The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is the UN agency responsible for bringing together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies. OCHA ensures there is a framework within which each actor can contribute to the overall response effort.
OCHA is an essential partner to Save the Children for its humanitarian access, coordination responsibilities and humanitarian financing functions. Our partnership supports OCHA’s efforts to mobilise the international system to respond to the needs of children in humanitarian contexts and resolve challenges facing children in need of protection. We support the agencies advocacy efforts by helping to open political dialogue with host governments and civil society organisations. We also work closely with OCHA to advance the normative policy agenda for humanitarian action and financing.
UN Relief Chief, Tom Fletcher, visited a Save the Children nutrition centre in Tawila, Sudan.
During his visit, he met the frontline teams providing life-saving support to children and families in extremely challenging conditions. He described them as “the real front line of humanitarian work”, paying tribute to their courage, kindness, and expertise.
The visit highlights the critical role of partnerships between Save the Children and OCHA in delivering humanitarian assistance where it is needed most.
People always say that in every crisis you should look for the helpers. And here in Tawila, which is the frontline of the global humanitarian crisis right now, you need to look no further than here. These are the helpers. These are the real - the frontline of humanitarian work. And I just-I'm in awe of them.
Tom Fletcher, UN Relief Chief
A Step Toward Locally Led Humanitarian Action: Why We're Withdrawing from Country-Based Pooled Funds
Save the Children has made the decision to stop seeking country-level emergency funding managed by OCHA from 2027, to open space for local and national actors.
Local and national actors are essential in supporting children’s rights and humanitarian needs in all contexts. These organisations are rooted in their communities - they understand the local context, culture and needs in ways that international actors never fully can. They are there before crises emerge and remain long after international attention has moved on.
Our role is to complement and support that leadership, not to substitute it. This is why we have taken a strategic decision to progressively withdraw from OCHA Country-Based Pooled Funds (CBPFs) by the end of 2027, in order to open space for local and national actors. This is not a retreat from humanitarian action, it is a step toward genuine localisation.
CBPFs make funding directly available to humanitarian partners operating in countries affected by crisis, so they can deliver timely and effective life-saving assistance. They are valuable mechanisms, channelling funding toward flexible, coordinated humanitarian responses.
We recognise this decision carries risk and are committed to ensuring a safe and ethical transition. Our first commitment is to children and communities we serve, ensuring they do not lose access to services. Reforms to pooled fund mechanisms are also essential; these include simplifying eligibility and compliance requirements, ensuring governance structures are locally led, and enabling more predictable and flexible funding flows.
To achieve the greatest impact, we hope other International NGOs will join us. Our withdrawal from CBPFs will be meaningless if other INGOs simply fill the gap we leave behind. We urge our fellow international organisations to examine their own positions.
Read more about our decision here: A Step Toward Locally Led Humanitarian Action: Why We're Withdrawing from Country-Based Pooled Funds
Further details and analysis are available in our advocacy brief: Reforming CBPFs for Locally Led Action: A System-Wide Call to INGOs, UN Agencies, and Donors (2025)
Our Impact: Reaching children cut off by disaster in Sudan
In September 2025, following a landslide that devastated the remote village of Tarsin in Darfur, Save the Children mobilised an emergency team to deliver medical supplies, water treatment tablets and shelter materials to affected families. Working in close coordination with the OCHA and humanitarian partners, the team travelled for more than six hours across mountainous terrain by donkeys to reach communities cut off by the disaster. This partnership enabled rapid assessments and the delivery of critical aid to children and families in one of the most isolated villages in one of the most remote parts of Sudan.
Save the Children staff in Sudan deliver aid on donkeys to families in areas affected by the landslide in Darfur. The response was coordinated with other INGOs in Sudan, and was deployed to Tarsin village in Jabal Marra area in Darfour. The Save the Children team of a protection unit with MHPSS facilitators travelled for six hours on donkeys to reach their destination.
