Welcome to IRIN's weekly top picks of must-read research, podcasts, reports, blogs and in-depth articles to help you keep on top of global crises.
Five to read:
Man-made famine threatens millions in Nigeria
Northeastern Nigeria is teetering on the brink of famine. Each day, 184 children die due to causes related to acute malnutrition, but the government and international community are failing to acknowledge the scale of the emergency, says the International Rescue Committee. The aid organisation is demanding that this “chronically underfunded crisis” receives the attention it deserves “before it is too late”.
More than one million people are in food security Emergency (IPC Phase 4), with the possibility of Famine (IPC Phase 5) conditions in particularly affected areas. According to the UN's aid coordination body, OCHA, 65,000 people are already in Phase 5 in Borno and Yobe states. Additionally, 3.3 million are in Phase 3 (Crisis) and at high risk if not reached soon. “These numbers are likely a very conservative estimate of the reality on the ground, as more areas open up and we gain access to areas previously controlled by Boko Haram,” warns Sarah Ndikumana, IRC Nigeria country director.
Corruption in conflict: lessons from Afghanistan
This report tells a cautionary tale of US intervention in Afghanistan and how its own policies undermined reconstruction efforts by fuelling corruption. It’s the latest report from the Special Investigator General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, which is tasked by Congress to track where US aid money went. The report finds that when the US entered Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks the Americans were not overly concerned about corruption. In fact, they saw it to some degree as a necessary cost of working in “a country devastated by decades of war and poverty”. By 2009, US officials found that aid money was flowing to insurgents through channels of corruption, and corruption was seen as a threat to the mission. But by then, it was too late: “The Afghan government was so deeply enmeshed in corrupt and criminal networks that dismantling them would mean dismantling major pillars of support for the government itself.” The report’s recommendations include: making anti-corruption a priority from the beginning, and limiting alliances with malign actors. Good advice, but is anyone in the military-aid complex listening?
How conflict is impacting language in South Sudan
Conflict hits people in obvious, nasty ways. But there are other, more insidious effects – such as its influence on culture. This eye-opening article explores the changes occurring right now in language use in South Sudan. It finds both gains and losses for English. Many English-language media “have suffered setbacks”, and the weakening of government institutions that would have spearheaded English is also significant. But the outflow of refugees to English-speaking Kenya and Uganda means the language may in the future remain influential. A similar refugee-driven process could also see the strengthening of Amharic, in eastern regions bordering Ethiopia. But the biggest losers are national language education, with the failure to finalise the new primary school curriculum, and Nuer – a language now synonymous with rebellion.
Central Americans have been arriving at the Mexico-US border in record numbers for the past couple of years. Most apply for asylum on the basis that they are fleeing gang violence, and this is often true. But there are other reasons why so many people from the region are heading north. This multimedia piece, combining text, illustration and audio is part of a long-term project on climate change led by a Chicago public radio station, WBEZ 91.5. It looks at the role a prolonged drought is playing in driving migration from Honduras. It profiles two brothers: one who has already made the difficult choice to leave his failing farm and his family in central Honduras and gone to the US in search of work, and his older brother who stayed behind but is struggling to survive as the lack of rain destroys the local economy. Drought and the region’s increasing levels of violence are not unconnected. Joblessness resulting from the drought has made people more desperate and likely to turn to crime. A third brother, who also stayed behind, was murdered by criminals.
Should the West continue selling arms to Saudi Arabia?
As the civilian death toll in Yemen rises, an increasing number of campaigners in the US and UK say no, arguing that a coalition led by the kingdom is violating international law in its campaign to oust Houthi rebels in Yemen. But British MPs can’t quite decide. The powerful Commons Committees on Arms Export Controls was expected to call for a suspension of sales pending investigation, but, in an unusual move (chalked up to Conservative MP Crispin Blunt), the committee has split and issued two separate reports. The first report (hyperlinked in the headline), by two of the three committees that make up the CAEC, calls for an immediate ban on arms exports to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. The second, by the remaining committee Blunt chairs, says UK courts should decide if the sales are legal. All the committees agree there should be an independent UN-led investigation into all parties in Yemen’s war, something the sides are unlikely ever to get on board with.
One from IRIN:
A perfect storm: climate change and overfishing
Overfishing may not strike everyone as a pressing humanitarian concern, but the future looks bleak when you combine our current plunder-everything-you-can attitude with predictions from scientists about warming oceans. And it's the poorest fishing communities in the tropical zone that are on the front line of this crisis. Coastal villages from the Philippines to Sierra Leone are feeling the pinch as empty catches mean families go hungry and lives are upended. IRIN Asia Editor Jared Ferrie took a deep dive into the data and found that the extent of overfishing has been downplayed for years. When you take into account climate change, some scientists believe fish stocks will be practically wiped out by 2050 and more than 10 percent of the Earth’s population could face malnutrition as the fish they depend upon for vital protein and micronutrients disappear. Dirk Zeller, executive director of the Sea Around Us research institute at Vancouver’s University of British Columbia, described climate change as a “runaway train” for killing fish stocks. “More organisations – within the UN system, within governments – are becoming aware that fisheries is not purely an economic activity,” he said. “It is an environmental issue, and increasingly they will also know that it’s a health issue.”
As part of a series exploring this subject, IRIN also visited a small fishing village in Indonesia that has turned to seaweed farming instead. Next week, we'll look at the challenge facing small-scale fishing enterprises in South Africa as catches dwindle.
Coming up:
Aid withdrawal and exit strategies
INTRAC Webinar – Friday 23 September, 1230-1430 GMT
Funding cuts, changing circumstances on the ground, a re-evaluation of priorities: all these things can lead to the withdrawal of aid. But the process of disentangling established financial relationships as funding is withdrawn from local civil society groups and projects and programmes are phased out can be complex and thorny. This webinar, entitled “Whose responsibility is it to push for well-planned exit?”, aims to provide some much-needed clarity by debating these questions with national and local CSOs, INGOs, donors, NGO support organisations, and researchers.
To register, or for more information, look here.
(TOP PHOTO: A fishing village in Thailand. Vivien Cumming/IRIN)
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