The Cuny Center has developed analysis, curriculum, training seminars and briefings relating to various aspects of humanitarian assistance, disaster management, emergency response and related topics. Below is a listing of past and current Cuny Center activities and publications. Please be sure to check the Publication pages to find downloadable documents and more information on Cuny Center activities.
The Humanitarian Times
Date:
Current
Partners:
ReliefWeb, Congressional Hunger Center
Publications:
The Humanitarian Times
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
Steve Hansch
Description:
Research and reporting on current humanitarian issues through the electronic mail publication, The Humanitarian Times.
Preparedness Training
Date:
Current
Publications:
Preparedness Training
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
Casey Barrs
Description:
In the past fifteen years of humanitarian operations, countless civilians have violently died after aid organizations were separated from them. The toll includes local staff and partners we worked with and beneficiaries we worked for. The humanitarian tactical training paper cites the circumstances under which we become separated from each other and then describes a training that can help brace civilians for the violence they may one day face alone.
There are many deadly junctures in the aid enterprise when we are unable to continue our programs, transfer our work to nationals safely, guarantee our safe havens or asylums, enforce truces , support protection for repatriation, or prevent the slide from post-conflict back to conflict. With the regularity of these backslides, we need to develop policies and methodologies to help empower beneficiaries to survive and local staff and partners to continue service. Since we often lack the capacity to prevent these things from happening tomorrow, this paper describes how we can support local capacity and readiness today.
Tactical training consists of local capacity-building components in three areas: security, economics, and service. The components are optional building blocks of a training decided upon by aid agencies, beneficiary leaders, local staff, and partners. Consideration for training design include the proposed setting , topics, and choice of pedagogy. The training can draw subject matter expertise in unconventional security from the private sector in ways consistent with our civilian character and in emergency livelihoods from applied academia. The training promotes close coordination between expatriate and local co-trainers and promotes a training of trainers and warden network to further its reach and provide a lasting operational structure.
Security training components include best practices in information management, communications, safe movement, encampment and threat response. The paper describes what skills this may comprise, how those skills mesh with classic civilian security tactics, and aid community precedents for teaching such skills to locals.
Economic training components cover "stripping, converting and transferring" family assets before belligerents take or destroy them. This may include documenting, dispersing, caching, diversifying, dismantling, liquidating, or redeeming assets and preemptively moving them to one's trusted support networks. All of these steps can be reversed after conflict has passed. This component may also cover how to protect lending and remittance networks and safely cultivate subsistence livelihoods and shadow markets.
Service training components offer local staff and partners ways to build more conflict resistant services. They may include the security best practices cited above, outsourcing, and lowering service profile, as well as dispersing staff, supplies, and beneficiaries. The paper cites a range of precedents in these techniques, many of which are innovations from our local staff and partners.
Whether we are leaving them or they are leaving us, this paper focuses on tactical preparations that support the civilians' own inclinations and abilities to face violence alone.
There are many deadly junctures in the aid enterprise when we are unable to continue our programs, transfer our work to nationals safely, guarantee our safe havens or asylums, enforce truces , support protection for repatriation, or prevent the slide from post-conflict back to conflict. With the regularity of these backslides, we need to develop policies and methodologies to help empower beneficiaries to survive and local staff and partners to continue service. Since we often lack the capacity to prevent these things from happening tomorrow, this paper describes how we can support local capacity and readiness today.
Tactical training consists of local capacity-building components in three areas: security, economics, and service. The components are optional building blocks of a training decided upon by aid agencies, beneficiary leaders, local staff, and partners. Consideration for training design include the proposed setting , topics, and choice of pedagogy. The training can draw subject matter expertise in unconventional security from the private sector in ways consistent with our civilian character and in emergency livelihoods from applied academia. The training promotes close coordination between expatriate and local co-trainers and promotes a training of trainers and warden network to further its reach and provide a lasting operational structure.
Security training components include best practices in information management, communications, safe movement, encampment and threat response. The paper describes what skills this may comprise, how those skills mesh with classic civilian security tactics, and aid community precedents for teaching such skills to locals.
Economic training components cover "stripping, converting and transferring" family assets before belligerents take or destroy them. This may include documenting, dispersing, caching, diversifying, dismantling, liquidating, or redeeming assets and preemptively moving them to one's trusted support networks. All of these steps can be reversed after conflict has passed. This component may also cover how to protect lending and remittance networks and safely cultivate subsistence livelihoods and shadow markets.
Service training components offer local staff and partners ways to build more conflict resistant services. They may include the security best practices cited above, outsourcing, and lowering service profile, as well as dispersing staff, supplies, and beneficiaries. The paper cites a range of precedents in these techniques, many of which are innovations from our local staff and partners.
Whether we are leaving them or they are leaving us, this paper focuses on tactical preparations that support the civilians' own inclinations and abilities to face violence alone.
LLAMA
Date:
May 2003
Publications:
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
Casey Barrs
Description:
Outlines the needs and an approach to providing assistance to endangered people in cases where the international community can not be present (generally for security reasons) using low-cost, low-profile, and locally-driven mechanisms.
Current and Potential Humanitarian Issues in Iraq
Date:
February 2003
Funded by:
USAID/Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance
Publications:
- “Manipulation of Food rationing System”
- “The Marshes of Southern Iraq”
- “Arabization of Kirkuk”
- “Manipulation of Water and Sanitation”
- Compact Disk: Humanitarian
Background
Information:
Information:
Iraq - February 2003
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
John Fawcett, Kim Maynard, Vic Tanner, Tara Aziz, Mike Hess, Rick Hill
Description:
Workshops, papers, compact disk outlining the current and probable humanitarian issues given a potential invasion of Iraq.
Course on How to Evaluate Humanitarian Action
Date:
January 2003
Partners:
InterWorks, Johns Hopkins’ School for Advanced International Studies
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
Kim Maynard and Steve Hansch
Description:
A two and a half-day course based on training modules developed by InterWorks for ALNAP seeking to improve the effectiveness of the evaluation process within the humanitarian sector.
Research on military/civilian capabilities in humanitarian response.
Date:
March 2002
Funded by:
Department of Defense
Partners:
InterWorks, Anser, Hobe Corporation
Publications:
“Greater Efficiency in Humanitarian Assistance Operations”
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
Paul Thompson, Steve Hansch, Vic Tanner, John Zavales with Les Roberts.
Description:
Compares US military and civilian aid agency capabilities and limitations in several functional areas of humanitarian relief with a view to identifying which tasks suit which actors.
Linking Peacebuilding to Short-term Programming
Date:
December 2002
Funded by:
United States Institute of Peace
Publications:
“Linking Peacebuilding to Short-term Programming”
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
Kimberly A. Maynard
Description:
Investigates how three international nongovernmental organizations attempt to overcome the fast-paced, short-term nature of funding and programming in conflict and emergency situations and instill a deliberate, long-term perspective toward sustainable peace.
Makerere University College of Health Sciences
Date:
February 2002
Funded by:
Rockefeller Foundation, Health Equity
Partners:
Makerere University, Uganda
Publications:
Makerere University Prospectus, College of Health Sciences
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
Cole Dodge
Description:
Establishment of a College of Health Sciences to improve the health delivery services and training and teaching capacity of Uganda to address urgent health needs such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola, malaria, and tuberculosis.
Conference on Practical Protection of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons
Date:
December 2001
Funded by:
The Hemispheric Migration Project of the Center for Immigration Policy and Refugee Assistance at Georgetown University, International Program of the American Red Cross
Publications:
"NGOs and Practical Protection in Humanitarian Crises" by Susan F. Martin and Elizabeth Moller, http://www.odihpn.org/report.asp?ReportID=2493
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
Diane Paul
Description:
Presentation at the conference on Cuny Center research on practical protection.
Capacity Building Conference
Date:
1999
Funded by:
Rockefeller Foundation
Partners:
Makerere University, Uganda
Publications:
Book summary of conference
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
Cole Dodge
Description:
Conference on post-conflict transition, emergency vulnerabilities, participatory development, and capacity building for stabilization in Uganda, Sudan, and Somalia.
Study on Field based Strategies for the Protection of Civilians Under Threat
Date:
1995-1998
Funded by:
West Foundation, private donors
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
Diane Paul
Description:
The study examined practical options for protecting civilians threatened with violence and abuse in complex emergencies, building on field based and field directed research conducted by the Cuny Center researchers in Bosnia and Croatia.
Roundtable on Field based Strategies for the Protection of Civilians Under Threat
Date:
1995
Funded by:
Jacob Blaustein Institute for Human Rights
Partners:
Jacob Blaustein Institute for Human Rights
Publications:
“Beyond Monitoring and Reporting: The Protection of Civilians under Threat” and “The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in Protection”
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
Diane Paul
Description:
The roundtable discussion among experts vetted two papers on practical protection for civilians threatened with violence, resulting in the two publications.
Study on Refugee Repatriation During Conflict
Date:
1995
Funded by:
Ford Foundation
Partners:
Support and collaboration from the Hemispheric Migration Project of the Center for Immigration Policy and Refugee Assistance at Georgetown University, Disaster Research Unit at the University of Manitoba, the Refugee Studies Programme of Oxford University, the Canadian International Development Agency, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the Office of the United Nationals High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, and the Refugee Bureau of the US Department of State.
Publications:
Refugee Repatriation During Conflict, Repatriation Under Conflict in Central America, and Repatriation During Conflict in Africa and Asia
Primary Cuny Center
Researchers:
Researchers:
Fred Cuny, Barry Stein, Mary Ann Larkin, Pat Reed, Patricia Weiss Fagen with John Rogge, John Sorenson, Barbara Hendrie, and Mark Hogan
Description:
A review of refugee repatriation patterns during conflict through examination of case studies in Africa, Asia, and Central America.