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Our humanitarian action

Rapid Response to Urgent Needs

Given the urgency of the needs of these refugees and their host populations, our teams have started using an action plan especially developed to improve the living conditions of those escaping armed conflicts. "The Rapid Response Mechanism to Population Movements (RRMP) has been implemented by our teams since 2004, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," explains Béatrice Paviot, our Africa desk manager. "This type of intervention consists in performing immediate regular evaluations after each population movement in order to respond in less than 72 hours with emergency distributions covering the identified needs for water, sanitation, and hygiene."

While international aid continues to be insufficient and uncoordinated, in March our teams began daily water distribution and installed emergency latrines in Janzon, a border village of 3,500 inhabitants, where nearly 8,000 refugees are still sheltering today. Our teams also intervened in three isolated Maryland villages, supplying shelter and drinking water to nearly 152 families.

Meanwhile, in Abidjan

In mid-April, fighting and insecurity in the capital provoked a major humanitarian crisis. More than a million inhabitants fled Abidjan. Food supplies have been completely cut off. The lack of drinking water threatened to provoke a cholera epidemic. Furthermore, power outages left whole neighborhoods in the dark and created insecurity. Our emergency team continues to work in spite of these extremely difficult and dangerous conditions. "We provide sanitation and waste management assistance in the health center of a medical NGO operating on the wounded in the Abobo neighborhood," reports Benoit-Xavier Loridon, our Head of Mission on the ground. "Combat is raging everywhere. Shut away in their homes, the population desperately needs drinking water and food. Like them, our team eats only one meal a day." Faced with this situation, whose outcome cannot be known, SOLIDARITES INTERNATIONAL chose to reinforce its teams in Abidjan, as well as along the Daloa-San Pedro axis, where numerous displaced persons are concentrated. The NGO distributes equipment supplied by the Veolia Foundation for the analysis, treatment, and provision of drinking water. A team of logisticians is on the spot.

And now?

"In Abidjan, since the fall of Gbagbo, businesses have reopened and are once again selling food," confirmed Vianney Prouvost, logistical department manager, on April 20. "But people don't have cash because the banks are still closed. So we set up a program in the Abobo neighborhood to prevent water-borne diseases, using community labor to scrape out pipelines and clear sewers. We use workers identified by the women’s committee, putting cash back into the local economy that way.”
The 11 flexible reservoirs delivered to us have been sent on to Daloa in the West, where our 12 SOLIDARITES INTERNATIONAL volunteers have opened a base in the zone in which tens of thousands of displaced persons are still concentrated as of this writing. In late April our team began a new multi-sector diagnosis in order to accurately respond to needs that change along with the country's situation.

• Find out more about our previous programs

Update : May 2011