ReliefWeb

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ReliefWeb is an information portal formed by OCHA in 1996 as a way to rapidly share humanitarian information across the world. It has offices in New York, Geneva and Kobe, Japan. OCHA's 2005 budget was some USD 110 million, mostly received directly from UN member states.

The idea came from a UN 'ReliefNet' conference in 1995, and its mandate when it was launched in 1996 was "to strengthen the response capacity of the international humanitarian community through the timely dissemination of reliable information". ReliefWeb's $2M annual cost (2007) is funded by voluntary government contributions¹

The online collaboration platform chosen was Lotus Notes, which was used throughout the UN at the time.

Content is contributed by around 2,500 organisations and disseminated at the rate of 200,000 pages per day - at quiet times.

Under the re-designed ReliefWeb, the website is organized into the following sections:

Latest Updates - ReliefWeb publishes and re-publishes documents on major natural disasters and complex humanitarian emergencies worldwide, These documents include situation reports, press releases, appeals, assessments, evaluations, analyses, etc. and have been produced by UN agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Governments, media sources, advocacy groups, and academic/research institutions.

Countries and Emergencies – This section contains documents cataloged and retrievable by Country and specific emergency/disaster. Each country webpage also includes maps, background information and profile documents, as well as external links to country-specific websites.

Appeals and Funding – ReliefWeb is a depository for UN humanitarian appeals for specific disasters and emergencies, as well as providing an interactive link to the UN’s Financial Tracking System for tracking contributions to these appeals.

Policy and Issues – ReliefWeb contains a library of documents related to policy and humanitarian issues such as Coordination, Humanitarian Reform, Information Management, and Security.

Professional Resources – ReliefWeb posts submitted vacancy announcements for humanitarian professional positions with the UN, NGOs, research organizations, etc. This section also contains a hyperlinked directory of humanitarian training resources as well as contact directories.

Maps - ReliefWeb publishes maps and GIS products on disasters/emergencies, countries, and regions of the world.

Search - ReliefWeb has both a free text search engine and an Advanced Search engine, which enables its document database to be searched by language, document type, source, date, etc.