Insurance mechanisms for tropical cyclones and droughts in Pacific Small Island Developing States

One group of locations significantly affected by climate-related losses and damage is the Small Island Developing States (SIDS). One mechanism aiming to reduce such adverse impacts is insurance, with a wide variety of products and models available. Insurance for climate-related hazards affecting Pacific SIDS has not been investigated in detail. This article contributes to filling this gap by exploring how insurance mechanisms might be implemented in the Pacific SIDS for tropical cyclones and droughts. The study examines opportunities and constraints or limitations of some existing insurance mechanisms and programmes as applied to the Pacific SIDS. Eight insurance mechanisms are compared and discussed regarding the premium cost compared to the gross domestic product per capita, the amount of payout compared to the damage cost, the reserve and reinsurance, and the disaster risk reduction incentives. As such, this article offers a decision-making tool on insurance development for the Pacific SIDS. Ultimately, implementing disaster insurance for the Pacific SIDS depends on political will and external technical and financial assistance

Regional Sanctions Against Burundi: A Powerful Campaign and Its Unintended Consequences

This paper examines the impact of regionally imposed sanctions on the trajectory of the Burundian regime and its involvement in the peace process following the 1996 coup in the country. Despite the country's socioeconomic and geopolitical vulnerability, the Buyoya government withstood the pressure from the sanctions. Through a vocal campaign against these sanctions, the new government mitigated the embargo's economic consequences and partially reestablished its international reputation. Paradoxically, this campaign planted the seed for comprehensive political concessions in the long term. While previous literature has attributed the sanctions' success in pressuring the government into negotiations to their economic impact, the government actually responded to the sanction senders' key demand to engage in unconditional, inclusive peace talks under the auspices of the regional mediator once the economy had already started to recover. The regime's anti-sanctions campaign, with its emphasis on the government's willingness to engage in peace talks, backfired, with Buyoya forced to negotiate after having become entrapped in his own rhetoric

An automated quantitative content analysis process for humanitarian logistics research

Purpose: Access to high-quality data is a challenge for humanitarian logistics researchers. However, humanitarian organizations publish large quantities of documents for various stakeholders. Researchers can use these as secondary data, but interpreting big volumes of text is time consuming. The purpose of this paper is to present an automated quantitative content analysis (AQCA) approach that allows researchers to analyze such documents quickly and reliably. Design/methodology/approach: Content analysis is a method to facilitate a systematic description of documents. This paper builds on an existing content analysis method, to which it adds automated steps for processing large quantities of documents. It also presents different measures for quantifying the content of documents. Findings: The AQCA approach has been applied successfully in four papers. For example, it can identify the main theme in a document, categorize documents along different dimensions, or compare the use of a theme in different documents. This paper also identifies several limitations of content analysis in the field of humanitarian logistics research and suggests ways to mitigate them. Research limitations/implications: The AQCA approach does not provide an exhaustive qualitative analysis of documents. Instead, it aims to analyze documents quickly and reliably to extract the contents’ quantifiable aspects. Originality/value: Although content analysis has been used in humanitarian logistics research before, no paper has yet proposed an automated, step-by-step approach that researchers can use. It also is the first study to discuss specific limitations of content analysis in the context of humanitarian logistics