Browse by Theme: Advocacy

This week, days on from the #SupportingSyrians Conference, and like everyone else, I watched the news to see the devastation caused as Syrian regime and Russian airstrikes rained down on civilians in the Aleppo region and 35,000 people fled to the border with Turkey. Ten billion dollars pledged by world leaders, yet where are these leaders as Syrians cry out for protection from the violence? In the words of one Syrian activist last week, “What use is funding if the sieges prevent aid reaching those trapped inside and starving to death? What use is funding if our health clinics are bombed to the ground? What use is support for schools if barrel bombs fall on our children?”

Getting your first job in the development sector can be a hard nut to crack, writes Marco Bartholdy. Here is why I took up an internship in CARE International UK’s Policy and Advocacy team and this is what I learnt from six months on the inside of a large International NGO.

You spend half the year waiting for the government’s strategy on aid and conflict, and then two come along at once. On Monday 23 November, the government released both the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) and its Aid Review, which together laid out the strategic aims of UK hard and soft power (including development) as well as how funding would be allocated among priority areas. CARE has released a statement on the Aid review, but here are some thoughts on the SDSR, its strengths and areas for further inquiry.

Last Thursday 22nd October, over sixty people from diverse backgrounds joined a panel debate at CARE International’s 70th anniversary exhibition in London to discuss lessons learned from the humanitarian and wider response to the global refugee crisis.

Guest blog by Nelson Muffuh from the UN's Post-2015 Development Planning Unit: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was successfully adopted in September in New York by an unprecedented number of world leaders, and this is a huge achievement in the face of extensive negotiations and contributions from civil society and other stakeholders.

I’ve been privileged to join the final World Humanitarian Summit Regional Consultation in South and Central Asia this week in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and all in all it has been a mixed bag.

One year on from the Global Summit in London on ending sexual violence in conflict, it is right to ask tough questions about its value and the benefit to survivors of violence in countries like the DRC. However, the Summit was never about finishing the job in one go, and numerous initiatives are taking forward the momentum generated last year.