Progressing the integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk management in Vanuatu and beyond

The first framework to specifically integrate climate change adaption and disaster risk management was the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific. Despite the intense interest in integration and a very large literature on the topic, this Framework and its implementation has largely escaped the attention of commentators. This paper focuses on the experience of Vanuatu as a start in addressing this gap in the literature. Vanuatu is one of the countries most at risk from natural hazards. We show how Vanuatu is progressing the ideals of integration in practice, in its policy and legislation, its institutional arrangements, and the resourcing it is allocating to integrating disaster risk management and climate change adaptation. We conclude that, at the national and formal level, Vanuatu is progressing well in pragmatically implementing the ideals of integration and the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific. It stands as a practical example for others

Smart Donations:Event-Driven Conditional Donations Using Smart Contracts On The Blockchain

Recent work has questioned the largely unconditional nature of charitable donations and explored the value of conditional giving with contemporary donors. In this paper, we extend this work by exploring how to operationalise features of conditionality in charitable giving, situated in the context of large international non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Building on prior engagements with international aid organisations, we present design considerations and a conceptual architecture supporting real-time, conditional giving for individual and institutional donations. Our architecture leverages properties of distributed-ledger technologies (DLT) to empower donors to (i) attach conditions to their donation, (ii) store funds in a secure, decentralised escrow and (iii) automatically release funds once conditions are met. Unlike prior work that envisions radical disintermediation and the removal of intermediate NGOs using DLT, our work recognises the expertise of NGOs in tackling complex global problems and instead investigates compelling new way for charities to increase transparency and accountability by introducing dynamic pledge controls

Ein Beitrag zur klinischen Diagnostik des ektopischen ACTH-Syndroms

Es wird über einen Fall von ektopischem ACTH-Syndrom mit Hypercortizismus und hypokaliämischer Alkalose bei einem metastasierten Pankreas-Carcinom berichtet. Das Fehlen einer Differenz zwischen den ACTH-Spiegeln im Plasma aus dem Bulbus cranialis venae jugularis und aus der Vena femoralis unterstützte die Annahme einer nicht hypophysären Herkunft der erhöhten ACTH-Spiegel.A case of ectopic ACTH syndrome is reported presenting with hypercorticism and pronounced hypokalemic alkalosis in a woman aged 55 y. with metastatic cancer of the pancreas. The failure to show a significant difference of plasma ACTH-levels from bulbus superior venae jugularis resp. femoral vein supported the clinical assumption of non pituitary origin of elevated plasma ACTH

A Right Time to Give:Beyond Saving Time in Automated Conditional Donations

Smart Donations is a blockchain-based platform that offers users ‘contracts’ that donate funds to certain causes in response to real-world events e.g., whenever an earthquake is detected or an activist tweets about refugees. We designed Smart donations with Oxfam Australia, trialled it for 8-weeks with 86 people, recorded platform analytics and qualitatively analysed questionnaires and interviews about user experiences. Temporal qualities emerge when automation enforces conditions that contributed to participants’ awareness of events that are usually unconscious, and senses of immediacy in contributing to crisis response and ongoing involvement in situations far-away while awaiting conditions to be met. We suggest data driven automation can reveal diverse temporal registers, in real-world phenomena, sociality, morality and everyday life, which contributes to experiencing a ‘right time’ to donate that is not limited to productivity or efficiency. Thus, we recommend a sensitivity to right time in designing for multiple temporalities in FinTech more generally

Accountability and transparency in disaster aid: Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu

The world's largest humanitarian donors and implementing organisations have recently re-affirmed their commitments to financial transparency and broader accountability when responding to humanitarian crises. These are important demonstrations of the international community's on-going efforts to shift more power to those affected by disasters and to help ensure their dignity throughout the response and recovery efforts. This paper takes these commitments and applies them to the international humanitarian response following TC Pam in Vanuatu to gain greater insight into the implementation of these high-level goals. TC Pam caused massive damage as it tracked across Vanuatu in March 2015 and is still the largest tropical cyclone on record in the south Pacific. This paper clarifies the following contributions: USD 37.04 m to the response efforts, and USD 147.45 m to the on-going recovery from the tropical cyclone. It documents where that money came from, where it went, and what impact it has had to date using only publicly available data. The paper proceeds with analysis of the level of transparency and accountability to the people and communities affected by the disaster, rather than to foreign donors. This analysis shows relatively high transparency of financial flows during the response phase, but low transparency in the recovery phase. Furthermore, there is little evidence of accountability to affected populations through the transparency of information about the impact of the aid provided following TC Pam. This paper concludes with some recommendations to increase financial transparency and broader accountability following disasters

Evaluating mental health policy in England: care programme approach and supervision registers

BACKGROUND: The Care Programme Approach (CPA) and supervision register policies in England are intended to prioritize patients to receive specialist mental health care. AIMS: To describe and evaluate the practical application of the policies. METHOD: A questionnaire survey of key informants in mental health provider trusts and an analysis of aggregated data collected by health authorities using the Mental Illness Needs Index as a measure of population need. RESULTS: On average, 1175 per 100,000 total population are subject to the CPA (95% CI = 1055-1309) and 8.6 per 100,000 (95% CI = 7.5-9.9) are on supervision registers. Wide local variations in the number of people subject to the CPA and supervision registers are not explained by variations in population need. CONCLUSIONS: Prioritization to receive specialist mental health services is carried out inconsistently, and inequitable use of resources may result