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For fast and flexible disaster relief housing - try bamboo
23 Nov 2009 14:48:00 GMT
Author: Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI (AlertNet)- When the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated India's Andaman Islands, some 4,000 prefabricated bamboo houses provided a quick and effective way to give shelter to thousands made homeless by the disaster.

Dubbed the "fastest-growing plant on earth", bamboo provides structures that are durable, cost-efficient and easy to construct and transport and could revolutionise the provision of shelter for millions of people displaced by natural disasters and conflict, manufacturers say.

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Afghans say "more effective aid" needed to halt decades of violence - Oxfam
18 Nov 2009 09:31:00 GMT
Author: Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI (AlertNet) - Afghans say foreign donors must commit and deliver "more effective aid" if the country is to pull itself out of poverty and end more than three decades of violence, Oxfam International said in a report on Wednesday.

"The Cost of War" - a survey based on interviews with over 700 people across 14 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces - found that most Afghans felt poverty, unemployment and corruption were the main drivers of conflict in the country since 1978.

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Birth certificates could save millions from destitution and exploitation
16 Nov 2009 10:09:00 GMT
Author: Katherine Baldwin

LONDON (AlertNet) - Both in times of crisis and non-crisis, children without a birth certificate are at risk of exploitation, violence and abuse, according to a report by Plan International.

The 2005 Pakistan earthquake killed an estimated 17,000 children but thousands more were left destitute because they could not prove who they were or claim what belonged to them.

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