OCHA

Chad

Philippines

Highlights 2011

OCHA helped tackle serious food security and nutrition problems in the Sahel belt. It ensured a strong focus on immediate humanitarian concerns, developed strategies to avoid duplication and advocated better assistance for vulnerable people.

OCHA helped provide a more active role for local authorities and institutions in disaster preparedness and emergency response, notably through the Comités Régionaux d’Action (Regional Committees for Action).

OCHA was strongly involved in fighting a cholera epidemic that broke out in July 2010 and ended in December 2011. It helped mobilize resources through WASH and Health Cluster meetings in N’djamena; partnered with WHO in setting up a regional meeting in Douala, attended by Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger; and organized a Niger and Chad cross-border mission to develop a regional response to the spread of cholera, with better monitoring of affected people’s movements.

Working with IOM and other partners, OCHA set up a task force to focus on Chadian returnees from Libya. This enabled a better flow of pooled information, improved coordination and more effective advocacy for resource mobilization.

OVERVIEW 2011

Two years of successive shocks have had a devastating impact on pastoralist communities in Chad. Erratic rainfall in 2011 led to poor harvests in many parts of the country, which raised serious humanitarian concerns. Famine threatened an estimated 1.6 million people. Acute malnutrition rates have gone beyond 15 per cent– the emergency threshold - in June 2011 in the Sahel belt. In Chad, severe acute malnutrition rates are increasing in Batha (4.6 per cent), Bahr el Ghazal (3.1 per cent), Guéra (3.9 per cent), Kanem (3 per cent), Lac (2.3 per cent), and Wadi Fira (4.6 per cent).

Chad experienced one of the worst cholera epidemics in recent history. WHO registered some 17,000 cases, including 455 deaths, since the beginning of 2011. The year was also marked by an alarming resurgence of poliomyelitis (132 WPV cases), measles and Guinea worm.

Displacement and population movements remained a major cause of concern. More than 90,000 Chadian migrants left Libya, returning to their regions of origin, mostly in and around N’Djamena and the Sahel belt. This further stretched resources in areas already vulnerable to food insecurity.

Chad still hosts 274,640 Sudanese refugees in the east of the country and 67,863 Centrafricans in the south-east. Chad also has 125,000 IDPs and 56,000 former IDPs who have returned to their areas of origin. All these communities present serious protection-and-assistance issues to the authorities and humanitarian agencies, and are among the main beneficiaries of humanitarian action. There has been continuing concern about weak or non-existent services for IDPs. The failure to secure a clear resolution of key problems in Sudan and CAR makes a mass return of refugees unlikely.

Responding to these problems, OCHA consolidated its coordination role at the national and local level. OCHA’s offices in N’Djamena, Abeche, Koukou, Farchana and Goz Beida supported the cluster system. OCHA developed guidance on minimal conditions for returning IDPs helped harmonize and update IDP figures. OCHA took part in inter-cluster meetings in Mao, Bol and Moussoro in the Sahelian belt of the country, where many of the worst humanitarian problems are concentrated. OCHA was involved in smaller-scale inter-cluster coordination arrangements to address WASH and health issues for the epidemics, and food security and nutrition for the ongoing Sahel belt crisis.

OCHA had significant input in organizing and following-up on HCT meetings, helping to ensure decisions and recommendations are implemented. This led to stronger cooperation between the wash and health clusters during the response to a cholera outbreak and improved collaboration between the food security and nutrition clusters in addressing the food and nutrition crisis.

OCHA worked closely with the HC to promote constructive dialogue with and communicate key messages to the Government, donors, implementing partners, regional organizations and the general public. High-level meetings with the authorities helped ensure critical humanitarian concerns were addressed, such as security of operations, access restrictions, long-term solutions for returning IDPs and problems of early recovery in the east. The ongoing dialogue also raised awareness of the Government’s responsibilities in crisis periods, and confronting cholera epidemics, food security and nutritional concerns.

OCHA worked with Government authorities to enable better data collection and information management at the local and national level, particularly through the ongoing capacity-building of the Comités Regionaux d’Action. The aim is to better prepare the Government for future crises and strengthen its role in ensuring more effective humanitarian coordination.

OCHA contributed to a range of regional, national and local forums and consultative processes. They included donor meetings; the Task Force on the Libya Crisis; the Floods Working Group with N’Djamena and Bongor municipalities, and humanitarian flight users’ group meetings.

OCHA provided leadership on joint assessment missions that focused on shifting humanitarian needs in different areas. A mission to Sila and Assoungha in the east looked at the issues surrounding returning IDPs, including humanitarian needs, access and the search for durable solutions. Other missions focused on the rapid assessment of sudden-onset crises, including floods and epidemics, and the impact of the Libya crisis on different districts of N’Djamena, and on east and north Chad.

OCHA helped to secure $233 million (57 per cent of requirements) in humanitarian funding through the 2011 Chad CAP, and $22 million through CERF. OCHA also briefed major donors, including ECHO, Spain, South Africa and Switzerland, on humanitarian funding requirements. Attempts continue to broaden the donor base, focusing on India-Brazil-South Africa, a South-South cooperation initiative, among others, and on the African Renaissance Fund for CAP support.

OCHA’s coordination of the humanitarian response will strive to build links with ongoing development initiatives and mechanisms, pushing for long-term solutions. This includes building national institutions’ capacity to improve planning, and helping to instill a culture of prevention and management of natural disasters.

Working closely with the HC, OCHA will strengthen its relations with donors and engage in strong advocacy, trying to ensure that severe humanitarian problems are not overlooked and Chad receives the attention it merits.

OCHA will use its expanding range of information tools, including its mapping service and the 3W matrix, to inform the humanitarian community of developments at local and national levels.

WORKPLAN 2011

GOAL 2: A more effective humanitarian coordination system
Objective 2.1 Effective mechanisms that manage and support accountable humanitarian coordination leaders.
INDICATOR	Established and functioning operational inter-cluster forums at field and capital level in accordance with generic ToR by target date.
ACHIEVEMENTS	Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) meetings held monthly, and agendas/summary records drafted by OCHA. Inter-cluster meetings have been held every two months since August 2011. Outcomes of these forums included the follow-up and monitoring of health and food-insecurity crises and CERF funding allocations.
INDICATOR	Percentage of agenda issues addressed by strategic-level HCT that are submitted from operational-level inter-cluster coordination forums.
ACHIEVEMENTS	100 per cent of agenda issues are addressed by the HCT and decisions taken.
INDICATOR	Percentage of inter-cluster, cluster and cross-cutting recommendations issued by HCT that are implemented at operational level.
ACHIEVEMENTS	60 per cent. Most of inter-cluster, cluster and cross-cutting recommendations issued by HCT have been implemented at the operational level, e.g. Abeche, Goz Beida, Koukou, Farchana in the Sahel belt, and in northern Chad.
Objective 2.2 An OCHA capable of responding quickly, with clear triggers for establishing, phasing out and drawing down operations.
Indicator	CO strategy developed by March 2011, including planning indicators in consultation with partners.
ACHIEVEMENTS	Country workplan revised in June and country strategy 2012-2013 drafted early September 2011.
Objective 2.3 A more predictable and scalable suite of OCHA services and tools to support leaders and partners in response preparedness, humanitarian response and transition.
Indicator	In-country contingency plan (CP) updated twice a year; sub-regional CP established.
ACHIEVEMENTS	The updating of the CP (at country and regional level) was constantly in process. It was updated every six months or as required. The affects of the Libya crisis and the Chadian returnees from Libya have been included in the CP during the year.
Indicator	Information products generated and updated and found useful by partners.
ACHIEVEMENTS	All partners were regularly provided with OCHA products. Based on the feedback received so far, partners have been fully satisfied. In Feb and March 2012, the office plans to launch a survey to assess the quality of our products and the additional needs of the humanitarian community.
Indicator	Percentage of key OCHA tools (contingency plans, CAP/flash appeals, sit reps) using sex- and age-disaggregated data.
ACHIEVEMENTS	70 per cent of key OCHA tools. Workshops and meetings have been held by the IASC Gender expert in Ndjamena and the field. As such, more partners are using sex- and age-disaggregated data while drafting projects, concept papers, etc. The same methodology is applicable while conducting needs-assessment missions. The Gender Marker coding needs further improvement.
Objective 2.4 A more systematic humanitarian programme cycle (needs assessments and analysis, joint planning, fund-raising and resource allocation, and monitoring and evaluation).
Indicator	Needs-assessment plan developed and endorsed by HCT by March.
ACHIEVEMENTS	A needs-assessment team was established comprising members of the main clusters, available to carry out missions when needed. Assessment plan covering June-Dec 2011 was developed by mid-year.
Indicator	Percentage of projects in the funding mechanism (CAP, CERF) coded with Gender Marker.
ACHIEVEMENTS	100 per cent of projects within the CAP are coded with Gender Marker.
Indicator	Percentage of total projects submitted prioritized as “high” in compliance with HCT-endorsed methodology.
ACHIEVEMENTS	100 per cent. The prioritization was based on three main principles/parameters: priority sector, save lives and the vulnerability of beneficiaries.