Working on Emergency Settlement
The Emergency Settlement Project is a special international effort to bring together the people and organizations (intergovernmental, national government and non-governmental) working in humanitarian assistance with communities disrupted by human-made, technological or natural disasters and emergencies. The goal of this project is to serve as a catalyst for gathering and documenting experiences into a consensus of principles, standards and best practices for emergency settlement. With initial financial support from The Ford Foundation and the United Nations Development Programme, 75 humanitarian assistance professionals prepared discussion papers which were published as, New Approaches to New Realities. This document served as the preliminary proceedings of the First International Emergency Settlement Conference, held in Madison, Wisconsin from 15-20 April 1996, with more than 170 participants from 49 countries.