“This is the people’s agenda, a plan of action for ending poverty in all its dimensions, irreversibly, everywhere, and leaving no one behind,” said Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, at the launch of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s)
The stakes don’t come much higher than those faced daily by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Its head of information, Mark Dalton, tells Jo Bowman how data is changing the way help reaches those most in need.
It only takes a glance at the newspapers to appreciate that the numbers of people affected by conflict in the world right now is beyond vast. Mark Dalton is at the coal face of these many crises and says the situation is unprecedented in recent times. He is Chief of the Information Services Branch of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), serving OCHA staff and humanitarian partners around the world.
“It all depends how you measure it, but in terms of numbers we’re seeing about 59 million people displaced this year, which is the highest since the Second World War. We are definitely seeing a huge demand for humanitarian support and assistance, and the official demand from the sector this year is between US$17 billion and $19.7 billion. To be honest it’s even greater than that, because that doesn’t take into account diaspora transfers that go from individuals to a crisis situation.”
Four complex and, to some extent, intertwined crises currently have the highest-level OCHA rating, which sets in motion a series of urgent and resource-intensive actions by UN agencies and their partners: Iraq, South Sudan, Yemen and Syria. But Dalton points out that the fact that strife-torn nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and the Central African Republic do not make the highest rating, shows just on how many fronts humanitarian groups are working, and the intensity of so many people’s needs.
The process of providing humanitarian aid has changed significantly in the past two decades; the sector has professionalised, there are more skilled people involved, and there are even post-graduate university courses in humanitarian development. Dalton has spent more than 20 years working in humanitarian aid, including seven years with Médecins Sans Frontières, and co-founding the British relief agency Merlin. His work has taken him to the Balkans, the Caucuses, Kenya, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
While natural disasters, which are often seasonal, are becoming somewhat easier to manage thanks to planning by national and regional authorities and aid groups, the complexity of managing conflict-related crises is intensifying. Many more people and organisations are involved than before, which is a positive development but makes good coordination more important than ever, and this is where OCHA comes to the fore.
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