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OUR MISSION
The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) is a university-wide center involving multiple entities within the Harvard community that provide expertise in public health, medicine, social science, management, and other disciplines to promote evidence-based approaches to humanitarian assistance.
The mission of the Initiative is to relieve human suffering in war and disaster by advancing the science and practice of humanitarian response worldwide. HHI fosters interdisciplinary collaboration in order to:
- Improve the effectiveness of humanitarian strategies for relief, protection and prevention;
- Instill human rights principles and practices in these strategies;
- Educate and train the next generation of humanitarian leaders.
ISSUE IN FOCUS
SUDAN: ANATOMY OF A CONFLICT
The Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative has released its first study, Sudan: Anatomy of a Conflict.
This study is the first geospatial data-based history of a conflict created primarily through a fusion of remote sensing and previously public event reports. The researchers of the Signal Program spent many months cross-referencing and analyzing over 40,000 square kilometers of archival satellite imagery of Sudan with more than 2,000 published reports of incidents occurring between January 2011 and mid-2012.
Key findings of the study include evidence of the apparent intentional destruction of more than 2,000 civilian dwellings and other structures; the intentional targeting and destruction of four humanitarian facilities; identification of specific armed actors, units, and chains-of-command allegedly involved in specific attacks in Sudan; and evidence of the mass displacement of civilian populations.
Media Contact: Benjamin Davies at bdavies@hsph.harvard.edu