OCHA field coordination 2023-2025

The proposed operation aims to contribute to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) at country and regional level in line with its new strategic plan for 2023-2026. OCHA is an entity within the UN Secretariat, which is mandated by the UN General Assembly (Resolution 46/182, December 1991) to support the coordination of humanitarian response. It operates globally through its headquarters in New York and Geneva, about 30 country offices and five regional offices. UN’s ability to lead humanitarian coordination is a priority issue for Swedish humanitarian policy. Since the founding of OCHA, Sweden has contributed to OCHA though significant financial as well as important political support. In recent years, Sweden has been the second largest donor to OCHA, and Sida's support has accounted for almost half of the total Swedish contribution. Sweden is also among the largest donors to OCHA's humanitarian funds, both the country funds (CBPF) through Sida and the Central Emergency Fund (CERF) through the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. OCHA operates in a global humanitarian environment where humanitarian needs and complexity are increasing by the year. Although overall humanitarian funding has increased, the gap between funding and needs is growing. In recent years, financing has sufficed to meet less than half of the needs identified. At the same time, the system must respond to an increasing number of prolonged and chronic crises, often due to the lack of sustainable political solutions. The complexity of crises is further deepened by climate-related risks and natural disasters. The humanitarian system is also changing and diversifying as an increasing share of the response is handled by local, national and regional actors. Based on the above describe global humanitarian context, Sida concludes that the need for effective humanitarian coordination is critical. Therefore, continued support for OCHA's coordination in the field is justified. The coordination mechanisms provided by OCHA are essential for a needs-based and well-prioritised collective response. OCHA's added value, as a non-operational actor, stems from its unique mandate, where it can act as an independent facilitator and coordinator in support of national as well as international humanitarian organizations involved in a response. The coordination function includes, among other things, the annual planning cycle, where OCHA brings together the sector clusters to analyse the needs and based on that develop a joint humanitarian response plan (HRP). The HRPs are an important part of prioritizing the most urgent needs and thus also making efficient use of scarce financial resources. In its role as an independent facilitator, OCHA can also act on behalf of the humanitarian system against authorities and the military, thus negotiating i.e. humanitarian access. This can involve both negotiating access of a specific operation across conflict borders, on general regulations regarding access, or administrative procedures regarding. This type of concerted effort is of great importance in spite of the increasingly restrictive contexts in which organizations operate. Another example of the unique role of OCHA is its information products and data analysis, which is used as a tool for operational decisions and a basis for humanitarian advocacy work. This operation builds on previous years' support to OCHA and in particular the agreement that Sida had with OCHA during the previous strategy period 2018-2022. Multi-year funding is particularly importance for OCHA, whose budget consists primarily of salaries. The new agreement is for three years, and will fall within the time span of OCHA's 2023-2026 strategic plan. It is made up of a flexible support to OCHA’s field activities of SEK 260 million out of which 125 million for the first year, 130 million for the second year and 5 million for the third year.