AdvanceAid

admin July 21st, 2010

One Brit, Baroness Amos, is about to take over from another, Sir John Holmes as the head of OCHA.   Her full title will be Under Secretary-General in charge of the Office of the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.  She moves to the UN from what sounds a much more comfortable role as British high commissioner to Australia.  She spent four years in Tony Blair’s cabinet between 2003 and 2007, first as leader of the House of Lords and then as international development secretary in charge of DFID.

IRIN News, which is an OCHA project, has polled a number of  NGOs and NGO networks to draw up a list of tasks for her once she takes over.  Here’s a digested version of the list recommended:

•    Advocate independence of humanitarian action to ensure that it remains separate from military stabilization and counter-terrorism objectives;

•    Fight for humanitarian access to people in need – Sudan’s banning of NGOs being cited;

•    Fight for humanitarian staff security – Some 260 humanitarian workers were killed, injured or kidnapped in 2008, the highest yearly toll on record;

•    Continue to improve coordination.  Despite the Clusters, relief efforts are still not well coordinated;

•    Find good leaders to run coordination, and throughout the UN humanitarian system;

•    Make humanitarians “less white” with local organizations and capacity at its centre, and the international community playing a helping, rather than a central, role;

•    Lobby for more attention to disaster preparedness;

•    Advocate in the Security Council on behalf of affected people;

•    Reform OCHA itself.

Hard to argue with most of that – especially a renewed emphasis on disaster preparedness and localisation.  But it is a big agenda and one can only wish the Baroness luck with her new role.  Disasters are not going to go away, the world has to come up with a better way of dealing with them.

Tags: Baroness Amos, OCHA, Sir John Holmes, UN

• News
• Comments(1)