Accountability to Affected People (AAP)
Accountability to affected people is a commitment by humanitarians to use power responsibly: to take account of, give account to and be held to account by the affected communities themselves.
Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA)
CVA is the umbrella term for humanitarian cash and vouchers. The terms ‘cash assistance’ or ‘cash’ are used when referring specifically to the use of cash transfer.
Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF)
Established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005 as the United Nations global emergency response fund, CERF enables humanitarian responders to deliver life-saving assistance whenever and wherever crises strike.
CERF’s Rapid Response window allows country teams to kick-start relief efforts immediately in a coordinated and prioritized response when a new crisis emerges.
Clusters are groups of humanitarian organizations (UN and non-UN) working in the main sectors of humanitarian action, e.g., shelter or health. They are created when clear humanitarian needs exist within a sector, when there are numerous actors within sectors, and when national authorities need coordination support.
Country-Based Pooled Funds (CBPFs)
CBPFs allow donors to pool their contributions into single, unearmarked funds to support local humanitarian efforts. This enables humanitarian partners in crisis-affected countries to deliver timely, coordinated and principled assistance.
CBPFs are established when a new emergency occurs or when an existing crisis deteriorates. They are managed by OCHA under the Humanitarian Coordinator’s leadership and in close consultation with the humanitarian community.
Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC)
The ERC is the most senior UN official dedicated to humanitarian affairs. The ERC reports directly to the United Nations Secretary-General and serves as a focal point for Governments, intergovernmental, and non-governmental organizations on humanitarian issues. In this capacity, the ERC is often called before the UN Security Council in response to humanitarian emergencies.
Gender-Based Violence (GBV)
GBV is an umbrella term for any harmful act that is perpetrated against a person’s will, and that is based on socially ascribed (gender) differences between males and females. Acts of GBV violate a number of universal human rights protected by international instruments and conventions. Many — but not all — forms of GBV are illegal and criminal acts in national laws and policies. The nature and extent of specific types of GBV vary across cultures, countries and regions. Examples include, but are not limited to, sexual violence, including sexual exploitation/abuse, and forced prostitution; domestic violence; trafficking; forced/early marriage; and harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation, honour killings and widow inheritance
Gender with Age Marker (GAM)
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s GAM is a project design and monitoring tool that helps users to design and implement inclusive programmes that respond to gender, age and disability-related differences.
The Grand Bargain, launched during the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May 2016, is a unique agreement between some of the largest donors and humanitarian organizations that have committed to get more means into the hands of people in need, and to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the humanitarian action.
The HC is the most senior UN official in a country experiencing a humanitarian emergency. The HC is appointed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator and is responsible for leading and coordinating the efforts of humanitarian organizations (UN and non-UN), with a view to ensuring that they are principled, timely, effective efficient, and contribute to longer-term recovery.
Humanitarian Country Team (HCT)
The HCT is a strategic and operational decision-making and oversight forum established and led by the Humanitarian Coordinator. Composition includes representatives from the UN, international NGOs, and the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement. Agencies that are also designated cluster leads should represent the clusters as well as their respective organizations. The HCT makes decisions to ensure that country-level humanitarian action is well-coordinated, principled, timely, effective and efficient. It also ensures that adequate prevention, preparedness, risk and security management measures are in place and functioning. The HCT leads the humanitarian programme cycle.
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)
According to the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, IDPs are "persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized border."
Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC)
The IASC is the highest-level humanitarian coordination forum, bringing together the executive heads of 18 UN and non-UN organizations to ensure coherence of preparedness and response efforts, formulate policy, and agree on priorities for strengthened humanitarian action. The IASC was established in June 1992, following a UN General Assembly resolution.
Inter-Cluster/Sector Coordination Group (ICCG/ISCG)
The group of IASC Cluster/Sector Coordinators assigned by Lead/Co-Lead Agencies tasked with facilitating cooperation among sectors/clusters to assure coherence in achieving common objectives, avoiding duplication and ensuring areas of need are prioritized. Inter-cluster coordination takes place at the national and subnational level to coordinate the response implementation through each step of the humanitarian programme cycle. An OCHA representative serves as the Chair.
Integrated Food Security Phase Classification – Acute Food Insecurity (IPC AFI)
The IPC AFI classification provides strategically relevant information to decision makers, focusing on short-term objectives to prevent, mitigate or decrease severe food insecurity that threatens lives or livelihoods. Among other information, the IPC AFI classification provides differentiation between different levels of severity of acute food insecurity, classifying units of analysis in five distinct phases: (1) Minimal/None, (2) Stressed, (3) Crisis, (4) Emergency, (5) Catastrophe/Famine. Each phase has important and distinct implications for where and how best to intervene, and therefore influences priority response objectives.
Joint Intersectoral Analysis Framework (JIAF)
The JIAF provides humanitarian actors with a common analytical framework and system to gather, structure and synthesize information regarding the intersectoral needs of populations in crisis. The JIAF serves to inform strategic decision-making, response analysis and response planning through a holistic, people-centred and inclusive joint intersectoral analysis system that is comprehensive and methodologically rigorous. Through applying the JIAF, actors can estimate the magnitude and severity of humanitarian needs as well as develop a common narrative around the context, shocks and drivers of the crisis. This analysis can support projecting of how the severity and magnitude of needs may evolve within the planning cycle.
Official Development Assistance (ODA)
ODA is defined by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as Government aid that promotes and specifically targets the economic development and welfare of developing countries. The DAC adopted ODA as the “gold standard” of foreign aid in 1969, and it remains the main source of financing for development aid.
Affected People
Based on the 2016 IASC guidance on Humanitarian Population Figures, the definition of affected people includes all those whose lives and livelihoods have been impacted as a direct result of the shock or stress. Characteristics of the category People Affected must include:
- Being in close geographical proximity to a crisis.
- Physically or emotionally impacted, including exposed to a human rights violation/protection incident.
- Experiencing personal loss or loss of capital and assets as a direct result of the crisis (family member, house/roof, livestock, or any other asset).
- Being faced with an immediate threat from a crisis.
People in Need (PiN)
The 2016 IASC guidance on Humanitarian Population Figures defines People in Need as a subset of the affected population. They are defined as those members:
- whose physical security, basic rights, dignity, living conditions or livelihoods are threatened or have been disrupted, AND
- whose current level of access to basic services, goods and social protection is inadequate to re-establish normal living conditions with their accustomed means in a timely manner without additional assistance.
This category is further broken down into sub-categories or by sector/cluster to provide additional details about the intensity, severity or type of need (e.g. need of urgent life-saving assistance, food insecure population, people in need of shelter). The definition of People in Need will need to be monitored and adjusted over time. At the onset or continuation of a shock, needs are more likely to be centred on sustaining lives; the more protracted the crisis, the more needs will be centred on re-establishing and sustaining normal living and livelihood conditions.
People Targeted
Based on the 2016 IASC guidance on Humanitarian Population Figures, “People targeted” is a sub-set of People in Need and represents the number of people humanitarian actors aim or plan to assist. This projected number is typically smaller than the number of People in Need given: (a) it is rare that international humanitarian actors can meet all needs; (b) needs are also being addressed by actors not participating in the joint plan, including national Governments; and (c) people in need are not always accessible. The number of people targeted is usually defined once there is some idea of available resources and access constraints.
People Reached
Based on the 2016 IASC guidance on Humanitarian Population Figures, “People Reached” include those who have received some form of assistance. Without any additional information, this figure says little about how long and how well this assistance covers the needs of the affected population.
Technical notes
Countries
The term “country” refers to any territory for which authorities of other organizations report separate statistics. It does not necessarily imply political independence.
Years, symbols and conventions
- 2021 is the most recent year for which complete data was available at the time of publication. Where 2021 data is not available, the latest year is shown, and this is noted.
- A dash (-) means that data is not available or that aggregates cannot be calculated because of missing data in the years shown.
- 0 or 0.0 means zero or small enough that the number would round to zero at the number of decimal places shown.
- A billion is 1,000 million.
Acronyms
For a full list of entities in the United Nations system, including those used in this report, please refer to https://www.un.org/en/pdfs/un_system_chart.pdf