Pablo Suarez Publishes Two New Papers

Dr. Pablo Suarez, Visiting Research Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, has recently published two papers on what climate-related disasters can and will mean for poor communities.

The first paper is titled "Climate-Related Disasters: Humanitarian Challenges and Reconstruction Opportunities" and is authored by Pablo Suarez along with Graham Saunders, Sandra Mendler, Isabelle Lemaire, Jorge Karol, and Laura Curtis. The paper has been published in a special issue of the journal Places on "Climate Change and Place" (Vol. 20, No. 2, Summer 2008).

The paper concludes "The vulnerabilities of households that are already marginalized is increasing because of climate change. This trend will result in excessive workload for government and humanitarian agencies, already overstretched in their capacity to respond to such disasters. Preserving the integrity of places and helping people adapt to different conditions will require the complementary skills of humanitarian and design practitioners."

This article was developed as part of the research project "Responding to Future Challenges for Humanitarian Organizations," in collaboration with the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and Oxfam America’s Private Sector Department.

The second paper is titled "Video-mediated Approaches for Community-Level Climate Adaptation" and is co-authored by Pablo Suarez with Fiona Ching, Gina Ziervogel, Isabelle Lemaire, Diane Turnquest, Janot Mendler de Suarez and Ben Wisner. It was been published in a special issue of IDS Bulletin (No. 39, No. 4) on "Poverty in a Changing Climate."

The paper’s abstract reads:

"There is a need to facilitate the dissemination of information and ideas that can accelerate community-based adaptation to climate change. Increasingly affordable communication technologies may allow for extending the benefits of available knowledge to those who most need it. audiovisual media, when combined with articipatory processes for adaptation, offers potentially effective ways to raise awareness, scale-up capacity building, support community-level planning and develop innovative approaches to advocacy and institutional partnerships. Importantly, video-mediated approaches can be designed to tackle the complex poverty-related aspects of adaptation in the work of humanitarian organisations, addressing the heterogeneity of vulnerable communities and giving a voice to the most marginalised members. This article outlines lessons learned from the use of audiovisual tools in health risk management, disucsses recent and ongoing video projects by the Red Cross addressing climate change in Argentina, the Bahamas, Indonesia and Malawi and recommends practical applications for organisations supporting pro-poor adaptation."

Meanwhile, in October, Dr. Suarez traveled extensively in Africa, Asia and Europe to serve as a facilitator or presenter at a number of workshops on issues facing humanitarian organizations sponsored by the United Nations and other international agencies, such as The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Topics of these workshops included the humanitarian consequences of climate change in specific regions, the future of humanitarian organizations, and the innovative use of video tools for risk management in West Africa.