The CMAM Surge Approach has been developed by Concern Worldwide to help health systems more effectively deliver services for children with acute malnutrition. It is based on the observation that in many contexts the number of children seeking treatment for acute malnutrition tends to peak during certain months of the year. These seasonal ‘surges’ in […]

CHC is currently contracted by the System Enhancement for Transformative Health (SETH) project to support operational research in Western Kenya.  The SETH project’s objective is to improve the quality, availability and access to Maternal, New-born and Child health and nutrition services (MNCHN). A key component of the SETH project is to support the roll-out of […]

The Northern Rangelands Trust is a community conservancy membership organization, whose mission is to develop resilient community conservancies, which transform people’s lives, secure peace and conserve natural resources. This was a 4-year project which was to develop sustainable water supplies in 4 conservancies. The program’s aim was to implement a holistic water resource management strategy, […]

Mercy Corps was leading the implementation of Strengthening Community Capacity for Resilience and Growth components for a USAID funded Kenya Feed the Future Livestock Market Systems (LMS). This was to enable people, households and communities to escape poverty and chronic vulnerability and strengthen their resilience so they can do so sustainably. CHC’s specific objective was […]

BRCiS (Building Resilient Communities in Somalia), a  Humanitarian Consortium that takes a holistic approach to supporting Somali Communities in developing their capacity to resist and absorb minor shocks without undermining their ability to move out of poverty. CHC is working with BRCiS Consortium to ensure that through effective learning and adaptive management they challenge their […]

Climate change and resulting weather extremes threaten the lives of millions of children worldwide.  The security of water sources are increasingly threatened, investments in WASH infrastructure is lost & the lives of millions of children are at risk. The impacts of the 2017 drought in Kenya were exacerbated by the high proportion of non-functional rural […]

MAINTAINS (Maintaining Essential Services After Natural Disasters) MAINTAINS is focused on covariate shocks (those that affect a large proportion of the population simultaneously). These include shocks from natural hazards such as drought, cyclone, flooding, landslides, earthquakes etc. as well as health-related shocks such as disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics. The intended impact of the project […]

These projects were to help improve the understanding and analysis of households living in famine or famine-like conditions to enable improved prevention, mitigation and response. One of the challenges facing food security analysts across the region is accurately distinguishing household characteristics between different phases of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) tool. CHC’s role […]

To generate evidence from Kenya and Ethiopia on the key factors both technical & political that constrain data availability and independent analysis of famine and other extreme humanitarian emergencies and to identify examples of good practice in avoiding, overcoming or mitigating these constrains.

Oxford Policy Management (OPM) was commissioned by the Research, Evidence and Development Department (RED) within DFID to carry out the Maintaining Essential Services After Natural Disasters (Maintains) programme. Maintains is a cross-sectoral research programme cutting across education, health, social protection, nutrition, and water and sanitation in six countries, including looking at underpinning issues such as […]

The objective is to support the Global WASH Cluster (GWC) and UNICEF as cluster lead agency in the development of an International Phased Classification (IPC) system for the WASH humanitarian coordination platforms to fulfill their key functions of response planning in an evidence-driven manner.  The overall aim is to improve WASH response, with two specific […]

USAID’s Office of Food for Peace recently awarded funding to a Mercy Corps-led consortium of Kenyan and international partners for a 5-year Development Food Security Activity (DFSA) in Turkana and Samburu counties of Kenya. The NAWIRI program will be implemented through a phased approach that emphasizes learning, partnership, and co-creation with government, civil society, communities, […]

In March 2016, the Centre for Humanitarian Change (CHC) conducted the ‘Pastoralist Women and Water’ study as part of the REACH programme – a global research programme aiming to improve water security for the world’s poor. This study attempted to understand the ways in which women’s disempowerment contributes to water security risks.

It had been noted that women, despite being largely responsible for the burden of water collection, were often excluded from the decision-making process in regards to water supplies. The assumption therefore was that if women had a stronger voice in this process than the household’s water security would ultimately improve.

The Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) is a rural resource management organisation which has helped develop resilient community conservancies – promoting peace, transforming people’s lives and conserving natural resources. The Centre for Humanitarian Change (CHC) has embarked on a four-year project with NRT with the aim of improving the water resource management capabilities of these conservancies.

This project has become increasingly significant as the drought in the region worsens and puts increased strain on the resources of these communities – who currently have unreliable water access. These issues are exacerbated by the low capacity in county government and the short-term, reactive outlook of NGOs.  There has been a failure of community management as well as they do not have the required management, technical or financial skills.

January – December 2017. Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria This study considers the constraints on data collection and analysis in humanitarian emergencies and the effects this has on outcome recommendations. The reports uses four cases, Yemen, Somali , Nigeria and South Sudan, and suggests means of ensuring the independence and objectivity of data collection […]

Responding to the current crisis in South Sudan is one of the world’s most challenging humanitarian operations. The country has been unstable since its independence from Sudan in 2011, with conflict— primarily between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLA-IO)—driving insecurity. The conflict escalated in December 2013 and spiked again in July 2016. These increases led directly to displacement and a rapid deterioration in the food security, health, and nutritional status of the affected populations. In February 2017, theGovernment of the Republic of South Sudan (GRSS) declared a famine in two counties in Unity State, based on an analysis conducted by the Integrated Phase Classification Technical Working Group (IPCTWG).