LWR recently released a 2015 “Early Warning Forecast” of regions to watch and why. The regions highlighted in the report are ones LWR is actively monitoring.
Many of these regions are also places where, with your support, LWR is already in-country, working to help communities mitigate the worst effects of potential crises by developing disaster response plans and strengthening resilience, especially in the most vulnerable rural areas.
Here’s where we’re watching
- Indonesia, where more than a third of the population (76+ million people) depends on agriculture for income, which could be destroyed by coastal flooding due to rising sea-waters, land-damaging earthquakes or another tsunami.
- Nepal, where are melting glacial ice in the Himalayas, causing increased downstream flooding and deforestation is also raising the risk and potential effects of flash floods and landslides.
- Philippines, whose people are coping with the effects of three major storms in as many years.
- Iraq*, where armed conflict has escalated significantly with the rise of ISIS, displacing more than 2 million people and putting more than 5 million in need of humanitarian assistance to access such basic services as water and sanitation.
- Central America (Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua), where there have been two consecutive years of poor harvests due to rain irregularity, drought and leaf rust.
- Colombia where the issue of land rights for displaced farmers remains a key trigger point for human rights and economic justice.
- Sahel region (Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger) where the cumulative effect of repeated food and humanitarian crises, coupled with changing weather patterns has left more than 18 million people at risk of hunger.
- South Sudan where tens of thousands of people have died and 1.9 million have been displaced since conflict broke out in December 2013.
* LWR distributes material resources, including Quilts and Kits, in Iraq. LWR has active projects in all other regions.
Here’s how we’re already helping
We’re working with farmers like Maria, from El Salvador, who are seeing their coffee trees destroyed by a crop disease called la roya, or leaf rust. We’re helping farmers diversify their crops, so they have other means of supporting their families. (Photo Credit: Sean Hawkey)
We work with partners to help communities address the causes and reduce the impact of their vulnerability, and preserve development gains.
We do this through local staff, in partnership with community organizers, local and state governments and other organizations on the ground.
LWR serves as the Sphere focal point in the Philippines. After Typhoon Haiyan, LWR and local partners held trainings on these international humanitarian aid standards.
We share best practices with others in the international development community.
To help increase the overall quality of humanitarian assistance, we have shared key learnings on technical support, natural resource management, and sound management of rural communities’ physical assets in order to improve resilience and livelihoods.
We advocate for funding for locally-owned programs
LWR is advocating to decision-makers in Washington DC for a global food security policy which includes robust funding for locally-owned programs benefitting small-scale producers. While less than one percent of the federal budget goes toward poverty-focused relief and development, fiscal constraints and politics may put at risk this small but critical contribution.
Bosco Agufibo is a Community Knowledge Worker (CKW) in an LWR-supported coffee project in Uganda. CKWs are members of coffee communities who offer agricultural support and information to fellow farmers as a sustainable way to improve crops and incomes.
By strengthening local economies, assessing early warnings of future crises and establishing safety net systems that we so often take for granted in the U.S., we can help people around the world build and maintain their livelihoods while preparing them to weather future disasters. Thank you for your lasting partnership in this work!
To read more about the countries we’re watching, and what we’re doing to help, read our full Early Warning Report.