Qatar, UN sign supplementary agreement on establishing OCHA branch in Doha

Posted by Admin July 16, 2024 World

The Gulf state has been a United Nations member since 1971 and has supported the organisation’s agencies through numerous initiatives and funding.

Qatar and the United Nations have signed a supplementary agreement to open the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Doha.

Signed in the Gulf state on Monday, the supplementary agreement follows one signed in March 2021, first establishing plans for the OCHA office.

The latest signing was carried out by the Director of Department of International Organisations at Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sheikha Hanouf bint Abdulrahman Al-Thani, and Representative of the UNOCHA in Qatar, Ahmed Marii.

“This partnership comes within the framework of the State of Qatar’s efforts and its close cooperation with the UN in the field of humanitarian aid,” Qatar’s foreign ministry said in a statement, without disclosing the date the office would be established in Doha.

The office would coordinate humanitarian action between Qatar and OCHA as well as national and international actors. It would also come after Qatar inaugurated the UN House in Lusail last year, bringing together various agencies of the organisation.

Some of the UN entities located in the building include the Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), International Organization for Migration (IOM), the regional cybercrime training and a capacity-building centre.

“Qatar’s commitment to global humanitarian response is impactful. OCHA values this partnership and Qatar’s generous support, reinforcing aid delivery and dialogue on global challenges,” the UN entity said on X on Monday.

On May 22, Qatar Charity and OCHA signed a separate agreement, which also included the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), to provide “reliable humanitarian assistance in sudden and neglected crises around the world.”

The agreement was signed on the sideline of the first High-level Strategic Dialogue between Qatar and OCHA in Doha.

Qatar has been a UN member since 1971 and has supported the organisation’s agencies through numerous initiatives and funding. In 2018, Qatar pledged to contribute $500 million to different UN programmes, including the UN Development Programme (UNDP), OCHA, and others.

The partnerships enabled Qatar to support the UN’s response to global crises.

Qatar’s global humanitarian support

The Gulf state has been at the forefront of humanitarian efforts across the world, including notably in the Gaza Strip, where Israel’s brutal war has persisted for over nine months, killing at least 38,664 people, mainly women and children, and internally displacing at least 1.9 people.

Since the start of the war on October 7, Qatar has sent at least 114 aid flights and ships that carried humanitarian relief for the Gaza Strip.

Last December, Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani announced an initiative aimed at sponsoring 3,000 orphans and providing medical care for 1,500 injured Palestinians from Gaza.

Qatar has since evacuated more than 500 wounded people, along with over 800 of their companions and 700 others with special cases. The evacuations took place before Israel invaded and destroyed the Gaza-Egypt Rafah Crossing on May 6.

During the same month the initiative was announced, Qatar pledged to provide an initial $50mn humanitarian aid package to support refugees, the displaced, the wounded, and the orphans in the Gaza Strip.

Qatar also pledged $25 million to support UNRWA in March, which comes in addition to the previous commitment to support with $18mn.

In war-hit Sudan, Qatar had established an air bridge in the wake of the deadly conflict in April 2023. It has since provided more than $11mn worth of aid to the country in addition to its pledge of an additional $25 million at the Paris conference on Sudan in April.

Qatar played important humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban takeover of Kabul on August 15, 2021. At the time, Qatar evacuated more than 130,000 Afghans and foreigners while continuing to dispatch aid to the crisis-hit country.