This is a plea for the Central African Republic. The Central African Republic (CAR) today finds itself in a state of chronic medical emergency. Five separate retrospective mortality surveys, carried out by MSF and other researchers, in prefectures accounting for the majority of the population, show excess mortality above what is considered to be the “emergency threshold.”
And yet the commitment by the country’s government and by the international community is going in the wrong direction. The government has been decreasing its investments in health, as have international donors, while humanitarian assistance has failed to reduce the widespread medical crisis.
The risk is high that the Central African Republic will become trapped: not considered urgent enough for significant emergency aid; not considered trustworthy enough for meaningful development assistance.
For the sake of CAR’s 4.4 million people, this cannot be allowed to happen. Existing levels of medical assistance are plainly insufficient to the scale of the needs. The country needs more actors conducting larger medical operations that reach more of the population.
In this paper, we outline the experiences, analyses and concerns of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) after 14 years working in the country. The report opens with a summary of the published evidence on CAR’s mortality over the past 18 months by MSF and other researchers. We then analyse the various causes for this before summarising the inadequate existing levels of assistance provided by all the various actors, including firstly the government of CAR, but also the international community including ourselves. We conclude with a call for greater medical assistance to the country.
The Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF) in the Central African Republic (CAR) was critical in 2010 to cover the most immediate assessed needs of about 1.6 million people in the North West, North East and South East of the country. Sustained generous contributions from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden have allowed further predictability and flexibility, hence relevance of the overall humanitarian response in country. Whether UN agencies or Non governmental organisations, recipient partners have demonstrated strong commitment to address critical needs in most often trying circumstances. The standard allocation process has involved a wide range of stakeholders through the CHF Advisory Board, the Humanitarian Country Team and within the respective clusters.
OCHA with the support of the humanitarian and development community have recently written a report on their work updating the estimations of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and returnees in the CAR. The report includes the displacement figures and map, the methodology used for data collection, the complexities of tracking displacement in the CAR, an overview of the context and causes of displacement by region and recommendations for the humanitarian community as they move forward in tracking displacement. Download the full report here (PDF, 781 KB) >>
Central African Republic: Humanitarian presence in the field (October 2011)
This map shows humanitarian actor’s sub-office and base locations in the field in the CAR. The map was produced by the OCHA office in Bangui with the generous support of the humanitarian community. Download the map in PDF (126KB) here: English version | Version française
Central African Republic: Areas of intervention per cluster (October 2011)
These maps show the areas of intervention of humanitarian projects in the CAR by cluster. The maps were produced by the cluster leads and co-leads with the generous support of the humanitarian community. Download the maps in PDF (655KB) here: English version | Version française
Find all map products for CAR from the HDPT community on the Maps pages of the HDPT CAR website http://hdptcar.net/blog/maps/. We hope that these products will be useful to your work.
CAR will be celebrating World Humanitarian Day (WHD) on Friday August 19. WHD is a global celebration of people helping people, bringing together UN agencies and national and international NGOs in recognition of those that help millions around the world every day. See a wide diversity of places, faces and endeavours of humanitarian aid workers by watching the 2011 WHD film.
The event will take place at the Alliance Francaise in Bangui. Download the agenda here >>
Follow updates on the day celebrated around the globe on OCHA’s website. For more information on the event in Bangui, please contact:
Laura Fultang
Information and Donor Liason Officer
UN OCHA CAR
fultangl@un.org
The Humanitarian and Development Partnership Team (HDPT) unites all organizations working to alleviate the humanitarian and development crisis in the Central African Republic: United Nations agencies, the Red Cross Movement, NGOs and other organizations. For more information, visit About HDPT CAR or email us at info[at]hdptcar.net
Interviews with Dr Ione
Dr Ione describes her incredible experiences in the Central African Republic. A thrilling eye-witness account of the country’s history.
