Founded: 2017 Faculty Lead: Ronak B. Patel, MD, MPH Status: Completed Program, 2023 Research Theme: Risk, Resilience and Response
Description:
Rapid urbanization concentrates risks and hazards to health, wellbeing and crises. Urban crises also challenge the humanitarian ecosystem in unprecedented ways necessitating a radical change from business as usual. Yet, this demographic shift opens new opportunities for innovation in program and policy to protect individual and planetary health. This program investigates urban environments and crises to disaggregate cumulative risks, interrogate the drivers and interactive effects of those risks and study protective factors that allow individuals, households, communities and cities to thrive.
Conflict and Food Systems Webinar
The 2022 Global Report on Food Crisis highlights conflict as the major driver of acute food insecurity, which forced approximately 139 million people into crisis level insecurity in 2021. The current acute and chronic crisis facing Haiti from conflict and violence continues to transform the local food system and related livelihoods with uniquely gendered impacts. The scale of this impact on households and communities spans economic, political, social, and environmental activities. Given the complex, interconnected and mutually reinforcing relationships at play, conflict’s impacts should be considered through a food systems lens rather than narrower outcome measures or siloed approaches. A holistic systems approach informed by diverse perspectives is needed.
This interactive webinar will explore innovative research, evolving policy perspectives, and emerging programmatic approaches to the crisis in Haiti. The event will feature insights from Concern Worldwide and the World Food Program in Haiti and a detailed look at the techniques used in this research from Dublin City University and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. The webinar will provide an opportunity for participants and panelists to consider how this research approach/technique can be used to deepen understanding of context in order to better address this complex and critical issue now and in the future. Please join us for an interactive webinar welcoming your questions to the panelists for a discussion on the way forward.
