OCHA Annual Report 2018

Foreword

From Afghanistan to Yemen, OCHA brings the world together to help crisisaffected people get the humanitarian assistance and protection they need.

OCHA plays a critical role in ensuring that the humanitarian system is better resourced, focused on the most acute needs and more responsive to the needs of affected people. This Annual Report outlines what we have achieved in 2018 and highlights the importance of a well-coordinated humanitarian system.

In 2018, humanitarian needs reached an unprecedented scale. Fortunately, donors generously responded by financing the humanitarian system at record levels. Over 133 million people needed humanitarian assistance in 41 countries. To meet their needs, we asked for US $25 billion. Donors generously provided over $15 billion to the UN-coordinated appeals. This is a clear sign of the compassion and humanity of our donors and their citizens. But it also demonstrates the trust in the global humanitarian system, which undoubtedly saves millions of lives every year.

In Yemen, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, OCHA mobilized resources and advocated for access to people in need all over the country. We worked with our partners to try to stabilize the economy and pushed for the payment of the salaries of teachers and health workers. On average, aid groups reached over 8 million people every month, helping to roll back the world’s largest cholera epidemic and move 45 districts out of “pre-famine” status.

In South Sudan, despite the insecurity and other challenges faced by aid agencies, OCHA helped humanitarian actors reach 5.3 million people with assistance, partly through our success in negotiating better access with the warring parties.

In Indonesia, OCHA supported the national response to several earthquakes, including in Central Sulawesi. CERF funds supported thousands of women to safely give births after hospitals were destroyed or damaged.

In 2018, we continued to use our financing tools to make the humanitarian system more coherent, faster and more supportive of local actors. Our donors certainly recognized their value. 2018 was a record year for the pooled funds. Donor support to the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the Country-Based Pooled Funds amounted to $558.6 million and $950 million, respectively.

OCHA consistently spoke up for the protection of women, men and children, including in the Security Council. In the year that we marked the 25th anniversary of the General Assembly resolution on the protection of civilians, we worked closely with our partners on a landmark Security Council resolution condemning the starvation of civilians and the denial of humanitarian access as weapons of war. To mark the 20th anniversary of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, OCHA launched the #InvisibleCitizens campaign to highlight the needs of people who have fled their homes without becoming refugees.

In 2018, we took decisive steps to tackle the scourge of sexual exploitation and abuse and harassment in the humanitarian system. OCHA played a key role in facilitating agreement in the Inter-agency Standing Committee to strengthen our system-wide investigative capacities; bolster our information-sharing to ensure perpetrators could not move freely from one organization to another; and ensure that victims received the support and protection they need.

We also took important decisions to strengthen our organization with the aim of making us more agile, accountable, effective, decentralized, transparent and collaborative.

We shifted more of our resources to our field offices. And our headquarters became more streamlined and focused on providing advice and support to the field. We also reorganized our surge mechanisms for swifter responses to rapid onset disasters.

The OCHA-managed UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) turned 25 last year. With deployments to five crises in 2018, UNDAC teams have responded to a total of 287 emergencies in 110 countries since 1993.

All this work could only be accomplished through the important collaboration of our partners and supporters around the world. I thank you for your commitment to humanitarian action, and to OCHA.

Mark Lowcock