UN humanitarian wing OCHA lays off 170, starts overhaul

GENEVA, 19 jan. - (ANA) - The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs will reduce spending by at least $20 million in 2017. The 10-percent cuts, including at least 173 staff layoffs, come along with an internal reform process sparked by a damning independent review.

In notes dated November addressed to OCHA staff and exclusively reported by IRIN, its head – UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien – said donors hadn’t met growing demands. The same had been technically true in recent years as well, he explained, but OCHA had bridged the gap by drawing on reserves, which were now depleted.

OCHA increased its budget for 2016, pegging it at $323.9 million, but failed to find support, with donors keeping spending to 2015 levels, closer to $280 million. According to documents obtained by IRIN, the opening budget figure for 2017 will be $260 million – about 10 percent lower than the spending in 2015 and 2016, and more than $60 million lower than the original 2016 target.

The cuts are happening at the same time as the start of extensive internal restructuring recommended by an external study. A 155-page “functional review”, completed in July, and obtained by IRIN, calls for sweeping changes in the department’s management, staffing, finances, human resources, priorities, and culture.

Morale was already low: a survey on organisational culture put OCHA firmly at the bottom of 38 comparable non-profits, according to Boston Consulting Group. Dysfunction in the organisation is to blame, it said, adding that “challenges in the other areas of the review have had a negative impact on OCHA staff engagement and satisfaction.”

In the short term, OCHA will close offices in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, and Mauritania. It will reduce its presence in Colombia, Haiti, Myanmar, Pakistan, and the Philippines. It will trim spending on Ethiopia, Iraq, Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, but scale up in Cameroon and Libya. Large offices in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Sudan will be reduced, and a Central Asia regional office will close. Some positions in New York and Geneva will also face the axe. - (ANA) -

AB/ANA/ 19 January 2017 - - -