Voice Out Loud Issue 15: Linking Relief Rehabilitation and Development

The core of this newsletter is about building bridges to sustainably reduce human suffering worldwide. While humanitarian aid aims to save lives and respond to immediate needs, development programmes are more long term, aiming to eradicate poverty and ensure sustainable development. Given these different goals, both sectors have grown to become parallel universes. This gap needs to be overcome through LRRD: linking relief, rehabilitation and development, also referred to as "transition". LRRD provides a means to an end which both humanitarian and development actors support: improving well-being, reducing vulnerability and risk, and increasing the resilience of communities. Given the differing ways of working and various bureaucratic hurdles, LRRD is not easy. It will require an effort and mentality change of all actors involved in disaster response.