1

Pacific Humanitarian Team 

Key Issues and Follow up

Day 2, session 5

Identified Issues – UN offices

What is the role of UN Country Office staff / 
joint presences and regional NGO/Red Cross 
presences? 

2

Identified Issues – UN offices

OCHA is the UN’s designated support to the UN RC’s 
function as humanitarian coordinator. 

UN agencies participating in UN Presences and Joint 
presences are encouraged to nominate a focal point that 
can take the support role of the RC/HC until RC/OCHA 
can take over in an emergency.

Tasks: gather first information, initial liaison and 
coordination with government and key actors

It will be the choice of each respective Cluster Lead to 
determine the level of involvement of its staff in a 
humanitarian operation and its role as Cluster Lead. 

Identified Issues – PHT vs DMT

How does the Pacific Humanitarian Team 
relate to DMT and other coordination 
initiatives?

3

Identified Issues – PHT vs DMT

The Pacific Humanitarian Team replaces 
UNDMT’s in Fiji and Samoa as it recognizes 
the importance of including all regional 
humanitarian responders in the Pacific.
But existing coordination mechanisms/groups 
at country level are valuable and should be 
linked in with PHT. 
E.g. Samoa DMT, Vanuatu DRM coordination 
group, Solomon Islands Donor coordination 
meeting, DRM NAP Tasksforces? 

Session 4: Group Work 1

Group 1:Fiji/Samoa (Presence of UNRC and 

(partial) UNCT)

Group 2: Tonga/Cook Islands/North Pacific etc: 

(Limited presence of UN and non-government 
agencies)

Group 3: Solomon Islands/Vanuatu etc: No RC 

but good presence of non-government (UN 
and non-UN) agencies

4

Questions for group discussion 

The PHT is a group with members and cluster leads in different 

parts of the region (and sometimes outside). Yet members 
have offices/projects in various PICs. Also, in most countries 
some coordination structure exists (e.g. NDC, NGO 
coordination group, donor coordination group)

Within this specific “country” context:

1.

What can/should be the role of regional cluster leads, UN joint 
offices RC offices, OCHA, and other regional organizations a) 
in preparedness and b) in response? (e.g. coordination, 
liaison, information collection, awareness, briefing, etc. ) 

2.

What is/can be the role of existing in-country coordination 
groups for disaster (response and preparedness) coordination 
and how can/do they link with the regional PHT (e.g. Samoa, 
Solomons, Vanuatu, etc) a) in preparedness and b) in 
response? 

3.

What does that imply for staff training, TOR, etc?