Humanitarian Coordination Forum established to facilitate coordinated, principled humanitarian action, and strengthen the African Union’s leadership on humanitarian action in Africa

(Addis Ababa, 15 November 2023): As the world continues to face an unprecedented scale of overlapping crises, Africa bears the brunt with more than 47.7 million Africans either internally displaced, refugees, or asylum seekers. This massive population displacement is largely driven by conflict, increased International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and Human Rights Law (HRL) violations, the proliferation of non-state armed groups as well as the impact of extreme climatic factors in fragile countries where development is stunted.
This creates a more challenging operating environment, where humanitarian action is once again the imperative to help save lives, but also where threats to the safety of humanitarian workers and facilities are rampant. Over 50% of people in need of humanitarian assistance globally are from Africa. Africa continues to experience record levels of forced displacement. Dwindling resources make it impossible to address rapid onset and protracted emergencies the continent is facing. This is in addition to the negative consequences of COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine on the humanitarian landscape, altering the operational environment, generating new needs and challenges, and heightening existing vulnerabilities for people in need.

These conditions also continue to provoke irregular and onward movement of refugees and migrants across Africa or northward towards the Mediterranean in perilous journeys where people are subjected to abhorrent violations, abuse, and death at the hands of human traffickers and smugglers. The number of those perishing or reported missing at sea increase exponentially every year, with 2,988 individuals in 2023 alone, while the figures for land routes across the Sahara are even greater. This is a tragedy, with no end in sight.
Movements across all routes take a devastating human toll.

These enormous challenges present the urgent need for opportunities for enhanced partnerships and coordination, and innovation to effectively scale up, prepare for, and respond to life-threatening crises across the continent. This includes stepping up advocacy and humanitarian diplomacy to tackle critical issues including violations of IHR and HR Law, humanitarian access, the protection of civilians, and vulnerable segments of the population; and to ensure more joined up work with development actors and addressing the persistent and rising climate crisis and its impact on food security and other related outcomes.

In the spirit of the Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC), ensuring coherence in support of effective humanitarian action, humanitarian actors with liaison functions to the African Union have come together to reinforce the African Union’s (AU) humanitarian leadership role in preventing, preparing for and responding to humanitarian crises across the continent, through the establishment of a Humanitarian Coordination Forum. The Forum comprises UN Agencies, International NGOs as well as the ICRC, and IFRC in observer status.

The inaugural Chair is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, alongside Plan International as the Cochair, supported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as the Secretariat.

“The Forum will complement the UN Liaison Team, bringing key humanitarian actors together to strengthen synergies, and work with the AU and its organs to advocate for principled and effective humanitarian action across the continent,” says Dr. Buti Kale, Chair and UNHCR Representative to the African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

“The formation of the Forum is timely. It will be instrumental in facilitating joint, coordinated action in support to the AU's humanitarian leadership in Africa. It will also enable humanitarian partners to coordinate their support toward the full operationalization of the Africa Humanitarian Agency," said Ms.
Doris Mpoumou, Co-Chair, Director, and African Union Representative, Plan International.

For further information, please contact:

Raheela Chaudhry, raheela.chaudhry@un.org, +215 978472561