The Observatorio Humanitario de América Latina & el Caribe (Humanitarian Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean) was created as part of the international research program “Humanitarian Governance: Alternatives, advocacy, accountability” of the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. This initiative led to the establishment of several regional humanitarian observatories focusing on the different dynamics of humanitarian governance in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia. The Observatory for Humanitarian Governance: Latin America and the Caribbean, has been constituted within the working agreement signed between the University of the Andes (Colombia) and the ISS (Netherlands). Convention within which the two institutions have coordinated and worked closely together. |
|
To know more about the project or the members please visit: |
|
|
SECOND YEAR OF THE OBSERVATORY |
|
|
|
|
The second year of the LAC Humanitarian Governance Observatory came with many new challenges and oppor-tunities. As the humanitarian dynamics change rapidly in the region and the world, it is challenging to keep pace with them, but also exiting. Thus, we are excited to share the second edition of the Sol-Ferino LAC newsletter, which aims to communicate what has been done in the Observatory in recent months.
In this issue we are pleased to share with you the observatory's vision, the work plan for this year, the main activities we have done so far, and give a warm welcome to the new members. We also want to keep the invi-tation open to observatory members and, in general, to interested people to nurture the bulletin with their contributions, research, articles and observations. As we want to encourage the co-creative nature of the Ob-servatory.
Warmly,
Juan Ricardo Aparicio, Laura Macías, Rodrigo Mena, y Gabriela Villacís Izquierdo |
|
|
First 2023 meeting:
planning and visioning |
|
|
|
|
On March 24, 2023, Los Andes university in Bogotá hosted the first meeting of the year of the Observatory. The hybrid event exceeded expectations, as it not only included the participation of active members of the Obser-vatory - who held important discussions regarding social, political, juridical, and cultural aspects of humanitari-an interventions-, but also included voices of many different people interested in the topic.
In November 2022, right after the launch of the LAC Humanitarian Governance Observatory, we concluded that it was imperative to arrange a meeting with all the members of the Observatory and thus carry out a collective exercise of reflection aiming to define the project’s objectives and route of action for 2023. The meeting was designed as a space for exchange and co-construction and was carried out during the visit of the coordinating team of the Humanitarian Governance project to Colombia. Professor Dr. Dorothea Hilhorst and Dr. Rodrigo Mena, co-directors of the project, participated in the meeting to gather the proposals of all the members of the Observatory, discuss them and place them in the project's outlook.
The tone of the meeting was set by Dr. Dorothea Hilhorst presentation on humanitarian governance and by Ms. Claudia Lily Rodriguez, -director of Halu foundation-, regarding the challenges of imple-mentation and humanitarian standards in Colombia. After a rich discussion, the members of the Ob-servatory and other participants proposed the following priorities for the second year of work:
-
Create spaces within the Observatory to encourage greater participation of civil society and include the voices of people affected by the crises.
-
Contribute to humanitarian practice beyond academia and theory.
-
Expand the observatory and increase the representation of the Observatory's members outside Colom-bia.
-
Articulate the work of the observatory and the members with other similar spaces that already exist
|
|
|
Practical and theoretical notes
How do we build the Observatory's vision for the second year? |
|
|
|
|
We think of Humanitarian Governance as disputed field, that brings together different actors: national and in-ternational organizations, communities, individuals, agencies and entities. This includes the United Nations, NGOs of different scales and sizes, states and their agencies, religious groups, private sector companies, volun-teers, professionals, artists, social movements, victims and local communities, among others.
As it is a social field, of course, not all actors have the same possibilities, play the same roles or are on an equal footing to determine what needs to be done and the way to do it. Moreover, there is an unequal distribution of economic, social, and political capitals to define the paths of humanitarian projects.
It is a field in which the communities of care and the suffering stranger(s) meet. For this reason it is vital to examine what happens there, since what happens there, in these daily interactions, is definitive for designing the same humanitarian interventions, for evaluating their impacts and also for reflecting on participation and democracy in contexts of crisis and emergency. But also to examine the power relations in this field, the agency of the actors, their interaction and their capacities, to define what should be done in the face of crises, and to negotiate from a local perspective the objectives, scopes and expected and unexpected results of humani-tarian governance.
Thus, in an attempt to decolonize the understanding of humanitarian governance, to think about the co-design of its interventions, and to rethink the accountability of communities to humanitarian governance, this year we will focus on these urgent debates. Of course, we are interested in combining reflection with action by also proposing actions and principles to guide the relationship between democracy, power and humanitarian gov-ernance.
In this sense, we want to provide a space to think and dialogue with different actors located both in the aca-demia and in the practical field of humanitarian operations on the following topics:
-
Relationship between humanitarian agencies and victim organizations and communities
-
Democracy and participation within emergencies
-
Representation: who speaks for the victims?
-
Co-design of humanitarian interventions before and after emergencies
-
Accountability
-
Humanitarian emergency times and democratic times
-
Knowledge: dialogic relationships in humanitarian interventions
|
|
|
THE LAC OBSERVATORY IN RELATION TO OTHER REGIONAL INITIATIVES |
|
|
|
|
We have previously mentioned that the LAC Observatory is not an isolated initiative. On the contrary, humani-tarian observatories emerge from the Humanitarian Governance project and are conceived as spaces in which heterogeneous participants, who represent multiple actors, discuss various issues related to humanitarian gov-ernance.
In this regard, in april 2023, the LAC Observatory core team had the opportunity to host representatives from other humanitarian observatories at the Universidad de Los Andes, Cartagena.
During a week, under the leadership of Dr. Dorothea Hilhorst and Dr. Rodrigo Mena, the participants ex-changed the achievements and challenges related to the formation of their respective observatories; discussed humanitarian governance, accountability, advocacy and ethics; and achieved cohesion and a better definition of the observatories' objectives.
With a lot of enthusiasm, we share that the LAC Observatory is now part of a much larger network of 07 ob-servatories! So far, in this network we have established and are in the process of consolidating the observato-ries of the following countries or regions: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, the Philippines, India, the Lake Chad Region and Somalia. |
|
Welcome to the new members of the Observatory!
we extend a warm welcome to all the new members of the project. Below, we tell you who they are:
|
|
|
Catalina Isabel Mena Fluhmann
Clinical Psychologist dedicated to work in Psychic Trauma and specialized in EMDR Psychotherapy (Eyes Move-ment Desensitization and Reprocessing). She is an expert in trauma repair and prevention in different levels: individual (clinical), psychosocial, humanitarian aid program and crisis intervention levels.
Catalina is a Certified Therapist, Supervisor (Approved Consultant) and Accredited EMDR Facilitator (EMDR Insti-tute). She is also a member of the EMDR Global Alliance, the Organización Nacional de Psicoterapeutas EMDR CHILE, EMDR Latinoamérica & Caribe (ALAC), and works in the field of education as a Facilitator and Supervisor in the training of this model (Chilean EMDR Institute) |
|
|
|
|
|
Dra. Mariateresa Garrido
Assistant Professor at the Department of International Law of the Universidad para la Paz, and the coordinator of the PhD program at the same institution. She holds two Master's Degrees, one from UPAZ in International Law and Conflict Resolution and the other from the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Public International Law.
Her PhD research was about "The Right to Freedom of Expression in the Digital Era: Limitations vs. Protection in the case of Citizen Journalists in Venezuela".
Her line of research is related to freedom of expression, protection of journalists in Latin America, and the link between human rights and communication/information technologies. On her research, she uses mixed meth-odologies and legal research to explore the links between law, journalism, and new technologies |
|
|
|
|
|
Dr. Francisco Rojas Aravena
Dr. Rojas-Aravena holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands) and a Mas-ter's degree in Political Science from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), and specializes in international relations, human security, integration, Latin American political systems, negotiations -theory and practice- and international security and defense. He served as Secretary General of FLACSO (2004-2012) and Director of FLACSO Chile (1996-2004).
Dr. Rojas-Aravena also served as Professor at the School of International Relations of the National University of Costa Rica (UNA) (1980-1990), Professor at the Stanford University campus in Chile, Professor at the Andrés Bello Diplomatic Academy (Chile) and as Fulbright Professor at the Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC). He is currently part of the Editorial Board of several academic journals, including the journal Foreign Affairs (Mexico), the journal Pensamiento Iberoamericano (Spain), and the magazine Ciencia política (Universidad Nacional de Colombia).
He is a prolific author and editor, who has published a large number of books, as well as contributed book chapters. In 2016 he received the Malinalli Award from the Universidad Autónoma de Juárez (Mexico), for his contributions to the Latin American region. In 2012, he was honored by the governments of Costa Rica, Paraguay and the Dominican Republic for his contributions to integration between Latin America and the Caribbean. Throughout his professional career, he has also done consulting work for various international organizations and governments in the region. |
|
|
|
|
|
Nicolás Caso
Research Assistant at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). His research covers various aspects of human development, including migration, disaster, and conflict studies. At PRIO, he currently works mainly on quantitative analysis for two large projects: MIGNEX and FUMI.
Nicolas has large experience in design, implementation and analysis of surveys - in both the public and private sectors - and has worked on several projects in the development sector in East Africa and Southeast Asia. |
|
|
|
|
|
Mónica Paniagua
Program coordinator and professor at Universidad de la Paz in the field of peace and conflict studies - with an emphasis on migration and refugee studies -. She is an internationalist and has a Master in Human Rights and Peace Education at the National University of Costa Rica. She worked as a protection officer in South Sudan - where she implemented a Humanitarian Response project in the Jonglei State area-, in Myanmar, also regarding civilians’ protection, - this time focusing on ceasefire monitoring -, and currently, she coordinates a humanitarian program for UPAZ focusing on migration and refugees. |
|
|
|
|
|
Eduardo Wehbe
Doctor in International Studies (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella-Buenos Aires). Thesis: "The power behind humanitarian NGOs. The case of Doctors Without Borders". Master in International Studies (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella-Buenos Aires). Thesis: "The demographic factor and the behavior of youth in social conflicts: comparative case studies in the Middle East".
He worked for Médecins Sans Frontières Latin America between 2013 and 2023, at first, in different projects in Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nepal, Sudan, Ethiopia, Guinea Bissau, Yemen, Bangladesh, and then became a part of the Board in 2018. He is now a member of the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation (CCHN) community and participates in various national forums of discussion on humanitarian issues where he has presented different stages of her research work for her doctoral thesis |
|
|
|
|
In this section we share with you some short news and upcoming events: |
|
|
Latin American Congress of Research for Peace - CLAIP in Santiago de Chile
A new edition of the Latin American Congress on Peace Research was held from April 18 to 21, 2023 under the theme "Building Good Living from North to South".
The event was held at the Alberto Hurtado University in Santiago de Chile. Rodrigo Mena and Gabriela Villacís Izquierdo participated in the Congress to present the work done so far within the Observatory, This project was of great interest to the participants because it was innovative and at the same time motivated them to think about peace from the point of view of the origin of humanitarian crises and governance.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reading Group 2023. Collaboration with iMMAP Colombia: "Community involvement as a strategy for a better humanitarian response".
As part of the plan drawn for the second year of work of the Humanitarian Governance Observatory, we have committed ourselves to researching, investigating and reflecting on a broad area of humanitarian governance in the region. For this reason, on June 22 a virtual workshop was held by the international NGO iMMAP, organisation that offers information management services to humanitarian and development organizations.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Panel proposal at next IHSA conference - Dhaka, Bangladesh (November 5-7, 2023)
Lookin forward to the 7th edition of the Conference "Humanitarianism in Changing Climates" organized by the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA), we propose to take the discussions generated within the LAC Observatory to Bangladesh. Under the theme "Humanitarianism in Latin America and the Caribbean: Understanding humanitarian governance and its peculiarities in the region."
Thus, the LAC Observatory has proposed a panel to invite further contributions and discussions in this valuable space for exchange. Those interested in the conference can access the information in this link.
|
|
|
|
|
We invite you to review the following news and announcements in this section of Solferino LAC. If you would like to contribute in any way to the Observatory's newsletter or blog, please contact us at: obshumanitariolatam@uniandes.edu.co |
|
|
|
