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Overview

Under the leadership of the Information Management Functional Lead, the Global IM Functional Team (GIFT) serves as a mechanism to bring together expertise from across OCHA, with the aim of improving excellence in the functional area of information management.

The GIFT supports the Functional Lead in “shepherding” the IM Function, including through defining priorities for the function through the Strategic Planning process, developing policies and guidance, collecting best practices, building capacity, communicating organizational direction and ensuring joint accountability for the performance of information management work at HQ and the field.

The GIFT counts on participation of IM professionals from all OCHA functions, both at HQ and in Regional and Country Offices. 

Process

The GIFT undertakes its work through working groups, formed by subject matter experts from across the organization.   Once a year, the GIFT comes together for a workshop where working groups present work completed, new priority areas are decided, and work undertaken in sprints. The groups continue to work and engage throughout the year.

Outputs

To date, work has focused on the following areas: 

1. New IM Job Profiles: The GIFT crafted new, more nuanced job profiles for OCHA’s IMOs to better reflect the breadth of their work. It also made the profiles more appealing to a wider range of applicants, which will help improve gender and diversity within the IM community. The new profiles are clustered in the 4 main areas of work of OCHA’s IMOs:

• Coordination

• Content Management

• Data Visualization

• Generalist

Resources

• IM Skillsets report

• Gender and Geographic Diversity report

 2. Developing IM standards, especially in software management and procurement, contacts management (by developing ready-to-use templates for managing contacts in different crises, such as sudden-onset disasters) and hosting innovation (by creating Amazon Web Services accounts for field offices who want to experiment and test in a safe digital space). 

3. Mapping existing field practices around situational awareness, analysis and approaches in operational environments to improve understanding of each setting and anticipate for a more effective response.