region.

...I could not count the number of people who were killed or injured but there were many. I could not even count...

"Traumatised"

"Civilians are bearing the brunt of this violence. We are very concerned about bystanders who have been killed, injured or displaced," said Amnesty's Freeman.

Community members from targeted villages say military forces were searching for militants.

Some villagers told Amnesty International they were attacked while fleeing on boats - the only way to get away from the site of the violence. The delta is made up of a dense network of freshwater creeks, much of it accessible only by boat.

The Nigerian Red Cross's disaster management coordinator, Attah Benson, told IRIN it was still too dangerous for NGOs to approach the affected area. "We are able to access only those who are on their way out."

The Red Cross is working with the International Committee of the Red Cross, National Emergency Management Agency and other agencies to get food, water, blankets, utensils and hygiene kits to people in need, said Benson.

"They [the displaced] need food, water, shelter and blankets to relieve their suffering," the Red Cross's Ococity told IRIN. "They are sleeping on the bare floor. They are traumatised as a result of the attacks and what they went through in the mangroves while escaping.

"You can see the frustration in their faces. Hunger is taking its toll because most of them did not have anything to eat for four days."

A local official said government troops have not attacked communities but have gone after what he called criminals. Col Rabe Abubakar, military spokesman in the Niger Delta, told IRIN: "Anybody who says we attacked a community let him come and show us which community we attacked. We are raiding, based on our information, the militants' hideouts and arms dumps."

He added: "The essence is to secure the region. We are not targeting any group or any community or individual. We are targeting criminals who carried out these heinous, uncivilised and barbaric attacks."

The offensive suggests a "worrying change in direction" in the government's approach, Freeman told IRIN. In recent months a government committee recommended amnesty for some politically-motivated militants.

In February 2009 the government of President Umaru Yar'Adua assured the UN Human Rights Council it would refrain from military offensives in the Delta region because of the risk of loss of innocent lives.

DRC: Attacks against civilians and aid workers increase in the east

Photo: Eddy Isango/IRIN

National army soldiers are among those attacking civilians in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (file photo)

KINSHASA, 22 May 2009 (IRIN) - Humanitarian organisations are increasingly coming under attack in North and South Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with the civilian population also being affected by attacks and counter-attacks between Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda (FDLR) militia and the Congolese army, aid officials said.

"Humanitarian organisation vehicles have been intercepted to transport FARDC [Congolese army] soldiers or passengers' belongings looted," Ndiaga Seck, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said.

". The perpetrators of the attacks are either the FDLR or FARDC," said Seck, adding that some NGOs had been threatened. "This has led, for example, to some partners suspending their activities in Fizi and in other territories."

According to a UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) situation report for 6-20 May, DRC army and non-state combatants continue to commit human rights violations, particularly in areas of FARDC deployment, in preparation for Operation Kimia II, and in zones held by the FDLR.

". These include targeted attacks committed by armed forces against civilians and humanitarian workers; this environment has reduced [UNICEF] ... and its humanitarian partners' [access] to assist the people in need," stated the report.

While returns have been registered in North Kivu, new, massive population displacement has occurred after renewed fighting, said UNICEF.

Grim statisitics from South Kivu
	120,000 people have been displaced since March 2009
	450,000 have been displaced in total in the province
	400,000 more people could be displaced because of the new operation (Oxfam)
	1,300,000 is the total number of displaced people in DRC
	65 cases of rape were recorded in South Kivu's Shabunda territory between 1 April and 7 May
	39 of these have been attributed to DRC soldiers newly deployed in the area
	103 cases of rape were recorded in Minova health zone between 1 April and 7 May
	150 civilians, at least, have been killed this month by FDLR
	77 were killed on 10 May in the village of Busurungi in Kalehe territory
	702 homes were torched during the attack
	224 cases of cholera were recorded in Ziralo in Bunyakiri health zone
	32 of these died, with the high mortality rate attributed to the sick not reaching medical centres
Source: OCHA

"The increasing insecurity is an obstacle to the implementation of humanitarian activities," it said. "From January to April 2009, 44 attacks against humanitarian workers have been registered; this means on average there is one attack every three days."

The attacks represent a 22 percent increase on the same period in 2008, stated the report.

More sexual violence cases are being reported in the Kalehe and Shabunda territories of South Kivu since the deployment of army soldiers there, according to a 20 May update by OCHA. The soldiers have been deployed in preparation for a joint anti-FLDR operation with the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC).

The soldiers are engaging in looting and rape during their foot patrols and are contributing to a new wave of population displacement, according to the update (see box). It said the village of Karega has twice been looted in separate incidents by the FDLR and FARDC.

Seck said two women and four men had been taken into the forest and that residents in some villages had been threatened and were being held hostage by the FDLR.

According to MONUC spokesman Lt-Col Jean-Paul Dietrich, the clashes are due to FDLR counter-attacks in inhabited areas or in FARDC-occupied zones.

Dietrich said the reprisals were also targeting civilians who have had dealings with the armed groups, adding that FARDC had managed to push the FDLR back.

SOMALIA: Exodus continues despite lull in Mogadishu fighting

Photo: Hassan Mahamud Ahmed/IRIN

An IDP camp on the outskirts of Mogadishu (file photo)

NAIROBI, 21 May 2009 (IRIN) - Hundreds of families are still fleeing the Somali capital, Mogadishu, despite relative calm in the past week following intense fighting between insurgents and government troops.

They are joining hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in camps on the outskirts of the city and in safer neighbourhoods inside Mogadishu.

"Even today [21 May], many families are leaving because they believe the current break in the fighting is just temporary," Ali Sheikh Yassin, the deputy chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Organisation (EHRO), told IRIN. "I think many people have lost hope that this city will ever return to normal.

"Many markets and businesses have shut down because of the security situation." He said Suuq Ba'ad in the north, the second-largest open-air market in Mogadishu, was closed.

"There is not a single store or shop open there," Yassin said. "This market did not close at the height of the conflict in 2007-2008."

People's livelihoods have been destroyed, "so anyone who can leave is doing so", he added.

The impact of the current displacement is also being felt in neighbourhoods that had escaped much of the recent violence in the city, such as Madina in the southwest, and Huriwa in the north.

"Almost every family in these neighbourhoods is hosting one or more families," Yassin said.

Photo: ReliefWeb

Relying on relatives

Mogadishu resident Abdiwali Nur returned to the city with his family from an IDP camp in April, hoping the situation would improve. However, he is staying with a relative in Madina, with his wife and three children.

"We could not afford to go the IDP camps again so my relative has given us a small place in his house," Nur said. "All the neighbours are hosting people."

Another returnee, Halima Warsame, mother of five, fled her home in Towfiq, north Mogadishu, last week to Arbiska area near Afgoye, 30km south of Mogadishu, where she was previously an IDP.

"I left a month ago thinking this was the end of our ordeal but I was wrong," Warsame said. "I thought with the Ethiopian troops gone and the new government [in place] everything would be alright, only it got worse.

"I don't see any hope that our situation will ever improve."

Warsame's husband and son were killed in 2007 after a shell landed on their shop. She told IRIN their situation in the camp was desperate: "We have no shelter from the constant rain."

Sporadic shelling has been continuing between government forces and insurgents since major clashes ended on 17 May.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the number of people displaced since 8 May has reached 45,000.

In a briefing note on 20 May, the agency said the deteriorating security situation was hampering aid delivery.

"Even local agencies that have often provided a lifeline to the IDPs are encountering new risks as they try to help out the needy," UNHCR said.

It said the most urgent needs were shelter and non-food items, "which humanitarian agencies led by UNHCR plan to provide first to over 100,000 people in the Afgoye corridor and neighbourhoods in northwest Mogadishu, and afterwards to others in other affected areas of the city as soon as the security permits".

GLOBAL: Auditing aid providers - how well do they fare?

Photo: Shabbir Hussain Imam/IRIN

Aid agencies are more accountable but still too "top down" says the latest Humanitarian Accountability Report (file photo)

DAKAR, 21 May 2009 (IRIN) - Aid agencies are far more accountable to disaster affected people than they were a decade ago, says the latest Humanitarian Accountability Report, but problems remain in transparency about interventions, communication with aid recipients, monitoring and reporting on sexual abuse and eliminating corruption.

"More and more agencies are getting better at accountability to beneficiaries through establishing complaints procedures and designating staff to be accessible to aid recipients, but such accountability cannot yet be described as the norm," Tearfund disaster management director David Bainbridge told IRIN.

Progress

Aid practitioners say there has been a change in mindset. "Recognition of the importance of accountability is the biggest system-wide shift," said Meri Ghorkhmazyan, Emergencies Monitoring and Evaluation Adviser at Save the Children. "And the understanding that it goes beyond one person or department to take a commitment at all levels, including leaders, to champion it."

Numerous aid agencies have developed tools to improve their accountability to beneficiaries, say agency staff. More and more agencies have set up complaints-handling systems, and are putting accountability at the heart of project evaluations, which they increasingly make publicly available.

...accountability cannot yet be described as the norm...

Particularly pertinent, said Ghorkhmazyan, are country or emergency-led accountability drives, such as the Myanmar Accountability and Learning Working Group (ALWG), or schemes in Pakistan, India and the Philippines to certify accountable NGOs.

"The overall impression gained is of a widening and deepening of accountability within the humanitarian system during 2008," John Borton, author of the annual report, produced by the Humanitarian Accountability Project (HAP-I).

For Nick Stockton, HAP-I director, the clearest measure of commitment to better programming is an agency's joining the "HAP-I certification scheme", by which an agency agrees to be audited by HAP-I and meet accountability standards, such as strong beneficiary participation.

In 2008 nine agencies became HAP-I members, bringing the total to 28; two became certified making five in all; and a further 14 enrolled in the certification scheme.

Photo: M. Baiwong/UNHCR

Refugees from the Central African Republic in southeastern Chad (file photo)

"Agencies that are working towards certification are genuinely ensuring that their quality systems are robust and are thereby assuring [targeted beneficiaries] that their concerns and complaints.will influence the way [the agency's] operations are run," said Stockton.

Donors are also championing the scheme. UK Under-Secretary for International Development Gareth Thomas has suggested that the HAP-I certification could become a condition for DFID aid in future.

But this is risky, according to Stockton. "This would be coercive.accountability will work only if organisations make a commitment to high-level programming, and to the dignity of their stakeholders because they believe it is the proper thing to do."

Click here to find out about additional accountability drives

Still top-down

While many agencies are attempting to be more transparent about their operations, information often flows more freely upwards to donors, than downwards to beneficiaries, noted the report.

Accountability and high-quality programming still does not necessarily determine an agency's financial success, said Stockton. "Instead, high quality professional marketing capacities play a huge part in the fortunes of major humanitarian agencies."

"And If they are from an OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development] country, the prospects of income success are far more likely than if they are from a non-OECD country."

"The Listening Project", an extensive consultation, with aid beneficiaries in 13 countries revealed confusion over who is responsible for what in aid delivery, particularly with international non-profits increasingly sub-contracting to local organisations.

"People in recipient communities find this confusing and distancing - they often do not know who is really behind the assistance.and do not therefore know who to hold accountable or how to do so," the consultation said.

...The overall impression is of a widening and deepening of accountability within the humanitarian system ...

Despite aid agencies stressing participatory language in their project documents and communication materials, many stakeholders said they were still not consulted on programme design and feedback opportunities were limited.

Monitoring abuse

Separate reports by HAP-I and Save the Children revealed that much of the sexual exploitation and abuse of beneficiaries - by aid workers, security forces, community members and others - goes unreported because of lack of information about where to report and fear of aid being cut.

Though progress on joint monitoring has been slow, HAP-I member agencies are now discussing how to set up shared monitoring and reporting mechanisms on sexual exploitation and abuse, Ghorkhmazyan said.

On the whole, communities are speaking out more, said Tearfund's Bainbridge. "Good participation is the backbone of relief..Communities are requesting more information from aid agencies, and are learning to manage the international community better and keep them accountable for the commitments they make." In all field sites Tearfund now sets up signboards in the local language stating who they are, what they are doing and how to give feedback.

Save the Children increasingly charts beneficiary feedback, but acting on it can take time and it costs - factors that donors must take into account, Ghorkhmazyan said. "We need to create more flexible communication systems [among] agencies, beneficiaries and donors to aid this process."

Champions needed

HAP-I's message is spreading, partly evidenced by the number of accountability initiatives. Competition around accountability is a good thing, said Stockton. "I have no doubts about healthy competition. That's the way the market, when it's working with a degree of regulation around it, will be good for beneficiaries."

The UN Refugee agency, UNHCR, has just undergone its first HAP-I accountability audit; and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) set up its own accountability drive in 2007.

Three donors - Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom - are now associate members of HAP-I.

Increasingly accountability-evaluators are teaming up: Sphere, which outlines minimum standards in humanitarian programming, and People in Aid, which pushes accountability in human resources, are discussing ways to collaborate with HAP-I to create one-stop-shop accountability tools.

Ghorkhmazyan said that in future agencies need to set up more concrete accountability measures. "Staff need to know they will be rated against criteria such as transparency or beneficiary feedback, and that the system will be triggered at an early stage if misbehavior occurs," she told IRIN.

But ultimately accountability will improve only if leaders across all organisations champion it, Bainbridge said. "We need a fundamental culture change from one where we have the resources and "do help to" [impose help on] people to one where we exist to serve and support those affected by disasters on their terms.this [change] needs to come from the top of an organisation and be shared by all serving individuals."

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PsycCRITIQUES. Vol 54(20), 2009, No Pagination Specified.

Reviews the book, Obesity: Causes, mechanisms, prevention, and treatment edited by Elliott M. Blass (see record 2008-06750-000). For those individuals who seek a more complex exploration of some the major factors that contribute to obesity than what our mainstream culture provides, this book is an excellent start.

This book provides a comprehensive review of the literature on the biological, psychological, and social research relevant to obesity. The book explains why there is a global trend toward weight gain and why this trend is difficult to reverse. In particular, the book provides a thorough review of the biological and physiological factors that contribute to and maintain weight gain. Social factors such as the media, the food stamp program, and built environments are also addressed, as are psychological factors such as conditioning, reinforcement, modeling, psychometric challenges, and addiction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)

Wealthy plunderers of the planet.

Pilisuk, Marc; Pellegrini, Gianina

PsycCRITIQUES. Vol 54(20), 2009, No Pagination Specified.

Reviews the book, How the rich are destroying the Earth by Hervé Kempf and Leslie Thatcher (see record 2008-13229-000). In this book, Kempf uses stories to illustrate the impact of the global environmental crisis. He argues that people in wealthy countries lack interest in their more desperate communities. He also links poverty to environmental destitution and shows how the poor are suffering the most from environmental pollution.

The essence of Kempf's case is given in his comments about affluent exploiters. He identifies the top officials and board members of international corporations that reap the benefits of environmental degradation. Kempf extends the blame beyond the wasteful spending of the superrich to their middleclass followers in North America, Europe, and Japan; these individuals consume 80 percent of the global wealth but constitute only 20 percent of the global population. While Kempf focuses a needed light upon a powerful elite, his spirited account does not answer important questions about why a change to a kinder and more sustainable world is so difficult. The book leaves us with questions about how this group of wealthy and powerful people operates to prevent social change and how powerful values are tapped to justify its privileged status. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)

Reducing global poverty: Moving beyond traditional approaches.

Flores, Roseanne L.

PsycCRITIQUES. Vol 54(20), 2009, No Pagination Specified.

Reviews the book, Out of poverty: What works when traditional approaches fail by Paul Polak (see record 2008-01574-000). In this book, the author reviews the traditional methods that have been tried and have failed. He proposes that new approaches, when correctly implemented, can empower people and thus break the cycle of poverty for generations to come. This book is a must read for psychologists, sociologists, economists, government officials, and all those interested in helping to eliminate global poverty.

Polak has demonstrated that by using our imagination, thinking outside the box, making structural changes, and simultaneously respecting and including poor people in the conversation, we have the potential to empower people by helping them realize their potential and providing them with the tools necessary to take care of themselves and their families. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)

GLOBAL: How much money for climate change adaptation?

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

More greenbacks needed to adapt

JOHANNESBURG, 19 May 2009 (IRIN) - With barely six months left before countries have to clinch a climate change deal in Copenhagen in December, a call for more money - over and above development aid - to help poor countries adapt to climate change has been backed by a major report.

The report - Closing the Gaps: Disaster Risk Reduction and Adaptation to Climate Change in Developing Countries - is the work of the international Commission on Climate Change and Development (CCCD), set up in 2008 by the Swedish government and chaired by Gunilla Carlsson, Sweden's Minister for international development cooperation.

The first in its two-step approach urged rich countries to speedily mobilise US$1 billion to $2 billion to help nations most vulnerable to the impact of global warming: low-income small island states and, particularly, African countries.

"This stepwise approach aims to narrow the trust gap between industrial and developing countries," said the report. "The second step is an effective mechanism for funding adaptation that would be created through climate negotiations."

Adaptation is much more than climate-proofing development efforts and ODA

The Official Development Assistance (ODA) provided by rich countries and other public funds "are unlikely to provide the full resources required to finance adaptation efforts of all developing countries in the long term", the CCCD commented. The global economic recession is also likely to shrink available funding.

Money for climate adaptation, and the diversion of ODA into it, has been a major issue in the talks on a new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol - the international agreement to curb harmful greenhouse gas emissions - when it lapses in 2012.

Under the "polluter pays" principle, industrialised countries are obliged to help developing ones adapt to climate change, but developing countries and environmental lobby groups have been wary of much needed ODA being repackaged to pay for adaptation.

Antonio Hill, senior policy advisor at Oxfam, the UK-based development agency, said the report's findings were significant because Sweden would assume presidency of the European Union (EU) in July 2009, and "we can assume that this will provide an important reference point, as Sweden leads the charge towards an EU finance package ... [to present at] Copenhagen [in December]."

Johan Schaar, director of the CCCD, said Sweden was in the process of building a position based on the report; a joint paper by the European Commission and the Presidency of the EU was also being drafted and would be ready in early July.

The CCCD consists of 13 prominent individuals, including Kenyan Nobel prize winner Wangari Maathai, Indian environmentalist Sunita Narain, deputy head of the UN Environment Programme Angela Cropper, deputy head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Margareta Wahlström, and Jacques Aigrain, head of Swiss Re, one of the world's largest reinsurance companies.

"Adaptation is much more than climate-proofing development efforts and ODA," said the report. "It requires sustainable development: meeting the needs of the present in ways that do not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their need."

It's about the money

The report noted that ODA totalled $104 billion in 2007, and the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated that more than 60 percent of ODA could be considered as relating to adaptation.

"Obviously, increasing ODA would both provide funds for climate-proofing development assistance and increase funding for adaptation. The appropriate role of ODA in supporting climate adaptation needs to be articulated."

However, Oxfam's Hill said adaptation cost estimates should take account of the most recent scientific assessments, which showed that previous estimates were dramatically low.

He cited a recent article by Martin Parry, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), an international scientific body, and two co-authors, in Nature magazine: "The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has estimated that between $50 billion and $170 billion per year (in current values) will be needed by the year 2030."

The authors noted that "This is only a twentieth of current spending on development of new infrastructure globally, and a tenth of the expected cost of emissions reductions."

SUDAN: Peace in Darfur - one step forward, two steps back

Photo: Derk Segaar/IRIN

What flared up in 2003 as a conflict between the government and two main rebel groups - the JEM and SLM/A - over marginalisation and distribution of wealth and power, has resulted in fighting between splintered rebel groups - file photo

NAIROBI, 18 May 2009 (IRIN) - Rebels in Sudan's Darfur region are showing signs of unity, but it has not brought their region any closer to a comprehensive peace, analysts said, as the government wrapped up another round of unsuccessful discussions with the most active rebel group.

Since the indictment on 4 March http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83299 of President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes, the Justice and Equality Movement claims to have made big strides towards uniting fractious rebels by bringing other groups under its umbrella.

"We are quite hopeful that by mid-June [at the latest], we will have one organisation," Gebreil Ibrahim, JEM's economic adviser and brother of the group's leader, Khalil, told IRIN. "Now we have started calling it the New JEM."

What flared up in 2003 as a conflict between the government and two main rebel groups - the JEM and the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army, or SLM/A - over marginalisation and distribution of wealth and power, has resulted in fighting between splintered rebel groups, increased banditry and ethnic clashes.

"Unity by attrition"

But Darfur's rebellion has come "full circle" and is once again re-emerging as two main groups - the JEM and the faction of the SLM/A led by Abdel Wahid Mohammed Nur, according to Theodore Murphy of the Geneva-based Humanitarian Dialogue Centre, which has helped facilitate negotiations between rebels and the government.

"To a degree, it's down to efforts within the movements to unite, but also because the smaller groups are falling apart and being absorbed into the larger," he told IRIN, calling it "unity by attrition".

Last month, Suleiman Jamous, an influential commander with the Unity faction of the SLM/A, announced that he, 30 commanders and 500 soldiers were joining the JEM, virtually decapitating the SLA-Unity faction.

New recruits

The JEM said hundreds more soldiers from various factions of the SLA and other rebel groups had also joined.

Following the government's expulsion of 13 major international aid agencies from Sudan http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83311 - most of whom were serving the 2.7 million people living in camps in Darfur - hundreds of civilians have also joined JEM ranks, according to spokesman Ahmed Hussain Adam.

For the first time, Hussain said, members of Arab groups traditionally aligned with the government - the Beni Halba, the Rizeigat and the Misseriya - were joining the JEM in their hundreds.

Nur's faction of the SLM/A is similarly "dabbling" with bringing in former splinter groups, Murphy said.

But despite these strides, a comprehensive peace deal remains elusive in the semi-arid western region of Sudan, where as many as 300,000 people are estimated to have died and another 4.7 million depend on aid to survive.

Negotiations

The JEM was the only player in a February attempt at restarting peace talks with the government, at which it signed a "goodwill agreement" to exchange prisoners and facilitate the flow of aid to Darfur. Renewed discussions beginning 6 May on implementing that agreement came to a close in the Qatari capital Doha last week with no tangible results.

Photo: Derk Segaar/IRIN

Fighting between splintered rebel groups, increased banditry and ethnic clashes have devastated Darfur - file photo

While the return to two main rebel groups is a "step forward", Murphy said both groups refused to negotiate together, so "it may not get us that much closer to a comprehensive process".

Others fear the JEM can never be the only unifying force, as some groups will always oppose its Islamist nature. Many analysts say its recent popularity is due to the money it offers new recruits. It has also engaged in various battles over the last few months, in an effort, analysts said, to prove its military strength and thus increase its leverage in negotiations.

Focus on JEM

"Unless the structural approach that has been taken to the Doha talks is opened to include other movements .comprehensive peace agreements in Darfur will not be possible," said Paula Roque, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, a Pretoria-based think-tank.

On 15 March, the SLM's Unity and Juba factions, as well as the SLM faction led by Khamis Abdallah Abakar, the breakaway JEM faction led by Idris Azraq and the United Revolutionary Forces Front, signed an agreement in Libya "to create a unified front and participate in the peace negotiations", according to the latest Darfur report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

This small alliance was not present during the recent discussions between the JEM and the government, which ended on 12 May and will resume on 27 May.

"The special relationship the US and the Sudan government are building up with the JEM, prioritising [leader] Khalil Ibrahim's movement in peace talks, risks backfiring unless balanced by other contacts, especially with Arabs," writes Julie Flint on the blog, Making sense of Darfur. http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/darfur/category/darfur/

The Darfur conflict pits mostly non-Arab rebels against the Arab-dominated government and has exacerbated tensions between nomadic Arabs and settled Africans in the region. While the Africans have suffered most in the conflict, Arabs have also been victims.

"The peace process has always been between the government on one side and the predominantly non-Arab rebel movements on the other," Flint writes. As the JEM becomes the main negotiating partner, and Arabs continue to be excluded from the process, "the parameters of the peace process are shrinking rather than expanding, as they must".

Representing the Fur

Who represents the region's native group, the Fur, has become another problem. Nur, the Fur's rebel leader and one of the founders of the rebellion, refuses to negotiate with the government until the violence in Darfur stops. Other rebel groups say he has been averse to any co-operation with them as well.

"Abdel Wahid [Nur] has essentially painted himself into a corner," said Colin Thomas-Jensen, a policy adviser at the Washington-based Enough Project. The JEM's political and military surge has led to increasing discontent with Nur's leadership, "but there's no one to fill that vacuum.

Photo: Derk Segaar/IRIN

Rebels in south Darfur: An analyst says Darfur's rebellion has come "full circle" and is once again re-emerging as two main groups, the JEM and a faction of the SLM/A - file photo

"The Fur, being the largest group in Darfur and being the largest group affected by this war, need strong representation in any peace process. The consensus view among negotiators and mediators has developed that Abdel Wahid will not provide that. Finding a Fur representation has become an obsession for many within the mediation."

Thus while some degree of rebel unity is a step forward for Darfur, increased politicisation of the conflict and the lack of representation of some groups continue to plague peace efforts. Meanwhile, analysts and civil society alike have grown "tired" of the constant making and breaking of alliances among the rebels.

For Ibrahim Mudawi, chairman of the Sudan Social Development Organization, Sudan's largest NGO, which is active in Darfur, these latest rebel mergers are insignificant.

"All of them [the rebel groups] are irrelevant. All are fragmented. They are sitting on smaller and smaller constituencies," he said. "There is no one having a vision or plan."