VEHA
Guidance
Guidance
Virtual Environmental and Humanitarian Adviser Tool – (VEHA Tool) is a tool
to easily integrate environmental considerations in humanitarian response. Field Implementation guidances are useful for the design and execution of humanitarian activities in the field.
Accountability to communities is fundamental to the Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS) and for gathering important feedback on whether health activities are making people more or less environmentally resilient. Accountability mechanisms can help to understand and respond to community concerns regarding natural resources, environmental fragilities, and hazards. Feedback can be used to change or strengthen the environmental sustainability of health activities and health facilities.
Involving and being accountable to the affected communities by following inclusive, participatory, and accountable procedures is also standard good practice in information management at the response or local level. This includes careful data protection based on principles of confidentiality, privacy, and security and at all times ensures the protection of the population.
Members of the humanitarian response should be trained by gender, protection, and GBV specialists so that everyone knows their role and good practices. Training should ensure that team members understand appropriate ways to engage with communities, possible sensitivities they might face, and how to respond to them. This also allows for practical awareness and effective communication with disabled persons.
Air pollution
Soil pollution
Water pollution
Deforestation
Desertification
Eutrophication
Climate Change
Loss of biodiversity and ecosystems
Natural resource depletion
Soil erosion
Noise pollution
Visual Intrusion
Increased intensity of storms/hurricanes
Increased drought/flood
Community accountability and engagement improve understanding of environmental vulnerabilities, hazards, risks, impacts, and dependencies. This includes:
1. Understanding health requirements and potential environmental impacts or vulnerabilities
2. Understanding what resources people are using for health
3. Assessing what environmental resources are available and being used and any potential conflict over resources
4. Understanding community environmental dependencies and fragilities
5. Learning about environmental coping strategies and recovery strategies
6. Understanding existing sources and causes of pollution and pollution causing behaviours
7. Obtaining feedback about the impacts of shelter activities on the environment
8. Feedback about environmental hazards and risks
9. Feedback about the changing impacts of climate change.
Accountability to communities and engagement using a range of communication channels creates many opportunities to understand environmental vulnerabilities, hazards, risks and impact and to use this information to strengthen the environmental sustainability of health activities and also strengthen the ways in which communities engage with and protect the environment upon which they depend. This includes:
1. Understanding people’s health requirements during a crisis and collating information on how this may impact or be vulnerable to the environment
2a. Understanding the resources people are using for their own health.
2b. Understanding what resources are being used for health facility repair, upgrade, and new construction
3. Assessing what environmental resources are available and being used (firewood, water, plants, animals,) and identifying any potential resource-scarcity conflicts
4. Understanding community environmental dependencies and fragilities at different locations and surrounding areas
5. Learning about community environmental coping strategies and recovery strategies, such as unsustainable use of natural resources
6. Understanding existing sources and causes of pollution and pollution causing behaviours / social norms
7. Obtaining feedback about the impacts of shelter activities on the environment. Continued local community engagement should contribute to the overall success of recovery and reconstruction efforts
8. Feedback about environmental hazards and risks communities are facing
9. Feedback about the changing impacts of climate change.
Accountability and community engagement mechanisms should be designed to include the environment, including:
1. Consultation on health needs and information on how they may impact or be vulnerable to the environment. Ensure that chosen communication channels are widely accessible by different groups of the community
2. Consultation on resources being used for health care and health facilities so that these can be addressed in health response. Educate people on alternative more sustainable materials or health strategies
3. Assess what environmental resources are available for use. Use this to anticipate resource-scarcity conflicts
4. Community consultation on environmental dependencies and fragilities at different locations and surrounding areas, identifying potential support
5. Consultation on community environmental coping strategies, traditional knowledge, and recovery strategies
6. Consultation on sources and causes of pollution and pollution causing behaviours / social norms. Using these to inform the design of awareness campaigns and behaviour change practices where appropriate
7. Accountability regarding the impacts of health activities on the environment
8. Feedback from and accountability to communities regarding environmental hazards and risks and responses
9. Feedback about the changing impacts of climate change such as increased temperature extremes, rainfall intensity or storm intensity.
Accountability and community engagement mechanisms should be designed to include the environment, including:
1. Assess people’s health needs during a crisis and collate information on how this may impact or be vulnerable to the environment so that this information can be used to strengthen the environmental sustainably of health activity design and ensure health services and health facilities are resilient to environmental hazards. Ensure that chosen communication channels are widely accessible by different groups of the community; for xample should radio be the chosen method, ensure every household has a radio, or develop a camp-wide mechanism so that radio towers can be heard. This will directly impact your resource management and mobilization activities, as a certain choice of communication channel will imply buying more radios, printing more papers and pamphlets, etc.
2a. Understand the resources people are using to meet their own health needs.
2b. Understand the resources being used to provide temporary health facilities, health facility repair or upgrade, or for the construction, maintenance, and operation of new health facilities. Support health providers in alternative more sustainable materials or improved health facility designs
3. Assess what environmental resources are available for use (firewood, water, plants, animals,) to understand whether this use can be sustainable or alternative sources should be sought. This should also allow your organization to anticipate resource-scarcity conflicts, propose mitigation and prevention strategies and optimize the resources available, both human and environmental
4. Understand community environmental dependencies and fragilities at different shelter locations and surrounding areas, this may include cultural and heritage uses for land; agricultural use; use for supplementary food or herbal medicines. Communities can then be supported appropriately such as negotiating land tenure agreements; establishing agreed sustainable conservation practices; protecting vulnerable areas
5. Learn about community environmental coping strategies and recovery strategies, such as dependencies on vulnerable flora or fauna, such as the capture and sale of endangered species, dependencies on cutting timber or abstracting other resources to supplement household income.
6. Understand existing sources and causes of pollution and pollution causing behaviours / social norms such as waste piling and burning, open defecation, slash and burn land clearance. Some practical and behaviour factors may be difficult to address through communication and may require more experiential learning, such that which may occur in a workshop or training where participants get to practice a construction technique and receive feedback. Preferences for and access to communication channels may also be different by ethnicity, socio-economic status, geographical differences, and gender. Develop training and workshops for the agency’s staff and the local community on the environmental risks and impacts identified to orient daily behavior regarding soil preservation, water consumption, energy-saving benefits, etc.
7. Obtain feedback about the impacts of health activities on the environment, such as pollution, environmental degradation, depleting natural resources, causing flooding or fire risk, or lack of cultural acceptance. Establish a schedule for in-place group activities and choose environmental themes to be discussed in some of these activities. While some environmental impacts may not have been estimated on the onset of the response, they can be developed and such conversation circles can act as a feedback mechanism;
8. Feedback about environmental hazards and risks communities are facing such as landslides, floods, droughts, disease spread, crop pests, and diseases. Develop community-led projects to address priority environmental risks, which complement the shelter and settlement response
9. Feedback about the changing impacts of climate change such as increased temperature extremes, rainfall intensity, or storm intensity.
Community health care providers and local traditional health care practices always affect the environment. They may cause air, water, soil pollution and create solid waste, and may unintentionally spread disease. Consulting communities and involving them in developing ways of reducing environmental impacts lead to less pollution and can lead to waste management livelihoods.