This page provides access to OCHA’s controlled vocabularies as human-readable spreadsheets and machine readable APIs. They can be easily integrated into all humanitarian platforms, information resources and datasets with little management overhead. Vocabularies and taxonomies complement the Humanitarian Exchange Language (HXL).
Jump to: Administrative Boundary Names | Countries & Territories | Disaster Types | Disasters | Functional Roles | Global Coordination Groups | Organization Types | Organizations | Themes
Administrative Boundary Names, P-Codes and Geometry (BETA)
Contains country-based Common Operations Datasets (COD), administrative boundary names, P-codes and geometry. In some instances populated places are provided – including names, P-codes and coordinates. The 3-letter ISO code and the UN Short Term are used in the COD datasets and services.
More details about COD: https://cod.unocha.org
Access live services: https://codgis.itos.uga.edu/arcgis/rest/services/COD_External
The CODs are agreed upon in country/ region by humanitarian organizations.
Managed by OCHA Field Information Services Section and ITOS
Request additions and more information about Administrative Boundary Names, P-Codes and Geometry: ocha-fis-data@un.org
Countries & Territories (BETA)
Contains Country and Territory names from the United Nations Protocol and Liaison Office (DGACM), UN M49 standard, and ReliefWeb Countries list, together with mappings to related Terms and IDs found in UNTERM, ISO 3166, the ReliefWeb API and the FTS API.
View Countries & Territories spreadsheet
Managed by OCHA’s Centre for Humanitarian Data
Request additions and more information for Countries & Territories: hdx@un.org
Disaster Types (ReliefWeb)
Available via ReliefWeb API
Contains terms used by ReliefWeb to label content to a type of disaster. Examples include Heat Wave, Storm Surge, Complex Emergency, and Drought.
Visit page listing all Disaster Types and corresponding descriptions: https://reliefweb.int/taxonomy-descriptions
Requests should be made to the ReliefWeb API references endpoint through https with an additional parameter of your application name (appname), for example: https://api.reliefweb.int/v1/references/disaster-types?appname=vocabulary
See the API documentation for full details: http://apidoc.rwlabs.org/
Managed by ReliefWeb
Request additions and more information for Disaster Types (ReliefWeb): feedback@reliefweb.int
Disasters (ReliefWeb)
Available via ReliefWeb API
The Disasters list provides access to disaster names and disaster types covered by ReliefWeb since 1981. It also includes the relevant GLIDE number.
Requests should be made to the ReliefWeb API disasters endpoint with an additional parameter ‘preset=external’, for example: https://api.reliefweb.int/v1/disasters?appname=vocabulary&preset=external&limit=1000
See the API documentation for full details: http://apidoc.rwlabs.org/
Managed by ReliefWeb
Request additions and more information for Disasters: feedback@reliefweb.int
Functional Roles
Functional roles define broad categories of humanitarian work. Their purpose is to facilitate the forming of appropriate Operational Groups (such as the Information Management (IM) Working Groups) with membership based on inclusion of those with the most relevant knowledge and skills.
View the Functional Roles spreadsheet
Managed by OCHA Field Information Services
Request additions and more information for Functional Roles: ocha-vocabulary@un.org
Global Coordination Groups (BETA)
Contains IASC designated Global Clusters and Areas of Responsibility. Global Clusters and Areas of Responsibility (AoR) were defined to enable more predictable leadership in situations of humanitarian emergency. The content includes the Preferred Term to be used for each Cluster and AoR, the Acronym (3-letter cluster code), the Group to which the term belongs (defining whether it is a Global Cluster or AoR) and the website URL.
View the Global Coordination Groups spreadsheet
Managed by OCHA Field Information Services
Request additions and more information for Global Coordination Groups: ocha-vocabulary@un.org
Organization Types (BETA)
Includes types of organizations and associated definitions – e.g. United Nations, Donors, etc
View the Organization Types spreadsheet
Managed by OCHA Field Information Services
Request additions and more information for Organization Types: ocha-vocabulary@un.org
Organizations (ReliefWeb)
Available via ReliefWeb API
Contains organizations’, unique IDs and corresponding Financial Tracking Service organization ID (where relevant) for ReliefWeb’s various sources.
Requests should be made to the ReliefWeb API sources endpoint through https with an additional parameter of your application name (appname), for example: https://api.reliefweb.int/v1/sources?&limit=500&appname=vocabulary
See the API documentation for full details: http://apidoc.rwlabs.org/
Managed by ReliefWeb
Request additions and more information for Organizations (ReliefWeb): feedback@reliefweb.int
Themes (ReliefWeb)
Available via ReliefWeb API
Contains terms used by ReliefWeb to label content according to thematic topics such as Health, Mine Action, and Humanitarian Financing.
View page listing all themes and corresponding descriptions: http://reliefweb.int/taxonomy-descriptions
Requests should be made to the ReliefWeb API themes endpoint through https with an additional parameter of your application name (appname), for example: https://api.reliefweb.int/v1/references/themes?appname=vocabulary
See the API documentation for full details: http://apidoc.rwlabs.org/
Managed by ReliefWeb
Request additions and more information for Themes (ReliefWeb): feedback@reliefweb.int