OCHA: 'Saving Lives Today and Tomorrow', NEW interactive website

Today OCHA launched an online interactive advocacy campaign on its new policy report, Saving Lives Today and Tomorrow: Managing the Risk of Humanitarian Crises, with the aim of encouraging a paradigm shift towards a more preventative and anticipatory approach to humanitarian crises.

The campaign is available at: www.unocha.org/saving-lives, in English and French - http://www.unocha.org/saving-lives/fr.html - and it argues that most crises can be predicted, if not prevented, and the suffering they cause can often be greatly reduced.

Over the past decade, the number of people affected by humanitarian crises has almost doubled. Meanwhile, funding requirements have more than trebled to 16.9 billion a year, an increase of 430% between 2004 and 2013. The rising scale of crises, our collective inability to resolve protracted disasters, and the interplay of new global challenges – such as water scarcity, climate change, food price volatility and rapid urbanization – have led to a global deficit in the operational and financial capacity of governments and humanitarian organizations to respond. The current trajectory of the international humanitarian system is completely unsustainable.

Humanitarian organizations are being asked to respond in more places, for longer periods of time, and at greater cost than ever before. These trends have created an overwhelming need for enhanced investment in risk mitigation and crisis management, but existing mechanisms are not capacitated or structured to respond. The humanitarian system is broken and this gap is leaving millions vulnerable to predictable, and in some cases preventable, humanitarian crises.

We must act NOW to address the political, institutional and behavioural obstacles hindering our capacity to act before crises occur. Disaster risk management is not seen as a priority for donors as it should. In the past 20 years, less than 0.5% of all international aid went for prevention and preparedness.

As the world gears up to create the new sustainable development goals, a new agreement on disaster risk reduction and prepares to host the first ever World Humanitarian Summit in 2016, the months ahead provide a once in a generation opportunity to reshape the international system and embed disaster risk management in humanitarian and development action.

Your support is key to these efforts, please continue spreading the word. Please share this campaign with your networks.

Join the campaign now at: www.unocha.org/saving-lives