The Role of the Humanitarian Coordinator
Leadership: The Humanitarian Coordinator & Humanitarian Country Team
When a humanitarian crisis occurs, the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) strives to efficiently mobilize and coordinate aid. [1] The leader of the UN OCHA, the Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC), appoints a Humanitarian Coordinator (HC) (also known as the Resident Coordinator (RC) within the country of crisis to establish and lead the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT). The HCT's job is to assess the situation, identify and prioritize needs of victims, and estimate the capacity of the country and its people to respond. [2]
Purpose: The Importance of Identifying & Prioritizing Needs
In Goma during 1994, many of the failures in aid can be attributed to duplicated services from international aid organizations and wasted resources. The Sphere Project was created after that event in order to create a more coherent system of humanitarian aid organizations that could be mobilized when needed. [3] Before aid is sent, the HC and HCT perform an initial assessment in order to determine which clusters of aid organizations should be recommended for activation within the country. [1] This way, only the aid that is needed as determined by the HC is sent to the country.
Assessment: Methods for Prioritizing Needs
The HC appoints a team of emergency specialists to perform a multi-cluster initial rapid assessment (MIRA) during the first weeks of a crisis. The team's primary goals are to create a Preliminary Scenario Definition after 72 hours and a full MIRA report after two weeks that inform humanitarian stakeholders of what resources are needed to address basic needs. [1] Recommended criteria for the reports include descriptions of the general situation of the population, the geographic spread of the disaster, the current state of health problems and infrastructure, and data on the abundance and quality of food, water, shelter, safety, education, and coordination. [4] This information is gathered through traditional surveys, call detail records, and migration models using mobile phone usage patterns. New technologies such as mobile Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping (mVAM) have also been recently developed in order to more efficiently collect information remotely from victims of the crisis via text, voice calls, and an interactive voice response system. These types of technologies have been fairly effective since they are able to collect data offline and then upload information once they reach an area of active WIFI during a humanitarian crisis. This has led to a larger and more detailed body of data that help humanitarian relief managers “fine tune interventions and prioritize resources on the basis of a bird's eye view of the operation.” [5] Through these improvements in assessment tools within the MIRA process, the HC is more capable of effectively submitting recommendations to the ERC concerning which cluster groups of aid organizations should be recruited to provide resources and assist victims.
An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee.
Humanitarian aid is material and logistic assistance, usually in the short-term, to people in need. Among the people in need are the homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars, and famines. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity.
A humanitarian crisis is defined as a singular event or a series of events that are threatening in terms of health, safety or well-being of a community or large group of people. It may be an internal or external conflict and usually occurs throughout a large land area. Local, national and international responses are necessary in such events.
Humanitarian assistance is aid and action designed to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity during and after man-made crises and disasters. It encompasses a wide range of activities, including providing food, water, shelter, medical care, and protection. Humanitarian assistance is grounded in the principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is a United Nations (UN) body established in December 1991 by the General Assembly to strengthen the international response to complex emergencies and natural disasters. It is the successor to the Office of the United Nations Disaster Relief Coordinator (UNDRO).
The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator is a high-level position in the United Nations that heads the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The Central Emergency Response Fund is a humanitarian fund established by the United Nations General Assembly on December 15, 2005 and launched in March 2006. With CERF’s objectives to 1) promote early action and response to reduce loss of life; 2) enhance response to time-critical requirements; and 3) strengthen core elements of humanitarian response in underfunded crises, CERF seeks to enable more timely and reliable humanitarian assistance to those affected by natural disasters and armed conflicts.
There are a number of meanings for the term humanitarian. Here, humanitarian pertains to the practice of saving lives and alleviating suffering. It is usually related to emergency response whether in the case of a natural disaster or a man-made disaster such as war or other armed conflict. Humanitarian principles govern the way humanitarian response is carried out.
ReliefWeb (RW) is a humanitarian information portal founded in 1996. As of July 2023, it hosts more than one million humanitarian situation reports, press releases, evaluations, guidelines, assessments, maps and infographics. The portal is an independent source of information, designed specifically to assist the international humanitarian community in effective delivery of emergency assistance or relief. It provides information as humanitarian crises unfold, while emphasizing the coverage of "forgotten emergencies" at the same time.
The Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) is an advocacy tool for humanitarian financing, in which projects managed by the United Nations, NGOs and other stakeholders come together to approach the donor community funding international development activities. The target of the CAP is long-term development, whereas the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), started in 2006, targets sudden onset humanitarian crisis such as natural disasters. The 2011 CAP seeks US$7.4 billion to help 50 million people in 28 countries. The 2006 CAP was covered by the donor community to 63%.
A United Nations Resident Coordinator is the highest United Nations official and the chief of UN diplomatic mission in a country.
Ross Stewart Mountain has spent most of his career in the service of the United Nations working on humanitarian, recovery, development and peacekeeping operations in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and the Pacific as well as assignments based in Geneva, Switzerland promoting non-governmental action and managing UN humanitarian operations.
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) is an inter-agency forum of United Nations and non-UN humanitarian partners founded in 1991 to strengthen humanitarian assistance. The overall objective of the IASC is to improve the delivery of humanitarian assistance to affected populations. The Committee was established following UN General Assembly Resolution 46/182 and resolution 48/57 confirmed that it should be the primary method for inter-agency coordination. The committee is chaired by the Emergency Relief Coordinator.
The Digital Humanitarian Network is a consortium allowing Volunteer and Technical Communities (V&TCs) to interface with humanitarian organizations that seek their services.
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Philippe Lazzarini is a Swiss-Italian humanitarian who has served as Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) since 2020.
Sir Mark Andrew Lowcock is a British economist and accountant who served as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator between 2017 and 2021. Prior to his appointment by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on 12 May 2017, Lowcock was the Permanent Secretary of the Department for International Development (DFID) from June 2011 to September 2017. He is currently a visiting professor in practice at the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC. He is also a Trustee/Director and vice-chair of The Howard Partnership Trust, a multi-academy trust of schools in Surrey.
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Martin Griffiths is a British diplomat who currently serves as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the United Nations.
The Humanitarian Cluster System is a system, used by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, to coordinate multi-agency responses to large humanitarian emergencies.
