Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn of Ethiopia, who is chairman of the African Union, announced the creation of the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises, and said President Jacob Zuma of South Africa had proposed the force.
Word on the diplomatic grapevine is that it's the end of the road for the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises (ACIRC).
Because online advertising offers the capacity for an immediate response, it challenges the old saw that merchants know that only half of their advertising works, but not which half.
UNICEF nevertheless responded quickly, declaring this a Level 3 (L3) emergency and institutional priority on 11 November 2013 and quickly deploying the Immediate Response Team (IRT) and other surge capacity to the Philippines, initially to Tacloban and progressively to other affected areas.
Instead, we should concentrate our efforts on rebuilding the public health system's capacity to mount an immediate response if the unlikely happens.
The UNICEF-led Nutrition Cluster will provide similar national-level standby response capacity for nutritional surveys and immediate response.
This type of immediate response aid is essential, but does not attempt to increase people's capacity for resilience or create a "culture of safety" (Martin 2010).
While standby arrangements are primarily made to support immediate response to a rapid-onset emergency, these partnerships have helped to strengthen capacity development of partner countries for emergency preparedness and risk reduction.
"My immediate response is that this is part of a longer process of police quite clearly trying to undermine our capacity to organise and do the work that we do.
The division is key to UNICEF's emergency response capacity; emergency supplies can be packed and shipped within 48 hours, delivering the items needed for children's immediate survival and recovery from trauma.
