OCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Published purpose

The Field Coordination Support Services (FCSS) is located within the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva. Its role is to provide OCHA with rapid, effective, disaster response coordination capacity during the critical, emergency phase following a sudden-onset disaster. CIDA is supporting the OCHA to provide disaster response coordination capacity following a sudden-onset disaster. Specifically, CIDA supports OCHA to deploy Canadian and developing country UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) members on UNDAC missions, and to deliver general activities, including: delivering UNDAC induction training courses to bring new members into the UNDAC system; developing and maintaining partnerships with other UN, non-governmental organizations, private sector, and multilateral organizations to facilitate mission deployments and explore potential training/exercise opportunities for members and, strengthening networks with other multilateral and regional organizations involved in disaster response and preparedness to ensure complementarities of equipment, standards, and joint mobilization and operating procedures during response operations;