Informing humanitarians worldwide 24/7 — a service provided by UN OCHA

Number of ReliefWeb users topped 6 million in 2016, Africa user base still on the rise

In its 20th year ReliefWeb notched up a record six million users, a rise of 4.5% from 2015. Most of these came from Africa, which saw a 17.5% jump from the previous year, confirming the continent as the top user base among the humanitarian community. The increase was particularly significant in South Sudan (+30%), Uganda (+18%), and Somalia (+17%).

There was also a striking increase in the number of users from the Middle East, notably Turkey (+35%), most likely bolstered by the humanitarian activities related to the Syria crisis. Figures are also on the rise for Jordan (+15%), which hosts significant numbers of refugees from Syria and has become the base of operation for some 60 humanitarian and development agencies.

The jobs and trainings sections enjoyed a sustained increase in content throughout the year: the 32,499 jobs (+9.3%) and 4,651 training opportunities (+23%) published are a clear testament that our humanitarian partners seek out ReliefWeb as the ‘one-stop-shop’ for a range of services relating to their needs.

ReliefWeb covered some 90 disasters in 2016, including Hurricane Matthew, which severely affected Caribbean countries in early October, particularly Haiti. A study of the coverage timeline on ReliefWeb indicates that traffic to the disaster page largely followed the number of documents published, with notable usage peaks for the publication of the different appeals.

Following a steady increase in mobile access to its content since 2012, ReliefWeb launched a number of products, including four mobile apps, last year - covering Crises, Headlines, Jobs and Videos. Since their release in October, the apps have been downloaded more than 14,560 times. China ranks in second place as the strongest user base for ReliefWeb’s mobile apps, behind the United States.

Printable versions of the infographic are available for download. ReliefWeb annual highlights from previous years can be found here.

Do you have comments or suggestions? We want to hear from you.