The urban challenge in humanitarian aid

in humanitarian aid Why urban? There are important details
that make disaster response different in cities... Rubble removal

Emergency sanitation and waste disposal

(Global) lack of medical specialists in blunt trauma

Siting and nature of transitional shelter* The urban challenge Images used under license from Shutterstock.com Put simply, The things we know about rural crises don't apply in urban contexts... Population density is higher

Communities are defined by more than where they live

Infrastructure is stronger

There are more skills in the population

Government is closer physically and more connected politically

Transport and delivery of goods and services is less likely to be outside govt structures to village communities (or large camps) *this one is arguably more difficult for international humanitarians, who have experience and expectations of ‘camps’ But there's something bigger going on the history of is the history of rural international humanitariansm crises ...and these differences mean: responses are not structured or coordinated with affected governments failure to capitalise on markets - in some instances (e.g. water in Haiti) markets are even undermined by providing for free what was once sold working in sectoral silos, with limited coordination a lack of certainty about when to start and when to end
programmes: where does humanitarian start and finish,
in situations of chronically poor baselines
and long term urban need? Why ALNAP? Some of our members have a long tradition of urban engagement – Jaffna, Huambo; Kabul The 2010 Haiti earthquake made the challenges presented by urban disasters impossible for anyone to ignore

It forced the humanitarian sector to question many ‘standard’ practices and unspoken assumptions ALNAP held a conference in Chennai on the issue of urban humanitarian response in January 2012... and the http://www.urban-response.org portal collects together the growing body of knowledge on urban disasters. We're soon going to publish a urban lessons paper With thanks to Missing Link for the Freefall Prezi template
http://prezi.com/7txrmkstwsze/free-fall-template/