The effectiveness of forecast-based humanitarian assistance in anticipation of extreme winters: a case study of vulnerable herders in Mongolia.

This paper presents evidence relating to a forecast-based cash and non-food item distribution among vulnerable herder households during the 2017-18 dzud (extreme winter) season in Mongolia, and analyses the results of a quasi-experimental study evaluating its impacts. An innovative approach in disaster risk reduction, forecast-based financing (FbF) can have short- and long-term benefits to vulnerable households but remains understudied. The paper contributes information on a multimodal FbF programme offering one-off cash grants and in-kind veterinary kits. The data found significant effects of reduced mortality and increased offspring survival in some types of livestock, and that the timing of FbF assistance is crucial, as reported early assistance correlated to positive outcomes in terms of reduced animal mortality. These findings can be used to design more effective FbF interventions, to understand better the appropriateness of FbF designs, and to use early warnings and early actions to help people prepare and withstand disasters such as dzuds.

Localising Public Health: Refugee-led organisations as first and last responders in COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing socioeconomic impact on already marginalised refugee communities demonstrate both the need for, and lack of, localisation in humanitarian and development responses. Our research with organisations founded and led by refugees, termed here refugee-led organisations (RLOs), in camps and cities in Kenya and Uganda shows their potential to be an asset in the response to COVID-19 and in contributing to more effective and participatory forms of humanitarian assistance. In this research note we draw on pre-pandemic research with around 80 RLOs and follow-up research with 15 in Uganda and Kenya who are actively responding to the pandemic and its effects. We identify five key areas in which refugees are or could be involved as responders to COVID-19 and other pandemics: providing public information, supplementing capacity gaps, healthcare delivery, shaping social norms, and virus tracking and contact tracing. Our research during COVID-19 shows how RLOs have pivoted their existing service provision to fill assistance gaps, including in areas directly related to public health. As the humanitarian system searches for ways to implement remote and participatory approaches to refugee assistance, RLOs offer great potential, if mechanisms can be found to identify those that are effective, provide them with funding, and build their capacities.

In praise of dependencies: dispersed dependencies and displacement.

Reconceiving or reframing the humanitarian consequences of displacement in terms of 'dispersed dependencies', a term drawn from the field of mental health, sheds light on the disruptive experience of displacement and on affected individuals' relations with other displaced people, hosts, states and humanitarian actors. Dependency for a person is neither a problem nor abnormal; independence is in effect about having a viable set of dispersed dependencies. This description, when applied in the context of disaster or displacement, challenges some humanitarian attitudes and offers some positive directions for humanitarian actors who seek to engage in assistance that is sustainable, contextual, and focused on human choice and dignity.

Sperm and sex peptide stimulate aggression in female Drosophila.

Female aggression towards other females is associated with reproduction in many taxa, and traditionally thought to be related to the protection or provisioning of offspring, such as through increased resource acquisition. However, the underlying reproductive factors causing aggressive behaviour in females remain unknown. Here we show that female aggression in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is strongly stimulated by the receipt of sperm at mating, and in part by an associated seminal fluid protein, the sex peptide. We further show that the post-mating increase in female aggression is decoupled from the costs of egg production and from post-mating decreases in sexual receptivity. Our results suggest that male ejaculates can have a surprisingly direct influence on aggression in recipient females. Male ejaculate traits thus influence the female social competitive environment with potentially far-reaching ecological and evolutionary consequences.