United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is a United Nations (UN) body formed in December 1991 by General Assembly Resolution 46/182.^[1] The resolution was designed to strengthen the UN's response to complex emergencies and natural disasters. Earlier UN organizations with similar tasks were the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA), and its predecessor, the Office of the United Nations Disaster Relief Coordinator (UNDRC). In 1998, due to reorganization, DHA merged into OCHA and was designed to be the UN focal point on major disasters. It is a sitting observer of the United Nations Development Group.^[2]

After merging with the DHA, its mandate was expanded to encompass the coordination of humanitarian response, policy development and humanitarian advocacy. The agency's activities include organization and monitoring of humanitarian funding, as well as information exchange, coordination and rapid-response teams for emergency relief. Since 29 May 2015, OCHA is led by Stephen O'Brien as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (USG/ERC), appointed for a five-year term.

OCHA is currently organizing the World Humanitarian Summit that will be held in Istanbul, Turkey, on May 23 and 24, 2016.

Staff and country offices

Christine Buchholz (German MdB) and Lise Grande (UN OCHA) in Juba, South Sudan

OCHA is headed by the Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, since 29 May 2015 by Stephen O'Brien.

Staff

As of September 2013 OCHA has some 1,900 staff,^[3] distributed across the world.

Country offices

Major OCHA country offices are located in all continents, among others in Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Palestinian territories, Sri Lanka, Sudan (including a sub-office in South Sudan's capital Juba), Syria, and Zimbabwe, while regional offices are located in Panama City, Dakar, Cairo, Johannesburg, and Bangkok.^[4] OCHA also has some liaison and support staff in New York and Geneva.

Services

OCHA has built up a range of services in the execution of its mandate. Some of the larger ones are:

• IRIN, Integrated Regional Information Networks, a humanitarian news and analysis service^[5] (1995)
• INSARAG, International Search and Rescue Advisory Group
• ReliefWeb time-critical humanitarian information on Complex Emergencies and Natural Disasters (1996)
• Central Emergency Response Fund (2006)
• Humanitarian Reform seeks to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian response by ensuring greater predictability, accountability and partnership.
• Who does What Where Database and Contact Management Directory: To ensure that appropriate and timely humanitarian response is delivered during a disaster or emergency, information must be managed efficiently. The key information that are important to assess and ensure that humanitarian needs are met in any emergency/disaster are, to know which organizations (Who) are carrying out what activities (What) in which locations (Where) which is also universally referred to as the 3W (Who does What Where). The integrated Contact Management Directory, complements the 3W database, making it easy for the user to navigate through the application.(2006)^[6]
• Common and Fundamental Operational Datasets (CODs) are critical datasets that are used to support the work of humanitarian actors across multiple sectors. They are considered a de facto standard for the humanitarian community and should represent the best-available datasets for each theme. The Fundamental Operational Datasets (FODs) are datasets that are relevant to a humanitarian operation, but are more specific to a particular sector or otherwise do not fit into one of the seven COD themes.^[7]
• Since 2004, OCHA has partnered with the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance to facilitate OCHA’s Civil Military Coordination (UN-CMCoord) course in the Asia-Pacific Region. The UN-CMCoord Course is designed to address the need for coordination between international civilian humanitarian actors, especially UN humanitarian agencies, and international military forces in an international humanitarian emergency. This established UN training plays a critical role in building capacity to facilitate effective coordination in the field by bringing together approximately 30 practitioners from the spectrum of actors sharing operational space during a humanitarian crisis and training them on UN coordination mechanisms and internationally recognized guidelines for civil military coordination.^[8]
• Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory (OCHAoPt). OCHA’s Country Office in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), established in 2002 to support international efforts to respond to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the oPt.^[9]

Humanitarian Innovation in Organizations

The OCHA encourages humanitarian innovation within organizations. For organizations, it is a way of identifying and solving problems while changing business models to adapt to new opportunities. In OCHA's occasional policy paper Humanitarian Innovation: The State of the Art, they list the reasons why organizations are moving toward providing their own kind of humanitarian service through innovation:

• Shifting business models based on public demand: There is a growing amount of humanitarian emergencies and the old model of response does not fit the modern problem.
• Increased contributions from the private sector: Private organizations are driven by their obligation to Corporate Social Responsibility and now associate their contributions to their brand.
• Developing partnerships within organizations: Partnerships lead to new ideas and solutions to problems.
• Trend toward developing innovative technologies: Technology allows people to respond to emergencies quicker.

They also list potential challenges associated with these changes:

• Humanitarian innovation requires a different market structure: It is assumed that there is no incentive for private organizations to participate in humanitarian innovation.
• Inequalities in power can stimulate conflict: There is no general principle for ethics in innovation. If humanitarian innovation is carried out incorrectly, there can be consequences to communities, individuals, or the system at large.
• Monetary and political risk if humanitarian efforts fail: This risk can cause delayed responses to humanitarian issues, so organizations tend to look to the past rather than plan for the future.^[10]

International Dialing Code

The OCHA has been assigned its own international calling code +888. Telephone numbers in the +888 "country code" will be assigned to agencies providing humanitarian relief. The +888 code will be implemented by Voxbone.^[11]

See also

• Civil defense
• Humanitarian aid

References

1. United Nations General Assembly Session 46 Resolution 182. Strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian emergency assistance of the United Nations A/RES/46/182 19 December 1991. Retrieved 2008-04-09.
2. UNDG Members. Undg.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
3. http://www.unocha.org/about-us/who-we-are retrieved 11 September 2013
4. "Where We Work - All Countries". OCHA. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
5. Redesigning ReliefWeb. Reliefweb.int (1 September 2007). Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
6. "Who does What Where" Database
7. Common and Fundamental Operational Datasets
8. "Center for Excellence". COE. Retrieved 2009-11-02.
9. "About OCHA oPt". Retrieved 11 November 2013
10. "Humanitarian Innovation: The State of the Art". Retrieved 9 November 2014
11. "Voxbone Press Release". Voxbone. Retrieved 2011-07-05.

External links

• OCHA Official Website
• IRIN - Integrated Regional Information Networks
• OCHA Common Operational Datasets
• Syria Crisis Overview
• Humanitarian Response
• OCHAoPt