Advocacy by UNOCHA

advocacy activities (press releases, written material, web sites) and comparative organizations
advocacy mandate – to raise awareness of humanitarian issues

• Raising the profile of humanitarian issues and principles in the political organs of the UN, and striving to ensure humanitarian requirements are given due priority by other bodies, such as the Department of Political Affairs and the Peacekeeping Department
• Undertaking advocacy initiatives to promote adherence to humanitarian principles and international humanitarian law (IHL) in aid delivery.   OCHA leads the development of codes of conduct or minimal operational standards that set ground rules for humanitarian action for all stakeholders, including the government and parties to conflict
• Advocating increased support and commitment of resources for humanitarian initiatives and interventions, reaching out to donor governments and beyond – to tax payers and the public at large 
• Highlighting humanitarian crises through media and public information campaigns to ensure that the voices of victims of conflict, the weak and the vulnerable are heard by policy and decision-makers at national, regional and global levels

 the strategy as it relates to key stakeholders:  donors and staff.

It should be noted that one reason for this lack of shared understanding probably relates to the extremely complicated structure of OCHA itself.  OCHA was set up as part of the Secretariat not as an agency in its own right; with a mandate to fulfill more than one role for the UN, to act as a coordinator rather than an operational agency and to represent the collective views of the Humanitarian community rather than being the voice for one set of victims – unlike the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).  Another unusual feature of the structure is that the Head of OCHA, the Under-Secretary General has another role, as Emergency Relief Coordinator in relation to the member agencies of the Inter-agency Standing Committee (IASC). 

Summary analysis of OCHA’s current advocacy work

OCHA does a tremendous amount of advocacy of different kinds through many parts of the organization. 

There is evidence that the amount and (probably) the impact of OCHA’s advocacy is increasing in some areas as these examples show:

·         Increased involvement on humanitarian issues by the Security Council

·         Increased media coverage of the Under-Secretary General’s (USG) comments and visits to the field

·         Expansion of IRIN into other locations and local radio

·         Development of an comprehensive communications package by the field, IRIN and AERS to attract world attention to a “forgotten emergency” in Northern Uganda, (plus plans to replicate a similar approach in other places)

·         Field workshops on advocacy training plus the creation of Advocacy (and PI) handbooks