Apologies for cross-posting
Dear colleagues,
The Wits Forced Migration Studies Programme, supported by Oxfam GB, has
completed an evaluation of the humanitarian response following the
xenophobic attacks in South Africa in May 2008. The report is the most
comprehensive evaluation conducted to date, including both Gauteng and
Western Cape Provinces.
This report has three main aims:
* To provide a comprehensive record, as far as possible, of the disaster
response by government and civil society actors, linking the experiences
of many disparate organisations and integrating these experiences from
the perspective of an overall disaster response ‘sector’, thereby
identifying complimentary and clashing institutional roles, provision
gaps, and coordination and communication needs;
* To act as a reference work, in tandem with existing humanitarian
standards documents such as the Sphere Handbook, for South African
disaster management practitioners on common problems to be avoided and
factors to take into account in relation to material welfare provision,
personal welfare provision, and protection as well as accountability,
coordination and communication structures;
* To provide a basis for continued discussion among disaster response
actors in government and civil society towards the development of robust
communication and coordination processes and structures for disaster
preparedness and response in South Africa.
For non-South African readers and readers interested in humanitarian
assistance more generally, the report documents an example of a domestic
humanitarian response in a context of potential civil society and
government capacity, but in the absence of effective coordination
mechanisms and experience. It therefore provides an interesting case
study for the relevance of humanitarian coordination and communication.
The attachments include the full report (187 pages, with easily
navigable chapters and sections) and a separate shorter document with
only the executive summary and recommendations. Both reports can be
found on our website (www.migration.org.za), where there is also a
downloadable narrative description of the humanitarian response as it
unfolded in Gauteng and Western Cape.
Please feel free to circulate the report among your colleagues.
If you have comments on the report, we look forward to hearing from you.
Please contact Tara Polzer at [log in to unmask]
With best wishes,
Tara Polzer and Vicki Igglesden
Tara Polzer
Researcher
Forced Migration Studies Programme
University of the Witwatersrand
Email: [log in to unmask]
General Contact Details for Forced Migration Studies Programme
PO Box 76, 2050 WITS, South Africa
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://migration.org.za
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