OneResponse is a collaborative inter-agency website designed to enhance humanitarian coordination within the cluster approach, and support the predictable exchange of information in emergencies at the country level. The website will support Clusters and OCHA fulfill their information management responsibilities as per existing IASC guidance … (about 1/2).
Homepage;
Countries; Disasters; Global Clusters, specially Global Nutrition Cluster; Coordination; Resources;
Contact at the United Nations: Patrick Gordon, or Delphine Pastorel.
About 2/2: … Key characteristics of the site include:
- A global entry page, where all global cluster guidance materials located on www.humanitarianreform.org is currently being migrated.
- Country or emergency specific content will be hosted on the field level site.
- A specific disaster site will be created within 24 hours, during the onset of a new emergency.
- A low-bandwidth version of the site is available, to enable access and exchange of information in poor connectivity environments.
- Information can be categorized as either public or private. This allows sensitive information to be made accessible only to cluster specific working groups.
- Clusters will directly manage their own content on the site.
- OCHA owns the website and is responsible for its management.
2. Who is the target audience for the website?
- The primary audience for the website are humanitarian workers at the country level, including Cluster Leads, cluster members, OCHA, UN Common services etc. The secondary audience is global, including the global cluster staff at HQ, cluster members, donors, and OCHA.
3. What is the background to OneResponse?
- In order to avoid the multitude of one-off ad hoc websites developed in each new emergency, there was inter-agency consensus in early 2008 that a single website was needed to support the predictable exchange of information in emergencies at the country level.
- The inter-agency web platform was first field tested in May 2008 in response to Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar. Since then, OCHA has continued to develop the website based on the requirements and functionalities identified in partnership with the Cluster/Sector Information Management focal points and Microsoft, as well as lessons learned from both the Myanmar website and Humanitarian Reform. OneResponse is the successor to three different OCHA sites: Humanitarian Reform, Humanitarian Info, and ochaonline.un.org/fieldoffice, plus numerous ad-hoc non-OCHA sites.
- In December 2008, the IASC Working Group requested the IASC Task Force on Information Management develop “an improved inter-agency web-platform to support and manage the exchange of operational information in emergencies, taking into account relevant existing web platforms and avoid duplication of existing agency web based resources”.
4. What is the role of Microsoft?
- Microsoft’s collaboration with OCHA on OneResponse is based on a public private partnership initiated in early 2006, to work together on information management and information technology issues in humanitarian response. Building on this partnership, Microsoft committed to developing, hosting and supporting the Inter Agency Website, based on the functional requirements defined by the Clusters and OCHA
5. What is the role of the Clusters/Sectors in the website?
- The role of the clusters/sectors is to manage their own content at the global and field level, as well as provide feedback to OCHA on changes they would like made to the website.
6. What is OCHA’s role?
- OCHA’s role is to manage the website and ensure that sufficient guidance material and support is provided to the clusters so they can manage their content effectively. The IASC endorsed ‘Operational Guidance on Responsibilities of Cluster/Sector Leads & OCHA in Information Management’ requires OCHA, in collaboration with the clusters, to provide a country-specific or disaster specific humanitarian web-site.
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