OCHA serves the world’s most vulnerable people through its staff based in offices around the world.

Humanitarian response in 2020 was like no other year. In the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the world was confronting the “biggest international challenge
since the Second World War.”

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Annual Report says that, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, OCHA and its partners in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee launched the Global Humanitarian Response Plan for COVID-19. It called for US$9.5 billion to boost health, food, protection, livelihoods and education services, and to ensure continued support for existing humanitarian programmes in 63 countries.

By the year’s end, donors had provided $3.8 billion which OCHA coordinated to target more than 260 million people globally. OCHA teams negotiated on issues such as access, respect for humanitarian principles, and protection of civilians and aid workers to ensure that affected people received life-saving relief on time.

Download the full report here.

Download the Year in Review full infographic and the OCHA presence map.