Top stories from DAWNS Digest
Final Arms Trade Treaty Text Hits Last Minute Snag. But Will Be Adopted Very Soon!
An unholy alliance of North Korea, Iran and Syria blocked universal consensus on the final draft text of the Arms Trade Treaty, so the text will go to a vote at the UN General Assembly next week where it is expected to be overwhelmingly approved. “Today is not success, it is success deferred, and deferred for not very long,” said the UK representative to the treaty negotiations. (Reuters
Looting Hits Humanitarian Agencies in CAR
“The warehouses of the U.N. World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Bangui were not raided, she added. But some stocks have been looted from the warehouse of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the offices and facilities of many other aid agencies have been pillaged, and vehicles stolen. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its supplies and staff residences had suffered looting, and called for it to cease.” (AlertNet http://bit.ly/YhXMMX)
OCHA Report: Humanitarianism in the Networked Age
A fascinating new report takes a look at how social media is informing (or not!) humanitarian relief operations. “The report imagines how a world of increasingly informed, connected and self-reliant communities will affect the delivery of humanitarian aid. Its conclusions suggest a fundamental shift in power from capitals and headquarters to the people aid agencies aim to assist…It calls for more diverse and bottom-up forms of decision-making—something that most Governments and humanitarian organizations were not designed for…This report focuses on organizations that are embracing these changes and reorienting their approaches around the essential objective of helping people to help themselves.” (OCHA http://bit.ly/16kX9ns)