Humanitarian Coordination: Lessons from Recent Field Experience

Affairs (OCHA) commissioned the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) to undertake an
independent study on humanitarian coordination. The aim was to sharpen thinking on UN
humanitarian coordination in the light of processes underway in the UN. These include debates on how the UN chooses coordination arrangements, the report of the UN Panel on Peace Operations – the Brahimi report – and OCHA’s own Change Management Process.
The purpose of the study is to:
1. Draw lessons from recent experiences in humanitarian coordination.
2. Understand the advantages and disadvantages of UN coordination models – that is, the
Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator or so-called ‘combined model’, the model where the
Humanitarian Coordinator is separate from the Resident Coordinator, and the ‘lead agency model’ – in particular circumstances.
3. Identify features of coordination arrangements which have provided ‘added value’.