Advocacy and Information Management Branch

Advocacy Section

Information Analysis Section

Information and Communications Technology Section

Information and Communications Technology Section

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY SECTION

Planned Staffing	Regular Budget	Extra-budgetary	Projects	Total
Professional	4	5	-	9
General Service	2	12	-	14
Total	6	17	-	23
Staff costs (US$)	844,992	2,188,416	-	3,033,408
Non-staff costs (US$)	-	802,187	-	802,187
Total costs (US$)	844,992	2,990,603	-	3,835,595
Total requested (US$)				2,990,603

NEW YORK

Planned Staffing	Regular Budget	Extra-budgetary	Projects	Total
Professional	3	1	-	4
General Service	1-	8	-	9
Total	4	9	-	13
Staff costs (US$)	567,696	792,772	-	1,360,468
Non-staff costs (US$)	-	398,325	-	398,325
Total costs (US$)	567,696	1,191,097	-	1,758,793
Total requested (US$)				1,191,097

GENEVA

Planned Staffing	Regular Budget	Extra-budgetary	Projects	Total
Professional	1	4	-	5
General Service	1	4	-	5
Total	2	8	-	10
Staff costs (US$)	277,296	1,395,644	-	1,672,940
Non-staff costs (US$)	-	403,862	-	403,862
Total costs (US$)	277,296	1,799,506	-	2,076,802
Total requested (US$)				1,799,506

OCHA’s Information Technology Section (ITS) is responsible for providing Information and Communications Technology (ICT) support within the Office. ICT support is essential to fulfill OCHA’s overall strategic priorities, especially the strengthening of information management tools.

Within the Advocacy and Information Management Branch, and in OCHA overall, there will be strengthened field orientation for ICT support in 2006. The challenge in this context is to provide adequate ICT capacity (underpinning the Information Management [IM] capacity, as defined in the IM strategy) to all OCHA field presences. An additional focus will be on developing new IM tools, and further enhancing and integrating existing tools.

A number of initiatives were begun or strengthened in 2005 that carry over into the work of 2006. Beginning last year, the OCHA Online platform was further enhanced, and an OCHA Intranet was developed and launched, aiming to enhance performance through better information exchange. Also, field office and HIC website templates were fully developed and implemented. Strategies were developed for field connectivity, e-mail and ICT support.

The Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations reached the required number of signatories and came into effect in January 2005. Inter-agency coordination and support in the area of emergency telecommunications was bolstered, through the implementation of the Inter-Agency Emergency Telecommunications (IAET) common service for the humanitarian community. In response to the Humanitarian Response Review (HRR), OCHA was designated process owner for the emergency telecommunications cluster.

For OCHA’s internal ICT response capacity, the conceptof rapid deployment fly-away connectivity kits and personal ICT kits was developed.

On the application side, ITS supported the development of an Expenditure Tracking System (ETS) for the tsunami crisis. Work on the development of a system for tracking donor contributions, based on the Financial Tracking System (FTS), was started. A study for an OCHA-wide document management system was also undertaken, and a concept as well as metadata standards were established.

In 2006, the implementation of strategies for field connectivity will continue and additional enhancements will be included. The inter-agency ICT coordination mechanisms will be further streamlined, while the ICT kits will be fully implemented and deployed. In Geneva, an OCHA dedicated ICT help desk will be established and additional capacity will be provided for applications support. Examples of applications that will be further developed and enhanced include the ETS (into a generic tracking system to be used for any future emergencies), the system for donor contributions tracking, the Intranet and the document management system.

Activities:

• Provide ICT support, including infrastructure and connectivity, to OCHA operations at headquarters and in the field.
• Coordinate inter-agency emergency ICT activities, including leading the cluster for emergency telecommunications.
• Provide ICT surge capacity, including stocks, staff and stand-by arrangements.
• Develop and maintain applications and databases (including OCHA Online, financial accounting and tracking, document management system).
• Provide electronic information dissemination services to improve internal communication, including further expansion of the Intranet.

Indicators:

• Number and percentage of OCHA field offices with minimum ICT capacity.
• Number of emergencies where telecommunications services are deployed within the approved time frame.
• User satisfaction as measured by periodic user satisfaction surveys of headquarters and field staff.