'Despite the absence of a final peace settlement, a dramatic improvement in security in war-ravaged northern Uganda is allowing displaced civilians to return home and has transformed the humanitarian operating environment. A transition is now under way from a relief effort led by international agencies to government-driven recovery. But that shift is generating new challenges for northern Ugandans and institutional confusion among the actors working to help them rebuild their lives. After decade more...
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'The international community took an important step in deploying the UN and EUFOR mission to volatile and insecure eastern Chad. However, one year on, this mission is not capable of adequately protecting civilians and requires urgent reform. EUFOR has made many civilians feel safer, but as a military force is ill suited to an environment of lawlessness and banditry. A year on the policing elements of the mission are yet to be deployed. Finally, without a comprehensive political solution to the i more...
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'Despite new peace agreements, continued conflict among and between armed militias and government forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the last year has seen thousands of new internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the east of the country, many of whom have poured into camps seeking shelter and safety. This is a new development in DRC. Unlike Darfur and Uganda, IDPs in DRC have usually stayed with host families, returning intermittently to their homes, rather than fleeing to refuge more...
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'In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, increasing violence has forced people to flee from their homes, and led to the deaths of almost 1,500 people a day.
Though no other conflict causes that kind of death rate, Oxfam’s workers hear similar stories of murder, rape, and displacement from men and women from Colombia to Sudan every day. Sixty years after the main Geneva Conventions enshrined civilians’ rights to protection, they are violated in every current conflict.'
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'The plight of women in Iraq today has gone largely ignored, both within Iraqi society and by the international community. For more than five years, headlines have been dominated by political and social turmoil, the chaos of conflict and widespread violence. This has overshadowed the abysmal state of the civilian population’s day-to-day lives, a result of that very turmoil and violence.
Behind the headlines, essential services have collapsed, families have been torn apart and women in parti more...
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'A briefing paper by eleven NGOs operating in Afghanistan for the NATO Heads of State and Government Summit, 3-4 April 2009
This paper makes recommendations on how the security strategy of the international community should be changed in order to minimise the harm caused to Afghan civilians and reduce the disruption to development and humanitarian activities in the current environment in Afghanistan.'
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Every day, governments around the world give authorisation for the export and transfer of weapons. These decisions affect the lives of millions of people. In some cases, these arms transfers undermine development, by fuelling conflict and armed violence, threatening peace-building efforts, or when they involve excessive unaccountable spending. Such spending can divert vital funds from public services such as education and health care, and when such spending takes place without accountability and more...
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