Preparing and responding

Coordinating activities

Disasters come in many forms

Partnerships

Message from the Director-General

FAO in action

FAO's multiple roles: coordinating emergency activities

Within FAO the Emergency Coordination Group (ECG) ensures that the various units involved in emergency activities work efficiently together. ECG is chaired by the Director of the Office for Coordination of Normative, Operational and Decentralized Activities and has a secretariat provided by the office of the Special Advisers to the Director-General. Key units include:

• the Global Information and Early Warning Service (GIEWS), which monitors crop and food supply conditions, warns of impending emergencies, organizes joint FAO/WFP crop and food supply assessment missions and evaluates requests for large emergency food operations;
• the Special Relief Operations Service (TCOR), which takes the lead in conducting assessments of agricultural relief and rehabilitation needs and organizing and delivering FAO emergency assistance;
• the Procurement Service, which manages procurement of inputs for agricultural relief and rehabilitation projects;
• the Policy Assistance Division, which provides leadership for the formulation of comprehensive agricultural rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes and sustainable sector-development strategies.

Technical divisions provide technical support services, contributing advice and assistance for the management of EMPRES, the identification of vulnerable groups and their needs, the identification of inputs necessary to meet emergency situations, and the design of relief and rehabilitation projects. Key units include: the Agricultural Support Systems, Animal Production and Health, Land and Water Development, and Plant Production and Protection Divisions; the Food Security and Agricultural Projects Analysis Service; the Food and Nutrition Division; and the Fisheries, Forestry and Sustainable Development Departments.

The Investment Centre Division prepares investment programmes and projects for funding by major multilateral development banks during the rehabilitation and reconstruction and the recovery phases.

FAO has field offices covering 110 developing countries, as well as regional and subregional offices. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) provides representation services in other countries. At any time, FAO is involved in some 1 500 agricultural projects in the developing world. Experts working on these projects in affected countries are frequently called upon to help with emergency needs assessments and field operations.

When disaster strikes, FAO's representatives in developing countries are quickly involved, coordinating with the government and external partners, reporting directly to, and supporting special missions from, headquarters. Often conditions are such that staff may be in physical danger. FAO cooperates with the Office of the United Nations Security Coordinator and operates a 24-hour hot line for field staff at risk.

Coordinating emergency relief and rehabilitation in the field

In countries facing complex emergencies, FAO coordinates actions that address emergency agricultural needs and assists in the development and implementation of strategies for creating conditions conducive to recovery and sustained development. FAO's approach is to set up coordination units that: provide technical assistance to help nationals manage the existing array of agricultural relief projects; monitor developments in the food situation; advise the numerous humanitarian organizations involved in the sector; help establish the country's capacity to move beyond the emergency to the recovery and rehabilitation phase; establish information collection and database management systems. These activities bring together all government institutions, donors and non-governmental organizations engaged in the sector. Since 1994, FAO emergency coordination units have been set up in Bosnia, Tajikistan, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Iraq and Angola.