From UNDRO to the Transformative Agenda: 40 years of challenges for the coordination of humanitarian action

14/03/2012

In the beginning there was UNDRO, the United Nations Disaster Relief Organisation. It was the Cold War and the United Nations apparatus was paralysed in conflict contexts. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, or the “bamboo curtain”, only a few NGOs and three United Nations agencies were present: HCR, UNICEF and the WFP. Special Representatives of the United Nations Secretary General were nominated to deal with humanitarian questions, such as Sir Robert Jackson for aid to the Cambodian people, in parallel to other Special Representatives in charge of political questions. Ad-hoc mechanisms were created to coordinate the aid operations of different agencies, such as the United Nations Border Relief Operation (UNBRO) in Cambodian camps at the Khmer-Thai border. For its part, UNDRO was responsible for the response to disasters linked to natural phenomena, again with few operational actors other than the national institutions. [...]