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Livelihoods and Food Security in Humanitarian Crises

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Public Health in Humanitarian Crises

Université Johns-Hopkins

4.8 (223 notes) | 6.4K étudiants inscrits

Cours 2 de 6 dans Foundations of Global Health Spécialisation

This course introduces a set of public health problems experienced by people affected by natural disasters and/or conflict. It discusses the many changes in people’s lives when they are uprooted by a disaster, ranging from changes in disease patterns, access to health care, livelihoods, shelter, sanitary conditions, nutritional status, etc. We will explore what humanitarian interventions could look like if we want to mitigate the effects of disasters. The course content is a mix of theoretical knowledge and many practical examples from recent disasters. We think this course is unique because it contains so many practical ‘real-life’ examples and is taught be instructors and guest lecturers who together have over 200 years of experience in this field. The course consists of 10 modules totaling approximately 9-10 hours of delivered content with an additional 2-3 hours of self-work (quizzes and writing and evaluating a short peer-review assignment) as well as lively discussions forums. The course has been designed in a way that each module builds on the lessons of previous modules. However, modules can be accessed in any order and some can stand alone. You do not have to pay for this course if you choose to enroll without a certificate. Sometimes referred to as auditing, enrolling without a certificate means that you will have access to all of the videos, quizzes, assignments, and discussions. The only difference is that you will not receive a certificate upon completion. Click the Enroll Without A Certificate link to sign up and begin the course. Even if you enroll in a session that has yet to begin, you may access most of the course materials right away by clicking the Preview Course Materials link. However, you will have to wait for the session to begin before posting on the discussion forum or accessing the final peer-reviewed assessment. Visit the Learner Help Center for details about session schedules.

Visualiser le programme de cours

Compétences que vous apprendrez

Nutrition, International Law, Humanitarian, Public Health

Avis

4.8 (223 notes)

5 stars
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VK

Apr 05, 2019

Thank you for wonderful course on public health aspects in times of humanitarian crisis. It helped me to think outside the box and read more to understand the issues.

KM

Mar 10, 2018

I think this is the perfect springboard for entry level humanitarian professionals who considering a career in humanitarian aid, and global and public health

À partir de la leçon

Module 4: Livelihoods and Food Security in Humanitarian Crises

Disasters affect livelihoods. This module illustrates how and what livelihoods strategies families use to cope with a crisis. We also describe what food security entails and ways to assess it. We look at various livelihoods support programs that can be used in disaster settings.

Introduction to Livelihoods and Food Security2:28

Livelihoods and Food Security in Humanitarian Crises15:10

Food Security10:19

Livelihoods Support Programming14:28

Enseigné par

Gilbert Burnham, MD
Professor
Mija Ververs
Senior Associate

Transcription

[MUSIC]

We start with livelihoods.

First of all, I would like to introduce to you a family, Ahmed and

Sara, two adults and their three children.

Ahmed is a secondary school teacher.

They live in a house in a country somewhere in the Middle East.

Ahmed works five days per week.

Sara, his wife, looks mostly after the children.

Two of the children go to school.

The youngest stays with her mom at home.

This household has a sense of needs.

Like any other family, they need food, health care, and a home,

meaning, a safe place to sleep and prepare meals.

They might need electricity for light or heating in the winter of their home.

They need water to drink, and wash themselves, and

a place to go to the toilet.

They also need security, and like anyone, they need friends and family and

education for the children as well as clothes.

All of these we can refer to as essential needs.

You might think I'm stating the obvious.

But let's look at how this household will insured that these needs insured

are covered.

Ahmed and Sarah will try to cover their family needs through, for

example, their capabilities, assets, income and their activities.

This refers to their livelihood,

which represent their means to securing these essential needs.

Let us look more in detail what livelihood entails.

One way of understanding livelihood is to categorize the way people make a living.

They will use various different assets.

We can group them as human, social, natural, physical,

financial, and political assets.

I will explain this.

Families might have physical assets.

They might own a house, some land, seeds, tools, machines.

We would call these productive assets.

Perhaps they own livestock, that is also a physical asset.

Families will have most likely some financial assets such as salaries,

access to credit, savings or remittances.

And then there are human assets.

Family members might be able to perform physical labor.

They might have had education, and are, perhaps, able to read and write, or

have other skills.

And good health is also a human asset.

And we also consider social assets.

A social assets we refer to kinship structures,

membership, or formal or informal networks, prestige.

When a person has a citizenship, this can be regarded as a political asset as

it is often linked to some entitlements, or rights.

Having a good relationship with authorities can also be a political asset.

With natural assets, we often refer to proximity to water,

pasture, forest, game, fish or other natural resources.

So let's translate what all this means concretely for Ahmed and Sarah, and

their children.

Their livelihood assets can be categorized in similar groups.

With regards to the physical assets, Ahmed and Sarah own a small house.

They also have a small plot of land, at the border of their village.

Their savings, and a bit of jewelry, are examples of their financial assets.

So is Ahmed's salary from his job as a teacher.

The family has a good level of education and all are, for the moment,

in good health.

We refer to these as human assets.

They also have social assets.

The family of Sarah lives in the same village, and

they have good contact with all neighbors and surrounding community.

The family does not really have any political engagements, but

they are officially citizens of their country, which is a political asset.

And lastly, they have natural assets.

They are close to a river where they sometimes can catch fish.

The examples given here are, of course, different for each household.

There are families with more assets or with less.

Also, some might have mostly physical and or financial assets.

Some families might have more social assets or

more natural assets at their disposal.

Households normally choose their strategies, what to do for a living,

how to use their assets.

For example, Ahmed and Sara make choices on,

whether their children will go to school.

And perhaps at a later stage to which university, or

what type of house improvement or repairs they will make, or

what they will do with the small plot of land they own.

Do they sell it?

Or sent it out?

Or use it for growing vegetables and fruits.

The family also makes choices on how to use a Ahmed's salary, and

how to spend that on health care and food.

What Ahmed and Sarah choose to do might be the same or different from other families.

We all own assets, we all make choices on how to use and increase them.

Let's now look at the humanitarian context.

Imagine that suddenly there is a new reality for Ahmed, Sarah, and

their children, a disaster strikes them.

In this case, it is a conflict.

Their home is unsafe and they have enormous difficulties to get food and

drinking water.

The schools are either damaged by the fighting or closed.

What will happen to their assets and their livelihood strategy?

Their home is partially destroyed.

Their plot of land is still there, but unsafe to reach.

This has consequences for their physical assets.

Ahmed has no longer a job nor a salary, affecting their financial assets.

And the children no longer attend school, impacting human assets of the family.

The community is disintegrating and people are moving away.

This affects their social assets.

This new reality means that Ahmed and

Sara need to make major decisions if they want to secure their essential needs.

They have to use so-called coping mechanisms, and new livelihood strategies.

Imagine the following strategies.

Ahmed and Sarah choose to sell their jewelry, and also their plot of land, but

that's difficult from a distance as they cannot go there.

They have chosen to move out of the country and stay temporarily with some

remote family members, just across the border in a neighboring country.

However, there's not much space for all the families in one house.

They use as much as possible their savings for food and water.

But the situation can not last too long eventually they will run out of money.

Sara is looking for work as a cleaning lady.

Ahmed is not allowed to work as a teacher and tries to find some informal jobs and

sell sim cards for mobile phones.

Every evening he tries to teach his oldest two children

as they have no access to any education at the moment.

Ahmed and Sara just hope that none of the children fall ill

as they do not have extra means to pay for the doctor's fees or drugs.

This is how this family tries to cope.

They have a new livelihood strategy.

Whatever the strategy the family chooses,

there will be consequences on the short and medium term.

There will be consequences for their income, expenditure pattern,

on the food consumption, on their living conditions, etc.

We can refer to them as livelihood outcomes.

Eventually there will also be consequences for the children's education,

their nutritional status, and perhaps even their growth, and

their health might be affected.

The question is here, how resilient is this family for

the shock that disturbed their livelihoods?

And when we talk about resilience, we refer to the ability to cope with change.

And that is very much dependent on their assets.

The more assets you have still available,

the better overall the livelihood outcomes.

I would like to talk a bit more about these strategies

families choose to survive.

In this context, you can also refer to them as coping strategies, or

coping mechanisms.

Let us look at the same context of Ahmed and Sara's family,

and imagine what other families do in a similar situation.

In the situation of Ahmed and Sara, we could see the following coping mechanism.

Ahmed and Sara choose to migrate.

Actually, they become refugees as they cross the border to another country.

Others will move in with family in the same community,

or if their homes are destroyed, they look for

public places such as a school, where they take temporary shelter.

Some families go to a refugee camp and

send out perhaps their oldest child to migrate to Europe.

In this case, a family will become separated.

Some decide to rent a room in another village in order to save money.

They and others might decide to reduce the amount of food they eat.

Many will choose to eat only very cheap food mostly staple food, and

their diet will likely be poor in quality.

Some people will try to take additional, often informal jobs.

Others might try to sell some of their belongings, such as land,

their car, furniture, or their animals.

Those families with livestock might want to reduce their expenses for

vaccinations or drugs for their animals.

Other coping mechanisms can be seen too.

For example, some might be sending their older children to work as cleaners or

as herders for small cattle.

Or the children need to sell food at markets or on the street.

Some families will beg for food.

Whilst others perhaps resort to borrowing money or stealing.

Some people will opt for joining armed forces, which could be the army or rebels.

This might also give them some sort of income or entitlement such as food or

prestige, and therefore, food.

The list can be much longer.

Each family makes a different decision

concerning their strategies to adjust their livelihoods in a disaster situation.

This largely depends on what assets they have and

their cultural and/or religious preferences.

The age of the family members, and their health, and on so many other factors.

Of course, it also depends on what actual disaster they are confronted with.

A flood or an earthquake might force families to choose different

strategies than an armed conflict.

You see that some of these coping mechanisms are not automatically harmful.

Taking an additional job to make ends meet could be a reasonable option or

selling your car is not necessary putting your life at risk.

However, some coping mechanisms will be damaging if on the short run,

possibly on the long run.

For example, reducing the quality or quantity of food

might have limited impact on the short term, but eventually, it might lead

to a lack of growth in children if the nutritional requirements are not met.

Or higher likelihood of becoming ill.

In times of distress, one can choose to save money and

pull out children from school as the school fees or

money for school uniforms can be used for water and food.

But on the long term,

this can be a very damaging strategy as the human capital will be affected.

In simple words, children that don't attend school follow no education, have

less chance to finish vocational training or find employment when they are older.

Needless to say perhaps, but people that resort to crime or prostitution in

order to feed their families use a very damaging coping strategy.

I just want to point out one other element that is important.

What for one family is a damaging coping mechanism, is not necessarily damaging for

other families, I will explain.

Remember, I just mentioned that selling your car does

not necessarily put your life at risk, but

what if the seller is a taxi driver, and his car is all he has to obtain an income?

In other words, his car is a productive asset.

He normally makes money with it, and once sold,

that option has become more difficult.

For a taxi driver, selling his car is potentially a damaging coping mechanism.

In general, we can say that if people sell their productive assets,

a farmer sells his land or his machines to operate on the land, a tailor sells his or

her sewing machine, all and all to obtain money to use for covering essential needs.

It will tell you something about the severity of the situation they are in.

People generally will be reluctant to sell productive assets.

The fewer assets people have,

the less resilient they are to deal with the effects of a disaster.

I mentioned that already earlier.

From experience, we can also say that overall, the poorer the households,

the more of its resources are relatively spent on food.

This counts for families that are poor, but also generally for

families affected by a disaster.

Let us now look at something else, as we end this section.

If Ahmed and Sarah are going to lose or sell most of their assets, and

they make very little money with their alternative jobs, the family will have

a hard time to obtain the basics for survival, such as water and food.

The family becomes more destitute, and

one very important livelihood outcome will be food insecurity.

You will hear many people speaking about food insecurity in humanitarian crisis.

And in the next section, we will take a closer look at that specific outcome.

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