Table of contents by first letter of term:

Table of contents by term:

Please send suggestions for glossary items, or other comments, to ocha-fis-data@un.org.

Underlined terms in the definitions refer to other defined terms.

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Term	Definition
Administrative boundary	A geographic polygon or polygons representing the perimeter of one administrative unit.
Administrative hierarchy	A set of recognized and hierarchical levels of administrative authority and geographic partition of a country or territory. Increasing administrative level numbers represent lower (geographically smaller and administratively subservient) units, with administrative level 0 representing the entire country, administrative level 1 representing the next lower level, and so on. EXAMPLE: Afghanistan is divided into provinces, which are in turn divided into districts. Thus Afghanistan's administrative level 0 is the country (Afghanistan), administrative level 1 is the provinces, and administrative level 2 is the districts. In some countries an administrative level may consist of more than one type of administrative unit. EXAMPLE: The United States of America's administrative level 1 consists of States, the District of Colombia, and further remote units. EXAMPLE: Canada's administrative level 1 consists of provinces and territories.
Administrative level
Administrative unit

Term	Definition



COD	See Common Operational Dataset
COD-AB	See Administrative Boundary COD
COD-PS	See Population Statistics COD
COD-CS	sEE Country-Specific COD

Common Operational Dataset (COD)	Authoritative reference datasets needed to support operations and decision-making for all actors in a humanitarian response. They provide essential baseline data and data standards that allow humanitarian actors to collaborate, coordinate and exchange information. CODs provide the basis for a common operational picture and a shared situational awareness. .

Core Common Operatioanal Datasets	Administrative Boundary CODs (COD-AB) and Population Statistics CODs (COD-PS)

Term	Definition
Emergency Response Preparedness	To enhance emergency preparedness within the multilateral humanitarian system, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) has developed the Emergency Response Preparedness (ERP) approach, which was adopted for field testing in August 2015. The approach is based on a review of relief operations over the past decade and enables the humanitarian community to proactively prepare for crises requiring a coordinated international response.

Term	Definition
FIS	OCHA Field Information Services email ocha-fis-data@un.org

Term	Definition
ITOS	The Carl Vinson Institute of Government's Office of Information Technology Outreach Services (ITOS) is a leader in GIS innovation and is part of the University of Georgia. ITOS provides three services for Common Operational Datasets: Vetting and correction of database, attributes, and spatial properties Configuration and standardization Preparation and publishing of live services

Term

Definition

Live service

Map and feature services of administrative boundary and populated places Common Operational Datasets (COD-ABs and COD-PP).