United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

OCHA’s mission is to mobilise and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors to alleviate human suffering in emergencies, advocate for the rights of people in need, promote preparedness and prevention and facilitate sustainable solutions. The USG also chairs the Inter-Agency Standing Committee as the Emergency Relief Coordinator. OCHA:

• Works with Governments to strengthen their capacity with early warning information, contingency planning, national capacity-building and training, and by mobilizing support from regional networks;
• Helps Governments access tools and services for life-saving relief (rapid-response teams, needs assessment, funds, reports and civil-military coordination);
• Identifies and analyses trends and helps the humanitarian community develop common policy, based on humanitarian principles;
• Speaks out publicly when necessary, works behind the scenes, negotiating on issues such as access, protection of civilians and aid workers, and humanitarian principles;
• Gathers and shares reliable data on where crisis-affected people are, what they urgently need and who is best placed to assist them;
• Helps manage humanitarian donations from more than 130 countries through its financial tracking services.

Disaster Reduction Goal

OCHA’s key objectives are to:

• Convene humanitarian and development partners to work strategically and coherently to strengthen resilience and build national and local capacity
• Advocate a resilience-based approach and ensure resilience concepts are integrated into the humanitarian programme cycle, and humanitarian tools and mechanisms are used to optimum effect

OCHA works to incorporate DRR approaches into humanitarian programmes and strengthen preparedness for effective humanitarian response. Emergency preparedness and DRR are critical to building community and household resilience.