HAVANA, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Hurricane Ike charged toward Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico as a ferocious Category 4 storm on Saturday, while Tropical Storm Hanna drenched the U.S. Atlantic coast after barreling ashore in the Carolinas.

Ike's top sustained winds reached 135 miles per hour (215 kph), making it an 'extremely dangerous' Category 4 on the five-step Saffir Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The Checklist-Based Guide to Identifying Critical Environmental Considerations in Emergency Shelter Site Selection, Construction, Management and Decommissioning provides an easy-to-use tool to assess whether environmental issues have been appropriately addressed in emergency shelter efforts. In most cases, unaddressed issues can be resolved by changing plans or implementing specific shelter site up-grades. The Checklist can also be used to review emergency shelter sites plans. The Checklist is b more...

Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR) at Harvard University
Job Opening: Program Associate
Distance Learning, Community of Practice and Evaluation, Full time position
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Description:
The Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at the Harvard School of Public Health is searching for a candidate for the position of Program Associate to coordinate and develop its activities in the fields of distance learning, community of pra more...

Karin von Hippel and Ken Menkhaus have an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune today evaluating U.S. counterterrorism policy in Somalia. Excerpt Below:

Republic of Blowback
by Ken Menkhaus and Karin von Hippel
Thursday, September 4, 2008

Back in the 1980s, frustrated aid workers joked that Somalia was the “graveyard of foreign aid,” a place where hundreds of millions of dollars were wasted on projects that occasionally left villagers worse off than before.

In the early 1990s, more...

Below are some thoughts about the Crossed Swords Book Event which was held 9/3/08 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Shuja Nawaz, author of the recent book on Pakistan’s army Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within, presented it today at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The book was hailed by the moderator, Ashley Tellis, a Senior Associate at Carnegie, as being an “even handled and balanced” account from a “detached insider” prospectiv more...

'The Sourcebook is a product of the OECD-DAC Joint Venture on Managing for Development Results, a group of bilateral and multilateral donors – and, more recently, of partner country representatives – that are working to promote the implementation of the Paris commitments.

'Most of all, the Sourcebook is intended to be a living document. As new good practices emerge and more countries and agencies gain experience, new case studies are intended to be added, continually updating the Sourceb more...

'IFC and the United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie of Harvard University, have released a consultation draft of the research paper they commissioned on foreign direct investment and human rights. Stabilization Clauses and Human Rights aims to raise awareness of the relationship between protecting investor rights and the host state's human rights obligations under international agreements.

The publication examines the imp more...

The Guidelines for Rapid Environmental Impact in Disasters (REA) provide a means to define and prioritize potential environmental impacts in disaster situations. The Guidelines is composed of five main parts and ten supporting Annexes.

The main parts include an Introduction to the REA, and modules on Organization and Community Level Assessments, Consolidation and Analysis of assessment results and Green Review of Relief Procurement. The Annexes include information sources, forms used in the more...

There are three basic approaches to assessing the impact of disaster and defining relief assistance requirements after a disaster: the damage done, the needs of the affected population or the rights which the survivors have to achieve life with dignity. Each approach has advantages in assessing post-disaster needs. Each approach overlaps with the other two, but each represents a different theoretical view of what should take place following a disaster. Further, each approach tends to be used by more...

'A destructive combination of earthquakes, floods, droughts and other hazards make South Asia the world's most disaster-prone region. The effects are aggravated by climate change, unsuitable social and development policies, and environmental degradation. The effect is to slow or block development and keep millions trapped in poverty.

Oxfam's experience shows that successful disaster risk reduction policies, integrated into development work, save lives and money, making vulnerable communities more...