ReliefWeb is a

humanitarian Humanitarianism is an active belief in the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotiona ...

information portal founded in 1996. The portal now hosts more than 720,000 humanitarian situation reports, press releases, evaluations, guidelines, assessments, maps and infographics. The portal is an independent vehicle of information, designed specifically to assist the international humanitarian community in effective delivery of emergency assistance or ''relief''. It provides information as humanitarian crises unfold, while emphasizing the coverage of "forgotten emergencies" at the same time.

Origin and development

ReliefWeb was founded in October 1996 and is administered by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The project began under the

US Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

, Bureau of International Organization Affairs, which had noticed during the Rwanda crisis how poorly critical operational information was shared between

NGOs A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

, UN Agencies and Governments. In 1995, the Department's Senior Policy Adviser on

Disaster Management Emergency management or disaster management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actual ...

led a series of discussions at UN HQ in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situ ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, as well as a conference on the project at the

in which both ReliefWeb as a product and the internet in general were touted as fresh tools for the humanitarian community. Its official launch was also the launch of the UN's first disaster website. Recognizing how critical the availability of reliable and timely information in time of humanitarian emergencies is, the

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Cur ...

endorsed the creation of ReliefWeb and encouraged humanitarian information exchange through ReliefWeb by all governments, relief agencies and

non-governmental organizations A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

in Resolution 51/194 on 10 February 1997. The

General Assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. Specific examples of general assembly include: Churches * General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of pres ...

reiterated the importance of information sharing in emergencies and of taking advantage of OCHA's emergency information services such as ReliefWeb in Resolution 57/153 on 3 March 2003. ReliefWeb maintains offices in three different time zones to update the website around the clock:

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populatio ...

(

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city prope ...

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) and

(United States). Prior to 2011, the three offices were located in Geneva (Switzerland), Kobe (Japan), and New York (USA). The closing of the Geneva and Kobe offices were due to the higher costs associated with these locations. ReliefWeb has seen steady growth in usage. In 2017, 6,8 million people visited ReliefWeb. In the same year, the website published more than 57,000 reports and maps, 39,500 jobs in the humanitarian sector, and 2,600 training opportunities. A first major re-design effort was started in 2002 and completed in 2005, which focused on implementing a more user-centric information architecture. In April 2011, ReliefWeb launched a new web platform based on

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

technology to offer a powerful search/filter engine and delivery system. In 2012, ReliefWeb began to expand its focus to become the one-stop shop for critical information on global crises and disasters. In November 2012, ReliefWeb revamped the home page, the "About Us" section and the Blog and introduced "Labs", a place to explore new and emerging opportunities and tools to improve information delivery to humanitarian workers.

Services

ReliefWeb disseminates humanitarian information by updating its website around the clock. In addition, ReliefWeb reaches more than 168,500 subscribers through its e-mail subscription services, allowing those who have low bandwidth Internet connections to receive information reliably. ReliefWeb posts maps and documents daily from over 5,000 sources from the UN system,

Governments A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...

, Inter-governmental organizations, NGOs,

academia An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...

and the media. In addition, a team of cartographers creates original maps focusing on humanitarian emergencies. All documents posted on the site are classified and archived, allowing advanced searching of documents from past emergency responses. The

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

contains more than 720,000 maps and documents dating back to 1981. ReliefWeb is also a major repository of humanitarian job postings and training announcements. In 2017, 1,605 organizations posted 39,336 job announcements on ReliefWeb. The job and training sources include Academic and Research Institutions, NGOs, International Organizations, Governments,

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

/ Red Crescent Movement and the Media. ReliefWeb also provides apps and tools for humanitarians, which enable more targeted personalised information search, with the aim to speed up the delivery of important information. The apps include functions to search ReliefWeb content, curate and access humanitarian data, and manage humanitarian personnel.

Awards

ReliefWeb has won the following awards: * Certificate of Superior Achievement in International Emergency Management (January 1999) from the

United States Government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

. * UN21 awards (March 2004) for "knowledge management" and "improvements to the working environment." *

Web4Dev Web4Dev is the name given a series of international conferences first convened in 2003 by the World Bank. Attendees, who include UN system organizations, international development agencies, international development NGOs and, on occasion, commerc ...

Award (2006) from the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

for excellence in Web design and best use of the Web as a tool to support development activities. * Special Achievement in GIS (2010) award for OCHA at the 20th Annual ESRI International User Conference, in recognition of outstanding work with GIS technology.

References

External links

* * {{authority control Organizations established by the United Nations Organizations established in 1996 Internet properties established in 1996 Humanitarian aid American news websites Web portals