̽»¨¾«Ñ¡

Starting in January 2014, ISIS took over large areas of Anbar and Ninewa governorates, as well as areas of Kirkuk and elsewhere. Operations to clear these areas from ISIS control and prepare for an advance on Mosul – a city 400 km north of Baghdad currently under ISIS control – have been occurring since 2015. On 17 October 2016, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi announced that military operations to re-take Mosul from ISIS had commenced.

Improving Humanitarian Access is crucial to prospects of peace and stability in the Central African Republic In the Central African Republic, political crises over the past three years have resulted in violent conflict affecting nearly the entire population and leaving some 2.3 million people, over half the population, in dire need of assistance. The election of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra in February 2016 marked the return to constitutional order but the security situation remains volatile. In early November the Government of CAR published the final document of the Recovery and Peace Consolidation Plan (RCPCA), which will be presented during the Donors’ Conference on November 17th in order to mobilise funding from the international community. A humanitarian response plan (HRP) for the 2017-2019 period will follow and will focus on life-saving interventions, acute malnutrition, protection against acts of violence and the provision of basic services in unstable or inaccessible areas.

More than 10 months since the closure of borders across the Balkans and introduction of the European Union (EU) – Turkey deal, refugees continue to take increasingly dangerous sea and land journeys, putting their lives in the hands of smugglers, in order to reach safety in Europe. Once stranded in Greece or along the Balkan route, many endure life in substandard conditions, in winter, without adequate information about their rights or available services and support, waiting to complete their asylum, family reunification or relocation procedures, with an increasingly uncertain future. Already this year, five refugees have died as a result of the winter conditions and dangerous routes within Europe.

Today, more than half of the world’s 59.5 million forcibly displaced people live in urban areas and their average length of displacement is over a decade.2 In Asia, the world’s fastest urbanizing continent, countries like Iran and Pakistan are among the top-10 major refugee-hosting countries in the world, while Afghanistan remains the second largest source of refugees globally behind Syria.3 In Southeast Asia, Thailand serves as the region’s primary destination for refugees and asylum seekers, with over half a million people of concern living in the country in 2015. These trends have significant implications for cities within the region, including heightened challenges for providing basic services to the city’s existing inhabitants as well as new residents. They also impact the changing humanitarian landscape, where traditional humanitarian responses have been most often designed for camp or rural/remote contexts. In order to better understand these issues, to learn from challenges and successes, and to identify more appropriate ways of working, the ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ (̽»¨¾«Ñ¡) and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) hosted an Urban Practitioner Workshop on Meeting Needs in a Context of Urban Displacement in Asia. The aim of the workshop was to bring together humanitarian, international development, community organizations, and local municipal actors called into action by various urban crises within the region.

By establishing a clear mechanism to conduct joint analysis among state, private sector, humanitarian and development actors, coordinating on policy and programming, and setting collective outcome goals for self-reliance and protection, the most vulnerable populations of the Lake Chad Basin would receive a focused response through better aid.

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ has been working in Cameroon since early 2016, and is now expanding operations further north into the Logone et Chari department in order to meet the needs of refugees and internally displaced people.

Financial Summary for the Financial Year 2016.

A political settlement to the ongoing conflict remains the only means to avert famine. In the meantime, the single greatest barrier to easing the suffering of Yemen’s people remains humanitarian access.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, UNICEF, and ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡, the ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡, today issued a Roadmap for action to improve the situation of refugee and migrant children arriving and staying in Europe without their parents or care givers. The Roadmap highlights the need to identify children, register them through child-friendly procedures, and build a relationship of trust with them as early as possible. Ensuring that a well-trained guardian takes immediate responsibility for the child, engaging cultural mediators, and mobilizing members of host communities are critical measures that can help build a trusting relationship and protect children from smugglers, traffickers or family pressure.

Joint statement: NGOs call upon EU institutions and Member States to expand the use of safe and legal channels for refugees