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During the last videos,
we have seen the extent and nature of the impact of
the deprivation of urban services during times of armed conflicts.
There is a need for remove from traditional assistance paradigm to one that takes
account of the longer term realities and needs
in urban areas affected by ongoing armed conflict.
In this video, we like you to suggest a way forward to best
meet the challenges and to ensure
the right response in the right place at the right time.
The main objective is to stimulate the discussion on the relevance of
humanitarian response to essential urban services disruption in protracted conflict.
The challenge of maintaining essential services in urban contexts subject
to protracted armed conflict is conceptualized here.
The figure shows that the quality of the service or number of residents covered decreased
cumulatively and progressively over time as a result of direct and indirect impact.
The impact on residents increased exponentially over time.
The duration of this challenge should be taken into account in the humanitarian response,
as well as the scale of the challenge.
Indeed, infrastructure is so complex in large cities that
the restoration of part of it can
immediately benefit several hundred thousands of people,
but the option is often too costly for municipalities and
humanitarian agencies that are geared to more traditional emergency responses.
For instance, in case of damage to water supply infrastructure,
typically, relief response, such as water trucking to schools and IDP camps,
take no account of the rebirth needed to
the municipal network and critical infrastructure,
which are essential to ensure service delivery
not only for household but also for the emergency response themself.
However, distinctions between the stages of
relief rehabilitation development response are not necessary relevant in urban context.
Multiple types of program may be required simultaneously in the same city.
For instance, in 2010 in Baghdad,
the ICRC intervention covers the full spectrum.
Large hospital and wastewater infrastructure rehabilitation project
were established to support the government's long-term development plan,
alongside Basie continents of existing health and water facilities,
which could be labelled reconstruction and water trucking
programs to informal settlements of IDPs a typical relief activity.
Interconnectivity between essential services need to be understood and properly
integrated into the humanitarian response in order to avoid counter-productive effects.
For instance, in this picture, retrofitting
the broken water supply network to this quarter without addressing
the damaged sewage evacuation network would increase the exposure of
the population to public health risks by causing sewage to spill over into the streets.
Essential services rely on three critical components: people, hardware and consumable.
Experience tends to show that of all the three components of an essential service,
people maybe the most crucial.
Effective partnership with local authorities and
service providers become indispensable in complex urban environments,
much more than for rural areas,
where people can organize themselves around less sophisticated services.
It is widely accepted that including beneficiaries in the conception,
implementation and management is vital to the effectiveness,
as well as to the sustainability of any intervention.
However, community involvement in
urban areas is very different from the common understanding based on rural experience.
Working with local people to repair or rehabilitate
the essential services in urban contexts also pose some particular challenges.
Humanitarian assistance should not focus only on community-based approach assistance.
It is arguably more beneficial to restore water to an entire neighborhood by repairing,
for instance, the transmission line than to assist household-level coping mechanism.
International Humanitarian Law, IHL,
offers the degree of protection.
However, while IHL protects
all service component from the direct impact of armed conflict,
there are specific challenges arising from
its interpretation and application in urban warfare.
In particular, the extent to which IHL provides protection
against the indirect or cumulative impact of hostilities on essential services.
The ICRC is actively seeking to address some of these challenges,
in particular, through its role on the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
Donors should reconsider the funding scams to
ensure that they match the scale and duration of the challenge.
Relief, rehabilitation and development efforts will be much
more expensive and take far longer if humanitarian agencies,
in coordination with local service providers,
are unable to mitigate the consequences of indirect and cumulative effects.
12-month funding designed for disaster relief of very short conflicts are not
adequate to stabilize or restore essential urban services in protracted armed conflicts.
To appropriately address the complexity of
essential urban services during protracted armed conflict,
larger budgets that cover a longer period are needed.
Finally, more research needs to be conducted on the impact
of disruptions to urban services on people's lives over time.
One priority area is the need to gain an understanding
of all disruption to services affect people's livelihood,
food security, human security and health.
Many humanitarian agencies have programs targeting
the direct impact of this destruction but not
the indirect or cumulative impact on
the broader nexus of interrelated humanitarian issues of concern.
I hope that this video has helped you to have a much needed discussion on how to develop
a better approach to assisting people in
urban areas that have been affected by protracted armed conflict.
If you like to know more details on the topic,
you can read this ICRC publication,
which combines current research with
over three decades of ICRC experience in urban areas.
Now, in order to summarize
these three videos on urban services during protracted conflict,
let's watch this short animation.
Christoph LüthiDr.
Javier Cordoba
