PRESS RELEASE

The World Council of Churches, ACT Alliance and Lutheran World Federation – together representing more than half a billion Christians worldwide – are issuing a united call for action on climate justice, the largest call of its kind in history.

In a joint video message released on 5 November, leaders of the three organizations called upon the decision makers at COP23 to follow up on the Paris Agreement to enable accountable and ambitious action.

“We must act together for climate justice”, said Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, general secretary of ACT Alliance. “Experts from many of our members will be advocating at COP to ensure that the outcomes reflect the needs and the rights of the most vulnerable”.

Climate change is a reality that needs to be addressed, agreed Rev. Dr Martin Junge, LWF general secretary. “We hear the stories. We hear the pain, we hear the struggle”, he said.

“Let us take this opportunity again in COP23 to make decisions that lead us in the right way. It is about who is affected today, who is living in livelihoods that are threatened by what is happening”, said Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, WCC general secretary.

COP23 is the climate change conference which will be held in Bonn, Germany from November 6-17, and will be presided over by the Republic of Fiji.

With special support for the people of Fiji, the three ecumenical leaders expressed their commitment to continue walking together with their churches and people as they address urgent questions and challenges on climate change in that region and to advocate that climate finance is secured to enable developing countries to adapt, mitigate and address loss and damage.

ENDS

For media inquiries, please contact:
Joanna Patouris, ACT Alliance, Climate Change Communications Coordinator
Email: joanna.patouris@actalliance.org

Earlier this year, the Canadian government launched its Feminist International Assistance Policy.  This October, several ACT members, along with staff from other civil society organisations, and university faculty and students, gathered at an event organised by ACT member The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund at Wycliffe College in Toronto, Canada for an event entitled Gender and Poverty: When will we get it right?

Four panelists presented over the course of the afternoon- two from PWRDF implementing partners in Rwanda and Tanzania, one from ACT member World Renew’s Kenya office, and one from York University.  Each had their own focus on the role of gender equality in poverty alleviation.

Jolin Joseph, a PhD candidate from York University, spoke about Engendering Migration Research and Praxis.  “Poverty is more acutely felt by women and women-headed households,” she told the audience as she began to talk about her research into gender and migration in India.  An example of this is that more women are in the work force, but there has been no economic gain for their presence.  The prevalence of deskilled, low-paying, informal work for women has led to more time being spent on paid employment for the same economic gain.

The Rev. Geoffrey Monjesa from the Anglican Diocese of Masasi in Tanzania, one of PWRDF’s implementing partners, talked about systemic sexism.  “Gender inequality is built into the organisation of marriage and families, work and the economy, politics, religions, the arts and other cultural productions, and the language we speak,” he said.  Rev. Monjesa spoke of one woman in their food security programme who, in the span of five years, had gone from being a vulnerable divorced mother to running a farm that employs 20 labourers working on 25 acres of land, and to being elected as a district councillor, reflecting the value that the community places on the skills she has developed through the programme and her willingness to share them with her neighbours and community.

Jenninah Kabiswa from World Renew’s Kenya office spoke about the link between peace, gender and development, drawing on a variety of conflicts in Kenya including border issues, resources, politics and inter- and intra-tribal conflict.  “Women play a key role in peace,” she said.  Their communities place high expectations on women, so World Renew and other agencies keep building their capacity.  “Women are central, to the SDGs, to Canada’s feminist international assistance agenda, and to peace.”

Finally, Dr. Evrard Nahimana of PWRDF partner Partners in Health in Rwanda spoke about the Rwandan experience of gender equality, pointing out that 64% of Rwandan parliamentarians are women, the highest percentage in the world.  He also spoke about how a focus on maternal, newborn and child health had helped to drastically decrease the maternal mortality rate in the country between 1990 and 2015 thanks to improved care at medical facilities and removed barriers of access.  He then talked about the benefits of women moving “from patient to producer” and how food security- the provision of training and livestock and seeds helps women to increase their income and overall health.  “Invest in women and the whole family will benefit,” he said.The conversation at the event helped to contribute to the continuing dialogue in Canada about the new Feminist International Assistance Policy, as well as to how these agencies and programmes contribute to SDG 5: Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.

When Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines on November 8, 2013, it was the most powerful storm to ever make landfall in the Pacific.  It was also the acid test for the ACT Philippines Forum, which had only been created 3 months earlier.

The forum has just released an evaluation of the Haiyan response which highlights the accomplishments and the lessons learned from this massive relief effort.  Acting Together, Building Stronger highlights the importance of partnership throughout the response.  “This learning document tells the story of the collaboration of churches, agencies and organizations worldwide as they prayed for the people of central Philippines, gave material and financial donations and rendered help until the survivors were back on their feet,” wrote the Rev. Rex RB Reyes, Jr, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of the Philippines in the foreword.

Highlighting both successes and challenges, the report discusses, the coordination, localization, convergence, and quality and accountability of the ACT response. The strength of the forum’s work was in its collaboration and partnership.  From the establishment of the ACT Coordination Centre immediately after the storm to the Joint Monitoring Visit to the work of ACT members in a well-planned and synchronized set of projects in Salvacion on Jinamoc Island, partnership was the key.  “Central to this success is the partnership between and among the [Forum] members and their partners.”

Many of the lessons learned were about the complexities of working together, about the need to balance the competing agendas of donors and head offices with those of the communities being served, and about the need to build capacity in local responders.  “The Philippines has a vibrant and experienced civil society, and yet, collaboration and coordination were not key facets of the response at a large scale.  In this respect, the emphasis that ACT Alliance put on partnership and its vision to take partnership to scale at the very beginning of the response is something that is quite exceptional.”

The report shows the focus that ACT members brought to a variety of issues that are key to ACT’s work globally: a focus on gender and people with disabilities, a rights-based approach, disaster risk reduction, and adherence to international standards including Sphere and the Core Humanitarian Standard.  Specific stories of these issues include the success of a campaign to allow thousands of families access to housing despite their lack of land claims, a programme initiated and operated by women in one community to become income earners, and the creation of a federation of people with disabilities.

Thanks to the work of the ACT Philippines Forum, the lessons they have learned and the best practices they have developed are available for anyone to read and share in Acting Together, Building Stronger, which can be read in its entirety here.

Hurricane Matthew devastated Haiti on October 4, 2016.  In the year since the storm destroyed homes, crops and communities, and killed upwards of 1600 people, ACT members have been working with communities to bring humanitarian assistance and to rebuild.  In addition to helping families to repair and rebuild their damaged and destroyed homes, ACT members have worked with communities to rebuild community infrastructure.

In the community of Porrier, for example, ACT member Church World Service is rebuilding an elementary school.

“The storm took away the roof and left all our educational materials ruined. We’ve managed to continue classes in crowded, temporary spaces, but attendance remains down,” said the school’s director, Jean Asseker. “The children were traumatized, and their learning abilities were negatively affected. Their families lost their school books and uniforms. So it’s been a difficult year, but soon we’ll have a new roof thanks to CWS, and we expect that attendance will come back to where it was before. Our students will be proud of their new school.”

Lutheran World Relief, another member of the ACT Alliance, also works in several Northwest communities that suffered from Matthew. In Bassin Hady, a community where Matthew killed seven people, LWR helped villagers build a series of earthen dikes that hold back runoff during heavy storms, reducing erosion and improving soil fertility. It’s been hard work to move massive amounts of dirt and rocks, but Lucienne Tanasie says it was worth it.

“We’ll have more water and better soil, even though we have to wait a while for the dikes to do all that. We’ll be able to harvest more of our crops, thus earning money to pay the school fees of our children,” she said.

On the island of La Gonave, another ACT Alliance member, Service Chrétien d’Haïti, is supporting villagers as they rebuild the island’s deteriorated roads. Once a week, people turn out with shovels, picks, and their bare hands to remake the narrow arteries that wind through the rocky hills. “We do this to make our community beautiful. A better road makes it easier for motorcycles and cars to get in and out of here. That means we can more easily sell our harvest, and it will be easier when someone needs to go to the clinic, like a pregnant woman,” said participant Jacques Hirlaire Garisson.

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Story by Paul Jeffrey

Port-au-Prince, October 4, 2017 – When Hurricane Matthew slammed into Haiti one year ago today, it destroyed crops and houses and killed as many as 1600 people throughout the Caribbean island nation. Yet for survivors in communities where the ACT Alliance partners with local groups to support reconstruction, the anguish of the storm is slowing giving way to a more resilient future.

“I feel safe at home now,” said Christiana Herard, a 69-year old woman in Djondgon, a village near Jean-Rabel in northwestern Haiti. “When the hurricane hit here last year our mud walls just shook and then finally crumbled. We fled to the church, and we ended up living there for three months. Then we moved into a temporary shelter under a tarp, but at the end of April we moved into our new house. It has cement walls, so if another storm comes I’m not scared of what will happen.”

Herard’s home was built with support from Church World Service, one of several members of the ACT Alliance that works in Haiti. For years CWS has supported local efforts in the drought-plagued Northwest to help farmers improve soil fertility and crop yields while producing a healthier variety of foods. It’s a long term commitment in a region where poverty and environmental degradation have left communities extremely vulnerable to disasters.

Supporting community-based solutions is slow work, says Margot DeGreef, the country representative for CWS, but it yields better results in the long run. “Some NGOs come here after a storm and hand out roofing to thousands of families, and then claim they have helped a huge number of people,” she said. “We’re building 81 houses in the Northwest, but they are sturdy and resilient houses. The families that live in them won’t have any problems during the next hurricane.”

When Hurricane Matthew hit, life in Ganthier still wasn’t back to normal after being ravaged by the 2010 earthquake. Servicio Social de las Iglesias Dominicanas, another ACT Alliance member, has worked in several poor villages in the area since coming to Haiti from the neighboring Dominican Republic in the days after the quake. It is building over 350 houses for Matthew survivors, but a lot of its effort is devoted to disaster risk reduction–helping poor residents lower their vulnerability to the frequent natural hazards that torment the area.

SSID has trained 25 youth as first responders, equipping them with jackets, boots, tools, ropes, megaphones, shovels, lamps–everything they might need in a crisis. The group’s main focus is on prevention, including spreading the alarm that people need to evacuate from high-risk areas. During Hurricane Matthew they put their newly acquired skills to the test, pulling people from flooded houses and overflowing rivers.

Members of the ACT Haiti Forum including CWS and SSID continue to be present in Ganthier, Djondgon and many other communities, working with residents to rebuild, become more resilient, and improve their lives.

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Story by Paul Jeffrey

Nations and communities in the Caribbean are yet to come to terms with the actual losses, damages, and suffering that Hurricanes Irma, Maria and others have wrought. The increasing intensity and frequency of hurricanes in some areas of the region and droughts in others have increased the vulnerability of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Hurricane Irma made landfall in Cuba as a category 5 storm, lashing the country for 72 hours, causing flooding in the north coast. As a result, the extent of the damage suffered by Cuba has been the worst experienced in 100 years.

The increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as Hurricanes Irma and Maria, confirms that climate change is indeed occurring and that its impacts will continue to affect lives and livelihoods, disproportionately affecting the vulnerable. The losses and damages resulting from the changing climate are well beyond the capacities of vulnerable nations and communities to handle. Urgent and comprehensive measures must be put in place to support them.

The developing countries and small island states of the Caribbean have had very little responsibility for causing climate change, yet are faced with the most severe impacts of this global phenomenon. The same can be said of island states in the Pacific facing typhoons, or nations in the Horn of Africa facing drought.

The reality of a disproportionate burden posed by climate change makes it necessary to undertake a comprehensive approach to resilience, beginning with addressing Hurricanes Irma, and Maria to name the most current. Such an approach must combine climate change adaptation and mitigation, emergency preparedness and response, disaster risk reduction along with long term transformative development. Developed countries should contribute to the financing of these efforts in accordance with the principles and commitments of the Paris Agreement and the climate Convention.

ACT Alliance believes that a climate resilient approach, coupled with disaster risk reduction and sustainability, drawn from existing global frameworks including the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for DRR and Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development will help us to understand and be better equipped to face not only hurricanes, but the collective burden of climate change.

As a faith based network, we believe that a testimony of accompaniment to individuals and communities working together to protect the lives of people and the environment from a resilience approach must have at its core the restoration of the faith and hope in people and communities. Therefore, in ACT Alliance, we find it necessary to strengthen our prophetic voice in advocacy and actions to create greater awareness and understanding of climate resilient sustainable development in communities. We continue to encourage and accompany the advocacy efforts of our members, forums and communities as they hold policy holders and decision makers to account.

A key message in our advocacy efforts is for those most responsible for contributing to climate change, who also happen to have a greater capacity and access to resources to respond, to take the necessary measures to comply with the Paris Agreement, especially with regard to substantially financing climate action in vulnerable countries and particularly for adaptation measures and losses and damages. The upcoming UNFCCC COP23 must make significant steps towards this goal.

On our part as ACT Alliance, together with our partners in the ecumenical movement, we commit ourselves to reinforce our humanitarian, development and advocacy work and to promote innovative ways to enable multi-sectoral efforts to address climate change.

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Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, ACT Alliance General Secretary

Read more about the ACT response to the Hurricane Irma here
Photo gallery of the response in Cuba here

Geneva, 22 Sep 2017 – ACT Alliance joined with other NGOs today in presenting a statement at the UNHCR Standing Committee session.  The statement calls upon governments in the Global North to be more active in addressing the global refugee crisis and emphasizes the importance of civil society participation and inputs from the regions in the formulation of the Global Compact on Refugees.  The NGOs’ statement praises the progress in implementing the UNHCR’s Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) in Africa and Latin America.

The consultations for a Global Compact on Refugees are a direct outcome of last year’s summit on large movements of refugees and migrants at the UN General Assembly, which resulted in the New York Declaration.  This declaration committed states to develop a Global Compact on Refugees and a Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. ACT Alliance, the largest protestant and orthodox network engaged in humanitarian, development and advocacy work in the world, has been at the forefront of coordinating global advocacy from its members and faith-based allies, as well as ensuring representation of inputs from regional and national levels.

“The New York Declaration was a landmark for stepping up global efforts to protect refugees,” said Susan Muis, Regional Program Coordinator for Central Africa at the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), an ACT Alliance member, who delivered the NGO statement. “We are using opportunities like the Standing Committee to remind states of the commitments they made last year, and to track progress in the implementation of practical measures. Currently, we are seeing a continued pattern of less developed countries of first asylum providing most of the desperately needed assistance to large numbers of displaced people, while others are looking on. This is a worrying trend which needs to be broken if we want to achieve meaningful responsibility sharing in next year’s Global Compact.”

ACT Alliance has a strong presence on the ground in Ethiopia, Somalia, Guatemala and other African and Latin American countries where pilot programmes are feeding into the CRRF process.  ACT fully endorses the NGO statement, which noted the pilot programmes’ contribution to legal reforms allowing refugees greater freedom of movement and access to education, work, and services, most notably in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. However, the statement also highlighted the “pronounced regional imbalance […] in the design and implementation of the CRRF framework, which continues to focus on less-developed countries of first asylum.”, and called upon developed states to assume greater responsibilities for refugee protection in order to ensure a truly comprehensive response.

The statement commends UNHCR’s efforts to include refugee voices in the process, and further indicates that “NGOs are willing to work alongside UNHCR to make sure [refugees’] voices are meaningfully heard, including by providing space and support for refugee leaders and refugee-led organizations to effectively contribute.”

The UNHCR Standing Committee meetings are convened in Geneva three times a year, examining thematic issues, as well as UNHCR’s activities and programmes regionally and globally. They are attended by member states and other stakeholders, including NGOs active in refugee protection around the world. The International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), of which ACT Alliance is a member, is a network for increased collaboration and coordination between NGOs and other humanitarian actors. ICVA coordinates the drafting of statements through a wide consultation with NGOs. Those statements are delivered at UNHCR events such as the Standing and Executive Committee meetings and aim to reflect the diversity of views within the NGO community.

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CONTACT: Simon Chambers, Head of Communications, ACT Alliance – Simon.chambers@actalliance.org +1-647-939-5758

Hurricane Irma hit the shores of Cuba on September 7, a category 5 storm with sustained winds of 295kph.   For four days, Irma battered the north coast of Cuba. 2,000,000 people fled to shelters, churches, or the homes of relatives and neighbours.  9 metre waves swept inland, contaminating fresh water sources, destroying crops, homes and businesses.  Coastal dunes, forests, fruit trees, granaries, health centres, schools, markets, bridges and roads were all heavily damaged or destroyed.  Power and communications went down and remain down in many communities.  10 people lost their lives.

The ACT Cuba Forum is responding to the widespread humanitarian need, targeting 20 municipalities in 10 provinces in a $2.5 million USD appeal which will bring water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), food, shelter, livelihood recovery, and psychosocial support to 20,000 households, reaching 100,000 Cubans.

“Teams of volunteers and staff from the Cuban Council of Churches are on the ground now, conducting initial assessments and coordinating with local churches and governments,” said Carlos Rauda, ACT Alliance’s Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean.  “They are already providing water and sanitation, especially to the elderly, and psychosocial support to children.  The Council of Churches has a presence throughout the country, and is ready to carry out the necessary relief work.”

The ACT Appeal, will help 800 families to repair the roofs of their homes, provide household supplies to 3000 families, 4100 households will receive food, 5000 households will receive hygiene kits and awareness raising about good hygiene practices, 2250 households will have access to clean water through community water systems, 500 households will have support in restoring their livelihoods, and 20,000 households will receive psychosocial support in coping with the trauma of the experience of Hurricane Irma.

The ACT Forum will coordinate with community and church leadership, local governments, the national government as well as the UN Network (including national and international organisations responding to the emergency).

The full ACT Concept Note is available here.

ACT members in the Dominican Republic and Haiti are also responding to the damage caused by Irma in their countries, although both countries were spared a direct hit by the storm.

Prospéry Raymond, country manager for ACT member Christian Aid in Haiti and Dominican Republic said: “The people of Dominican Republic and Haiti are resilient and experience hurricanes every year. We were preparing for the worst possible scenario, but thankfully we escaped the eye of the storm and damage has not been as severe as we feared. If the rain continues, there are risks of landslides in the coming days in some of the areas affected…

“We are working with our partners to assess the needs of the most severely affected communities in the coming days and will then determine what support they need, but flooded roads mean getting aid to remote communities could be challenging.”

Both the Haiti and Dominican Republic Forums will be supported by the ACT Rapid Response Fund for their work in providing relief to those affected by Hurricane Irma.

In the months following the December 2013 political conflict, violence raged in some parts of South Sudan and not in others. In the northwestern city of Wau, for example, residents watched from afar, seemingly unconcerned that the politically-manipulated ethnic violence could spread there. And then it did. The victims ran for the city’s churches.

“It wasn’t safe anywhere, but people said that if they were going to be killed, they preferred to be killed in the church because this is the place that Jesus is present. They wanted to die in the church rather than die in their homes,” said Father Germano Bernardo, a Catholic priest in Wau.

Although tensions had been building for months, intense fighting broke out in June 2016 between soldiers of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, who are mostly members of the dominant Dinka tribe, and a mixture of local opposition groups and members of other ethnic communities. Civilians rushed to the city’s churches and a nearby United Nations base.

More than 400 people were killed and over 120,000 displaced in the initial phase, leaving churches, aid groups and United Nations agencies scrambling to respond. The churches got help from the ACT Alliance and other groups.

ACT members in South Sudan continue to provide food, water, household items, livelihood support and more to tens of thousands of displaced people in South Sudan.

Sporadic fighting around the city continued into this year, pushing more civilians out of their homes. In January, for example, a group of government-affiliated cattle keepers attacked local farmers they believe are aligned with anti-government rebels, and thousands fled neighbouring villages for the safety of Wau’s churches.

In April, after two high-ranking army officers were killed in an ambush nearby, SPLA soldiers and Dinka militia members rampaged through Wau, murdering and robbing non-Dinkas. The United Nations said at least 16 people were killed; other local sources reported double that number. Another 8,000 people were displaced.

Wau has long been a centre of tension between pastoralists and farmers. Violence between the two groups led to the displacement of thousands in 1996, but most returned home within a few days. Yet the current crisis, like many local conflicts in the world’s newest nation, has been exacerbated by the broader political crisis centred in Juba, the nation’s capital.

Catholic leaders played a key role in mediating the 1996 crisis in Wau, led by Bishop Rudolf Deng Majak. Yet Bishop Deng, who died in Germany in March, had been sick for some time and living outside the country. The bishop kept in touch by phone throughout the crisis with Father Bernardo, yet Anne Masterson, the country representative of Norwegian Church Aid, an ACT Alliance member, says things might have been different had he been present.

“He had been the priest of some of these military commanders and knew everyone. So perhaps people felt a bit lost without him. His absence may have allowed some of the clan divisions to be manipulated for political purposes, something the bishop had worked all his life to prevent,” she said.

In Bishop Deng’s absence, the South Sudan Council of Churches mounted a local peace initiative, with strong support from Norwegian Church Aid.

The church council pushed for face-to-face meetings between all parties, finally pulling together a three-day workshop of civil society leaders with government and military officials in December. Those in power made promises, which church leaders say they either didn’t keep, or local officials were replaced by the central government with people who had no interest in honouring the commitments of their predecessors.

According to the Rev Bang Akuei, the regional director for the South Sudan Council of Churches, government officials did try to mitigate the violence by mounting a campaign for civilians to turn in weapons. Yet the same day it convinced a group of cattle keepers to hand over their assault rifles, a large number of cattle were stolen from them. In the wake of the cattle raid, few listened to the government’s appeal to disarm.

And so the displaced wait.

“I’m a university graduate but I’ve been sitting in this camp for almost a year,” said William George, a resident of the cathedral camp. “This morning I didn’t eat anything. Nor did my children. If I had $100, I’d leave for Egypt or somewhere else, anywhere other than here. My house was burned and all my things were taken. There’s no future here because there’s no accountability. They can kill someone and there’s no response, no judgment.”

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Written by Paul Jeffrey

Not everything happens for good reason. The devastating floods triggered by unceasing rains in the second week of August 2017 spelled a disaster in the life of Bale Nepali, a resident of Bhajani municipality in Kailali. The flood not only destroyed his house and peanut farm but also swept away cattle and chickens, rendering his six-member family starving and homeless.

“The floods came early in the morning and it changed our normal life to a tragedy,” says Nepali, who lives near the Pathariya River. “While we were trying to escape, the flood water came in through the door of my house,” he says.

Nepali was one of the recipients of ACT member LWF Nepal’s relief package in Bharthaha village of Bhajani Municipality. LWF provided relief to 123 flood-affected families in the village. They were given beaten rice, instant noodle, water, rice and pulse.  The people had been starved for more than 3 days.

As of August 22, 2017, LWF Nepal has provided immediate relief to a total of 574 flood-affected families in Morang, Jhapa and Kailali districts. LWF Nepal has reached 258 flood-affected families in Jhapa and 210 households in Kailali and 106 families in Morang districts with relief packages that included food, kitchen utensil sets, blankets and urgent clothing items. LWF Nepal and its implementing partner in coordination with District Disaster Relief Committee (DDRC) provided the relief materials.

ACT Members’ Response

Members of ACT Alliance Nepal Forum have been responding to the humanitarian crisis in different districts. Dan Church Aid (DCA) has been providing relief package that include food, tarpaulins and mosquito nets to flood-hit people in Saptari and Bardiya districts. Most importantly, DCA deployed its staff in Saptari immediately after the flood and partnered with local radio to produce and broadcast information on the flood.

Lutheran World Relief (LWR) has provided food items to 2,376 families in Bardiya and Nawalparasi districts while Christian Aid has been distributing non-food items to flood victims in Bardiya, Banke and Dang. Similarly, ICCO Cooperation has been providing food items to 600 families in Rautahat district.

Quick and Timely Response

Members of ACT Alliance in Nepal have responded to the emergency immediately. People in Jhapa Rural Municipality (RM) in Jhapa district responded that LWF Nepal was the first organization to reach to their village with relief materials. “LWF Nepal and its implementing partners, which have been working on Disaster Risk Reduction and Livelihood promotion in the village, reached first,” says Jaya Narayan Shah, chairperson of the RM.

Similarly, DCA reached to flood affected area in Saptari immediately and it partnered with a local radio to produce and broadcast information on the flood. The radio program was effective to disseminate the information to the affected communities and to collaborate with other agencies working in the district,” says Cecial Adhikari, Program Manager-Recovery Program in DCA. 

ACT Members Plan Joint Response

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), the flood has killed 143 people and injured 43 and 30 have gone missing. There has been a huge loss of property particularly the stock food grains, standing crops, seeds, livestock, poultry and fish whose accurate data is yet to come.

According to the MoHA, as of Tuesday, around 80,000 houses have been completely destroyed and 144,444 partially damaged. As per the initial reports received from the affected districts, 75 schools in Banke, 58 in Bardiya, 2 in Dang, 20 in Saptari, 178 in Parsa, 37 schools and 5 madrasas in Dhanusha, and 8 Early Childhood Development (ECD) centers in Chitwan have been damaged.

ACT Alliance Nepal forum is developing a joint plan to respond to the humanitarian crisis. “Considering the devastation in 18 affected districts in the southern part of Nepal, ACT Alliance is devising a joint plan to support affected population,” says Dr Prabin Manandhar, Country Director of LWF Nepal and Convener of ACT Alliance Nepal Forum.

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Story written by Umesh Pokharel/LWF Nepal