Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Information

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) French: Le Bureau de la coordination des affaires humanitaires, is a United Nations 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 by creating the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA), and replacing the Office of the United Nations Disaster Relief Coordinator, which had been formed in 1972. In 1998, due to reorganisation, DHA merged into the OCHA and was designed to be the UN focal point on major disasters. Its mandate was also expanded to include the coordination of humanitarian response, policy development and humanitarian advocacy. It is a sitting observer of the United Nations Development Group.^[2]

OCHA is therefore an inter-agency body, serving UN agencies and NGOs in the humanitarian domain. Its main product is the Consolidated Appeals Process, an advocacy and planning tool to deliver humanitarian assistance together in a given emergency.

Staff

OCHA is headed by the Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, currently Valerie Amos.

As of 2007 OCHA has some 1,064 staff,^[3] distributed across the world. Major OCHA country offices are located in Afghanistan,^[4] Burundi,^[5] Central African Republic,^[6] Chad,^[7] Colombia,^[8] Democratic Republic of Congo,^[9] Ethiopia,^[10] Eritrea,^[11] Ivory Coast,^[12] Palestinian territories,^[13] Sri Lanka,^[14] Sudan^[15] (including a sub-office in Southern Sudan's capital Juba), Uganda,^[16] and Zimbabwe,^[17] while regional offices are located in Panama City, Dakar, Cairo, Johannesburg, and Bangkok. 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^[18] (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 Information Centers, an emergency-specific, data exchange platform,^[18] supported by the Field Information Support Unit. On 15 May, the United Nations [OCHA] launched the Myanmar HIC website <http://myanmar.humanitarianinfo.org>. The purpose the site is to improve information exchange and collaboration between operational agencies responding to Cyclone Nargis. Based in Bangkok, the HIC is providing support to the Humanitarian Partnership Team and other humanitarian partners in Yangon, as well as those based in Bangkok.
• 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 situation, 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 Who does What Where database (3W) is one product that is universally agreed to be the most important priority for any co-ordination activity. The integrated Contact Management Directory, complements the 3W database, making it easy for the user to navigate through the application.(2006)
• Common and Fundamental Operational Datasets The Common 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. [1]
• 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.^[19]

Controversy

In March 2012, UN official Khulood Badawi, an Information and Media Coordinator for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, tweeted a picture of a Palestinian child covered in blood and falsely claimed that she had been killed in an IDF strike. She captioned the picture with "Another child killed by #Israel... Another father carrying his child to a grave in #Gaza.” It was later established that the picture was published in 2006 and was of a Palestinian girl who had died in an accident unrelated to Israel.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor called for her dismissal, stating that she was "directly engaged in spreading misinformation". He accused her conduct as deviating from "the organization’s responsibility to remain impartial" and violated conduct expected of a UN official. He stated the credibility of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs was already seriously in doubt among the Israeli public and that this instance eroded the integrity of the organization.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has numerous grievances against the OCHA which is viewed as badly one-sided. Its spokesman said that they had long observed that the OCHA had swapped its humanitarian mission for pro- Palestinian propaganda. ^{[20] [21] [22]}

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.^[23]

See also

• Humanitarian aid

References

1. ^ United Nations General Assembly Resolution 182 session 46 Strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian emergency assistance of the United Nations on 19 December 1991
2. ^ UNDG Members. Undg.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
3. ^ OCHA IN 2007: Activities and Extra-budgetary Requirements. Ochaonline.un.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
4. ^ OCHA – Afghanistan. Ochaonline.un.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
5. ^ OCHA-Brurundi. Ochaonline2.un.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
6. ^ OCHA – Central African Republic (OCHA-CAR). Ochaonline.un.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
7. ^ OCHA – Chad. Ochaonline.un.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
8. ^ OCHA – Colombia. Ochaonline.un.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
9. ^ OCHA – Democratic Republic of Congo (OCHA – DRC). Ochaonline.un.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
10. ^ Ethiopia. Unocha.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
11. ^ Eritrea. Unocha.org (24 October 2011). Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
12. ^ OCHA – Ivory Coast.
13. ^ OCHA – Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA-OPT)
14. ^ OCHA – Sri Lanka. Ochaonline.un.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
15. ^ OCHA – Sudan. Ochaonline.un.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
16. ^ Uganda. Unocha.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
17. ^ Zimbabwe. Unocha.org. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
18. ^ ^{a b} Redesigning ReliefWeb. Reliefweb.int (1 September 2007). Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
19. ^ "Center for Excellence". COE. http://www.coe-dmha.org/index.htm. Retrieved 2009-11-02.
20. ^ "Fake photos of escalation posted on Twitter". The Jerusalem Post. 03/14/2012. http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=261757.
21. ^ "Israel: Fire UN official over false Gaza photo". The Jerusalem Post. 03/16/2012. http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?ID=262098&R=R1.
22. ^ "U.N. MEDIA EMPLOYEE CAUGHT TWEETING MISLEADING PHOTO OF BLOODY PALESTINIAN CHILD — FROM 2006". The Blaze. March 13, 2012. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/u-n-media-employee-tweets-bloody-photo-of-palestinian-child-from-2006-but-attributes-it-to-current-airstrikes/.
23. ^ "Voxbone Press Release". Voxbone. http://www.voxbone.com/pressRelease.jsf?id=294. Retrieved 2011-07-05.

External links

• The OCHA official web site
• OCHA Common Operational Datasets
• ReliefWeb
• IRIN
• Field Information Services Unit
• Humanitarian Reform
• Who does What Where Database and Contact Management Directory

Categories:

• Humanitarian aid organizations
• United Nations Development Group
• United Nations General Assembly subsidiary organs

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