ReliefWeb

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ReliefWeb
FormationOctober 1996; 27 years ago (1996-10)
TypeSpecialized digital service of United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Legal statusActive
HeadquartersNew York City
Chief Editor, ReliefWeb, OCHA
Satoko Nakagawa
Parent organization
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Websitereliefweb.int

ReliefWeb (RW) is a

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

OCHA's emergency information services such as ReliefWeb in Resolution 57/153 on 3 March 2003.[3]

ReliefWeb maintains offices in three different time zones to update the website around the clock: Bangkok (Thailand), Nairobi (Kenya) and New York City (United States).[4] Prior to 2011, the three offices were located in Geneva (Switzerland), Kobe (Japan), and New York (United States). The closing of the Geneva and Kobe offices were due to the higher costs associated with these locations.[5]

ReliefWeb has seen steady growth in usage.[6] 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.[7]

A first major re-design effort was started in 2002 and completed in 2005, which focused on implementing a more user-centric information architecture.[8]

In April 2011, ReliefWeb launched a new web platform based on

open-source technology to offer a powerful search/filter engine and delivery system.[9]

In 2012, ReliefWeb began to expand its focus to become the one-stop shop for critical information on global crises and disasters.[10] In November 2012, ReliefWeb revamped the home page, the "About Us" section and the Blog and introduced "Labs",[11] 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 has a subscription service that reached more than 168,500 subscribers in 2010, allowing those who have low bandwidth Internet connections to receive information reliably.[12]

ReliefWeb posts maps

academia
and think-tanks.

All documents posted on the site are classified and archived, allowing advanced searching of documents from past emergency responses. The database contains more than one million maps and documents dating back to 1981.[1]

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.

Red Crescent
Movement and the Media.

In 2016, ReliefWeb launched apps for humanitarians, which enable more targeted personalised information search, with the aim to speed up the delivery of important information.[14] The apps were decommmissioned in 2018.[15]

Awards

ReliefWeb has won the following awards:

  • Certificate of Superior Achievement in International Emergency Management (January 1999) from the
    United States Government
    .
  • UN21 awards (March 2004) for "knowledge management" and "improvements to the working environment."[16]
  • Web4Dev Award (2006) from the World Bank 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
    GIS
    technology.

References

  1. ^ a b Wackernagel, Madeleine (2023-10-03). "One million posts and counting". ReliefWeb. Retrieved 2023-10-03.
  2. ^ "A/RES/51/194 - E - A/RES/51/194". undocs.org. Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  3. ^ "A/RES/57/153 - E - A/RES/57/153". undocs.org. Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  4. ^ "OCHA in 2012 & 2013: Plan and Budget" (PDF). Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  5. ^ OCHA Annual Report 2011
  6. ^ ""Evaluation of ReliefWeb 2006"" (PDF). Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  7. ^ a b "Field usage and mobile access on the rise: ReliefWeb in 2017". ReliefWeb. 13 March 2018. Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  8. ^ ""Redesigning the ReliefWeb"" (PDF). Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  9. ^ OCHA Annual Report 2011, "The United Nation's ReliefWeb Relaunches" and "Launching the new ReliefWeb for the United Nations"
  10. ^ "ReliefWeb: Vision and Strategy - World". ReliefWeb. 30 September 2012. Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  11. ^ "ReliefWeb Labs | United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination". www.unsceb.org. Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  12. ^ "ReliefWeb 2010 Annual Statistics" (PDF). Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  13. ^ "OCHA Global Product Catalogue" (PDF). Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  14. ^ "ReliefWeb launches 4 new apps". Devex. 2016-10-11. Retrieved 2017-10-25.
  15. ^ "ReliefWeb Labs". labs.reliefweb.int. Retrieved 2023-12-18.
  16. ^ ""ReliefWeb wins two UN awards"". Retrieved October 13, 2019.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to ReliefWeb.
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