Urban Humanitarian Emergencies Course

Urban Setting

**Urban Humanitarian Emergencies Course UPDATE** The Urban Humanitarian Emergencies Course will not be offered in 2026 due to resource limitations. Please sign up for the course interest below to stay up to date about when the workshop will be offered again in the future. 

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Overview

Humanitarian organizations, international agencies and governments serving populations affected by emergencies such as disasters and conflict increasingly find themselves working in urban settings. Agencies face considerable challenges and some potential advantages in these complex urban environments and are only just learning how to approach them. These new challenges take many forms such as density, infrastructure, complicated physical layouts, unprepared institutions, complex governance arrangements, a range of actors (often with competing interests) and a wide diversity within affected populations.

The Urban Humanitarian Emergencies Course, first held in 2013, is a four-day course organized by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative via its Lavine Family Humanitarian Studies Initiative to train humanitarian professionals on current issues, challenges and good practices involved in urban humanitarian emergencies. The course faculty and visiting experts are experienced in humanitarian training with on-the-ground experience with humanitarian crises in urban areas.

Topics covered in the course include issues, themes, challenges, and specific tools. These include:

  • Urban Resilience
  • How Cities Work
  • Urban Assessments
  • Civil-Military Coordination
  • Cash and Markets
  • Coordination
  • Urban Displacement
  • Health
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • Violence, Conflict and Fragile Contexts
  • GIS and Mapping
  • The Application of AI to Urban Crisis Preparedness and Management

Role Play Simulation: The course includes a simulation which takes place in two sessions held over two days concerning actions before and after a disaster event. Through role play, the simulation explores positions, attitudes, and compromises that need to be struck between different organizations and agencies. 

Instructors

The course combines resident instructors and visiting experts from NGOs, think tanks, and the military. 

Resident instructors are: 

Erica Nelson, MD, PhM, MAS - Instructor, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Erica L Nelson is an Emergency Medicine physician who conducts research on the use of geospatial methods for public health and humanitarian response. After graduating from Trinity College Dublin with an PhM in International Peace Studies and Development, she worked as a researcher and policy consultant for organizations serving conflict-affected populations in Nepal, Indonesia, the Balkans, Palestine, Ethiopia, and Sudan. She completed her medical training at the University of Washington, residency at the Harvard-Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency Program, and an MAS in Spatial Analysis for Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. Currently, she is a physician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Emergency Department, an instructor within the Division of Global Emergency Services and Humanitarian Programs within the Department of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the co-founder of the Harvard Humanitarian Geospatial Analysis Program at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Dr. Nelson is dedicated to the integration of critical geography, decolonization, and conflict sensitivity frameworks and the use of geospatial methods for health-oriented humanitarian programming and research. She has engaged in mixed-methods research regarding, for example, remote sensing in disaster management, gender-based vulnerability in refugee communities, the ecological impacts of refugee influx in Bangladesh, geospatial variables as they impact pre-hospital care in the Navajo Nation, the Palestinian/Israeli health referral program, and the interaction between climate, conflict, and population health.

David Sanderson, BA (Hons), DipArch, MSc, PhD - Inaugural Judith Neilson Chair of Architecture, UNSW Australia

David has over 30 years’ experience working across the world in development and emergencies. He worked for eight years for the NGO CARE International UK as head of policy and then as Regional Manager for Southern and West Africa. In 2006 David joined academia as Director of UK centre focusing on development and emergency practice. He has held full professorships in the UK, Norway and Australia and visiting professorships in Spain, France and the USA (Harvard University). David has held board positions at CARE, Norwegian Refugee Council and the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF), where he chaired the Grants Panel. He has led multi-NGO evaluations of disaster response in Nepal, India, Pakistan, Haiti and Philippines. David wrote the 2019 ODI/ALNAP Urban Humanitarian Response Good Practice Review and was co-editor of the 2016 IFRC World Disasters Report focusing on resilience. David holds a doctorate in development and disasters.

Ronak Patel, MD, MPH - Assistant Professor of Research, Boston University

Dr. Ronak Patel’s work focuses primarily on the challenges and opportunities presented by rapid urbanization for the health and well-being of vulnerable populations and for humanitarian crises. His research focuses on exposing and disaggregating cumulative risks and developing tools and interventions to mitigate these risks to health and development. His diverse studies have included projects on disaster microinsurance for local market recovery in India, slum upgrading impacts, resilience to urban violence in Colombia, indicators for vulnerability and early crisis in urban slums in Kenya, a framework for measuring urban fragility and resilience and gender-based insecurity in urban informal settlements and applying fuzzy cognitive mapping to investigate food security in conflict and fragile contexts as well as health system strengthening. He recently launched a 3-year project focusing on social capital for resilience among marginalized communities in Somalia and Haiti. He works through community-based organizations (CBOs) and aid agencies to collect data and implement projects that can directly inform programs and policy.

Intended Audience

NGO and UN workers, national and local government disaster preparedness planners, and others involved in emergency-phase response to disasters and humanitarian crises. Those interested in working in humanitarian emergencies are especially welcome. Classes will be held in English. To successfully participate in the course, we recommend that participants have at least a B2 English language level (CEFR).

Policies and Frequently Asked Questions

For more information and answers to your questions, including payment and cancellation policies, please see a page of frequently asked questions and policies for the course.

Contact Us

All questions, cancellations, and deferment requests should be submitted to: hhi_humanitarianacademy@harvard.edu