37.
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA)
Poor
OVERVIEW
Have they met the Busan commitment on aid transparency? No.
OCHA is the part of the United Nations Secretariat responsible for bringing together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies. OCHA focuses on delivering two mutually reinforcing goals: improving humanitarian action in the world’s on-going crises, and increasing the effectiveness of response efforts by engaging with new partners and promoting new technologies and ideas. OCHA manages the Financial Tracking Service (FTS), a clearing house of information on humanitarian aid flows.
ANALYSIS
Achievements and progress
- Since the 2014 Index, OCHA published two additional indicators at the activity level, namely current status and aid type.
Challenges and room for improvement
- OCHA dropped down to the ‘poor’ category in the 2016 Index with a score of 37%.
- Its frequency of publication to the IATI registry went from monthly in 2014 down to less than quarterly for the 2016 Index.
- OCHA does not publish an organisation file to the IATI Registry. Planning information is available in a different format. Forward- looking budgets are not available at all.
- Fifteen indicators are not published in the IATI Standard, including important information such as actual dates and sub-national locations.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- OCHA should set an example on humanitarian data transparency by publishing comprehensive activity-level data to IATI’s new humanitarian fields once the code lists are agreed in 2017.
- OCHA should publish an organisation file to the IATI Registry, which includes budgetary information and should increase its frequency of publication to daily during fast onset emergencies.
- OCHA should promote aid transparency and IATI as a core component of good humanitarian practice at the World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016 and among its implementing partners, ensuring that IATI data can automatically feed into the FTS.
DONOR PROFILE
2016 Index Score:
Poor
2014 Index Score:
Fair
2013 Index Score:
Fair
First published to IATI:
March 2013
INDICATOR SCORING
TOTAL
37.0%
SECTION A
COMMITMENT TO
AID TRANSPARENCY:
3.29/10
SECTION B
PUBLICATION
ORGANISATION LEVEL:
8.34/25
SECTION C
PUBLICATION
ACTIVITY LEVEL:
25.41/65
Commitment
1. FOIA
2. Implementation Schedules
3. Accessibility
Publication Status
Source
No data available.
Comments
No specific disclosure or transparency policy found on the website for UN OCHA.
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1. FOIA
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Source
http://2016tracker.publishwhatyoufund.org/plan/organisations/
Comments
Based on Publish What You Fund's analysis of IATI/Common Standard implementation schedules.
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2. Implementation schedules
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Source
https://fts.unocha.org/pageloader.aspx?page=home
Comments
Portals are scored using three criteria: 1) the portal allows free, bulk export of data; 2) it contains detailed disaggregated data; 3) the data is published under an open licence. It is unclear whether the data published on the UN OCHA's portal is published under an open license.
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3. Accessibility
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Planning
Financial
4. Organisation Strategy
5. Annual Report
6. Allocation Policy
7. Procurement Policy
8. Country Strategy
9. Total Budget
10. Disaggregated Budgets
11. Audit
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
No data available.
Comments
The 2014-2017 Strategic Plan is available.
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4. Organisation strategy
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
No data available.
Comments
Annual reports appear to be published within regular cycles.
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5. Annual report
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
No data available.
Comments
OCHAs allocation policies are published.
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6. Allocation policy
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
No data available.
Comments
Procurement is run through UN Office in Geneva, procurement procedures last updated July 2013.
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7. Procurement policy
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
Comments
The information is considered to be 'always published' as various documents/webpages set out the organisation's approach in Syria.All are also listed on the FTS site.
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8. Country strategy
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Source
Comments
The total organisation budget is the total amount that the organisation will be allocated by the government or its funders per year for the next three years. This is money going to the organisation and can be indicative.Each year ahead is worth one third of the total possible score for this indicator. At the time of review (Dec 2015), no budget for 2016 and above could be found. Aggregate budgets of between 2-3 years will be scored the same as 1 year forward budgets
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9. Total budget
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Source
Comments
The figures for disaggregated budgets can be indicative. Scores are awarded on the basis of the number of years (up to three years) for which organisations are publishing budget information. At the time of review (Dec 2015), no budget for 2016 and above could be found.
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10. Disaggregated budgets
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
https://docs.unocha.org/sites/dms/Documents/OCHA_AR_Flipbook_Low.pdf
Comments
Internal audit reports are available on the Office of Internal Oversight website. Annual accounts are also provided in the annual report.
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11. Audit
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Basic
Classifications
Related Documents
Financial
Performance
12. Implementer
13. Unique ID
14. Title
15. Description
16. Planned Dates
17. Actual Dates
18. Current Status
19. Contact Details
20. Collaboration Type
21. Flow Type
22. Aid Type
23. Finance Type
24. Sector
25. Sub-national Location
26. Tied Aid Status
33. Budget
34. Commitments
35. Disbursements And Expenditure
36. Budget Identifier
37. Results
38. Impact Appraisals
39. Conditions
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 98.54%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 87.07%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 95.68%
Publication Status
Not Published
Source
No data available.
Comments
This information could not be found.
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17. Actual dates
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 99.12%
Publication Status
Always
Format: Website
Source
http://www.unocha.org/syrian-arab-republic/emergency-response-fund/syria-erf
Comments
Scores adjusted to reflect the donor and independent reviewer's feedback.
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19. Contact details
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Website
Source
Comments
Score adjusted to 'always' to reflect the donor and independent reviewer's comments.
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20. Collaboration Type
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Not Published
Source
No data available.
Comments
This information could not be found.
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21. Flow Type
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 0.88%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 55.36%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 99.56%
Publication Status
Sometimes
Format: Website
Source
No data available.
Comments
This information is available for some activities but does not appear as being consistently published.
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25. Sub-national location
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Not Published
Source
No data available.
Comments
This information could not be found.
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26. Tied Aid Status
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
No data available.
Comments
MoUs between OCHA's funders and OCHA are accepted for this indicator. This information appears to be consistently available via the mptf website.
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27. MoU
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
No data available.
Comments
Evaluations published within regular cycles.
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28. Evaluations
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 89.92%
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/2015_SRP_Syria_EN_AdvanceCopy_171214.pdf
Comments
This information is available in the SRP.
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30. Budget Docs
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Sometimes
Format: Document
Source
No data available.
Comments
Contracts for goods and services at HQ level are published but no contracts could be found for field operations.
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31. Contracts
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
No data available.
Comments
This information is available on the procurement division's website.
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32. Tenders
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 0.2%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 23.51%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 40.73%
Publication Status
Not Published
Source
No data available.
Comments
This information could not be found. Although we understand that the methodology is not always fit for purpose, this indicator is retained for all organisations in the Index. The budget classification is a way of linking the activity to the recipient country government's own budget codes and is especially relevant for long term crisis and better coordination between humanitarian and development aid.
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36. Budget Identifier
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Sometimes
Format: Pdf
Source
Comments
Results against individual projects are not publicly available, but can be found in annual reports.
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37. Results
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
No data available.
Comments
This information can be found in Strategic Response Plans.
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38. Impact Appraisals
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Not Published
Source
No data available.
Comments
This information could not be found.
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