Exploring the impacts of social media and crowdsourcing on disaster resilience.

Social media and crowdsourcing (SMCS) are increasingly proving useful for addressing the effects of natural and human-made hazards. SMCS allow different stakeholders to share crucial information during disaster management processes and to strengthen community resilience through engagement and collaboration. To harvest these opportunities there is a need for better knowledge on SMCS for diverse disaster scenarios.

The influence of cash assistance on the localisation agenda in Kenya's humanitarian sector.

Unlabelled: Cash and voucher assistance (CVA) has gained importance as a modality for humanitarian disaster response during the last decade. Research has documented its benefits and listed challenges for implementation. Simultaneously, humanitarian organisations have committed to the localisation agenda to better serve people affected by disasters through local actors.

Investigating the conditions of vulnerability experienced by migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Kerala, India.

This paper analyses findings of the 'PROWELLMIGRANTS' project, which qualitatively investigated COVID-19 impacts on migrants' well-being and mental health in Kerala, India. It draws on a novel conceptual framework that combines assemblage-thinking with theories of social contracts in disasters. The paper first explores how past development processes and contemporary migration policies in Kerala, and India more widely, generated conditions of vulnerability for migrant workers in Kerala prior to the pandemic.

The stagnation of innovation in humanitarian cash assistance.

Cash and voucher assistance (CVA) has been gaining traction among humanitarian organizations as the preferred aid modality in disaster relief and complex emergencies. While the advantages of cash are well documented, the ongoing digitalization of cash and the emergence of innovative financial instruments can be associated with new operational challenges and a stagnation in innovation. This paper reflects on the changing environment in CVA as a result of technological breakthroughs in the global financial system.

The making of India's COVID-19 disaster: A Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Assemblage analysis.

This article analyses the suite of policies and measures enacted by the Indian Union Government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic through apparatuses of disaster management. We focus on the period from the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, until mid-2021. This holistic review adopts a Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Assemblage conceptual approach to make sense of how the COVID-19 disaster was made possible and importantly how it was responded to, managed, exacerbated, and experienced as it continued to emerge.

Models of care for non-communicable diseases for displaced populations in Iraq: a scoping review.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of death and disability globally. Their importance in humanitarian settings is increasingly recognised, but evidence about how best to address NCDs in these setting is limited. This scoping review aimed to explore models of NCD care for displaced populations in Iraq, in order to build evidence to design context adapted models of care.

COVID-19 in India: Who are we leaving behind?

The COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered and intensified existing societal inequalities. People on the move and residents of urban slums and informal settlements are among some of the most affected groups in the Global South. Given the current living conditions of migrants, the WHO guidelines on how to prevent COVID-19 (such as handwashing, physical distancing and working from home) are challenging to nearly impossible in informal settlements.

Technology and Information Sharing in Disaster Relief.

This paper seeks to examine the extent to which technological advances can enhance inter-organizational information sharing in disaster relief. Our case is the Virtual OSOCC (On-Site Operations Coordination Centre) which is a part of the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) under the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). The online platform, which has been developing for more than a decade, provides a unique insight into coordination behaviour among disaster management agencies and individual actors.

Housing reconstruction in disaster recovery: a study of fishing communities post-tsunami in chennai, India.

Disaster recovery after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 led to a number of challenges and raised issues concerning land rights and housing reconstruction in the affected countries. This paper discusses the resistance to relocation of fishing communities in Chennai, India. Qualitative research methods were used to describe complexities in the debate between the state and the community regarding relocation, and the paper draws attention to the dimensions of the state-community interface in the recovery process.