The Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

When war, genocide or political repression cause large numbers of civilian victims, displaced or besieged populations and human suffering on a major scale, humanitarian assistance goes beyond the mandate of any single U.N. agency. Established in 1998 as part of the Secretary General's overall reform of the United Nations system, the Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) co-ordinates and mobilises the efforts of the international community to help victims of such emergencies.

OCHA focuses on three core areas: co-ordinating emergency aid to disaster sites; advocating humanitarian issues with governments, the general public and within the U.N. system itself; and developing policies to ensure that humanitarian issues are addressed.

The Office for Humanitarian Affairs, working with the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) and the Executive Committee on Humanitarian Affairs (ECHA), insures that an immediate and appropriate response is established at the site of the emergency.

OCHA advocates humanitarian issues in consultations with the major political organs of the United Nations, notably the Security Council, the Secretariat's Department of Political Affairs (DPA), and the Department of Peace-keeping Operations (DPKO). The Office for Humanitarian Affairs also consults regularly with governments and keeps the general public informed about humanitarian issues.

Finally, OCHA supports the Secretary General and the IASC by insuring that issues that may not be part of the mandates of other U.N. agencies and might therefore be ignored, such as protecting and assisting internally displaced persons, are adequately considered and addressed.

UNHCR and OCHA frequently co-operate in complex emergencies that involve both refugees and other populations of concern. In such cases, OCHA assumes overall co-ordinating responsibility within the U.N. system while UNHCR handles all aspects of the actual operation relating to refugees.