Assess, minimize and address negative environmental impacts throughout disaster recovery and reconstruction in order to create opportunities for communities to build back safer and in a more sustainable way. See here for a sector-specific overview of key environmental considerations. To increase sustainability and support longer-term development, recovery and reconstruction… Read More
The extent to which environmental issues have been addressed and how negative environmental impacts have been mitigated (or not) should be part of the final, annual or mid-term evaluation, depending on the project. Include environmental performance in the Operational Peer Review (OPR), or any equivalent internal peer review process. Key… Read More
During sudden-onset emergencies, the collection and sharing of data is instrumental to informing swift decision-making, planning, and avoid exacerbating risks and vulnerabilities. A timely and well-managed exchange of information on environmental issues early on and throughout in the emergency greatly supports the integration of environmental considerations in humanitarian action. Make… Read More
Be aware that sudden-onset crises often provide limited time to develop coordination mechanisms focusing on the environment. Robust emergency response preparedness is critical to ensuring strong coordination in emergency response. The coordination of environment in humanitarian action vastly improves with cross-sectoral and inter-sectoral working groups that help to coordinate… Read More
Monitoring needs to relate to baseline information from earlier environmental assessments and analyses conducted during preparedness and/or initial stages of the emergency. Environmental impacts are monitored against the established baseline. Monitoring is essential to determine whether an activity should be discontinued or adapted due to its environmental impact. The perspective… Read More
Planned or operational humanitarian programmes, projects and activities should be screened for their environmental impacts and risks. The NEAT+ screening tool can be used for environmental screening of projects [link to NEAT+ resource] If activities with negative environmental impacts are underway or planned three actions should be considered: Postpone or… Read More
Funding requests for environmental activities in sudden onset disasters must be linked to broader programming goals and strive to save and sustain lives. All requests should focus on these overarching objectives in order to justify environmental spending, and will also have a higher chance of securing funding. Environmental activities should… Read More
Including environmental concerns in response plans advances environmental mainstreaming throughout the humanitarian operations through clear and specific actions. Due to the nature of sudden-onset emergencies, not all relief activities can always be based on detailed pre-disaster information. Know the planning context within which you operate. Within the UN system, the… Read More
Include environmental assessments as an integral component of the disaster assessment phase. Conduct an environmental assessment as soon as possible after the disaster even if the environmental consequences do not seem obvious. Make use of cluster and/or sector meetings to collect and share information, to raise awareness for cluster-specific environmental… Read More
Identify the key links between environmental factors and humanitarian action: Are there environmental causes connected to the crisis? Identify key environmental drivers and underlying environmental factors. Key environmental drivers include land degradation and deforestation, degraded coastlines and wetland ecosystems, the pollution of water, land and air (for example due to… Read More
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