Megan Rowling
Before joining AlertNet, Megan Rowling worked as a freelance print and television journalist in Britain, France and Japan. At AlertNet, she specialises in the humanitarian impact of climate change. In 2008, she also spent several months working part-time as a media relations officer for the British Red Cross. She has an MSc in development management.
Top aid officials urge new "business model" for climate crisis
Can cash-strapped world find emergency funds for poor?
Ahead of April's summit of the Group of 20 leading economies, aid agencies, poverty campaigners and researchers are thinking hard about what might be done to prevent the world's poorest bearing the brunt of the economic downturn. Many are calling for emergency funding to help developing country governments keep up their spending on health, education and social safety nets as aid, commercial lending and export revenues fall. ...
Palestinian aid misses goals as donors neglect security - researchers
The billions of aid dollars poured into the Palestinian territories in the past 15 years have failed to bring about development because donors have overlooked everyday insecurity, health researchers say. Some $9.4 billion in aid disbursed since 1994 has not met its goals, with evidence in recent years pointing to a reversal in development in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, according to a study in a special issue of the Lancet medical journal focusing on Palestinian health. ...
Rising mobile phone use rings change in disasters
Back in 2006, a staff member at the U.N. World Food Programme's London office received a rather unusual text message on their mobile phone. "My name is Mohammed Sokor, writing to you from Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab," it read. "Dear Sir, there is an alarming issue here. People are given too few kilogrammes of food. You must help." WFP called Mohammed back and found out more about his story. Since fleeing his home town of Bardere in Somalia in the early 1990s, he'd lived in a refugee camp in an arid part of northeast Kenya, and was working with an aid agency as a volunteer teacher. ...
Climate coalition targets gap between villagers and negotiators
Climate change and aid experts generally agree it's the poorest people who will be hardest hit by the effects of global warming. Many live in places where droughts, floods and storms are already frequent and severe. Crucially, they lack the resources to cope with these hazards, which are forecast to get worse as the planet heats up. Developing countries have made clear they need more money, technology and research to help them adapt to climate change - a key demand in negotiations towards a U.N. global pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. But what we know much less about is the activities that are already underway to help vulnerable communities increase their own resilience to shifting weather patterns and rising seas. ...
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