Under-Secretary-General Tom Fletcher
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – OCHA
2 United Nations Plaza, 44th Street
New York, NY 10017,
United States
Dear Under-Secretary-General Fletcher,
We are writing to congratulate you on your appointment as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (OCHA). We recognize that this is a complex time to lead OCHA and its teams, during what is possibly one of the toughest times for humanitarianism since the UN was created.
We appreciate that your first commitment upon taking up this challenge has been to put dialogue and engagement before planning and strategy building, and we express our interest in taking you up on this offer.
You may not know us, and your new colleagues are unlikely to be familiar with our work. Access Now is a global organization working to defend and extend the digital rights of people and communities at risk. By combining direct technical support, strategic advocacy, grassroots grantmaking, and convenings such as RightsCon, we fight for human rights in the digital age. With ECOSOC accreditation, we are active at the United Nations, but we are not, strictly speaking, a humanitarian organization nor do we aim to become one. Instead, what we want is for humanitarian organizations to become champions of the rights and dignity of the community they serve in navigating digital challenges, which increasingly infuse the traditional spaces and forms of humanitarian action.
Challenges abound: in 2024, nearly 300 million people around the world need humanitarian assistance and protection, due to conflicts, climate emergencies, and other drivers. A global crisis that needs a concerted, coordinated, and creative response by the international community that is as you say “overstretched, underfunded, and under attack.”
You’ve already been called on to “ruthlessly prioritize” people in crisis, and you seem to have listened. You’ve promised to “call time on the era of impunity: end attacks on civilians and aid workers; and hold perpetrators to account.“ We fully support this commitment in an era of unprecedented attacks on civilians, aid workers, journalists, and others during conflict.
Similarly, we are pleased to see your commitment to bring humanitarian action into the digital era. However, we invite you to do it in the rights-respecting way, instead of following the tech hype that has been clouding the humanitarian sector for the past few years.
In our report on private tech in humanitarian action, we flagged some of the trends and recommendations that you might find helpful in navigating the challenges posed by the increased use and consolidation of private technology in the relief sector.
But some issues deserve special attention and we took the liberty of putting together priority digital considerations for you and your team:
Making internet connectivity a humanitarian priority
Every day, millions of people become disconnected from humanitarian assistance, early warning systems, emergency coordination mechanisms, and loved ones, at the whims of armed actors and authorities. The #KeepItOn coalition has identified conflict as the leading trigger of internet shutdowns in 2023, as warring parties shut down the internet during conflict at least 74 times in nine countries including Palestine, Myanmar, Sudan, and Ukraine. The Red Cross Movement Resolution 34IC/24/R2 underlined the importance of connectivity information and communications technologies for humanitarian operations, and the access to safety and objects essential for their survival. Similarly, the OHCHR’s recently updated report on Gaza stressed how the destruction of telecommunication infrastructure might violate IHL’s prohibition of attacks on objects essential to the survival of the civilian population. As humanitarians develop remote digital tools that communities increasingly rely on for assistance and safety, shutdowns are widely recognized as a protection issue. In September, the UN General Assembly in its Global Digital Compact called on states to refrain from imposing internet shutdowns. The prolonged complacency of the international community with this practice has been so harmful, that some countries have started deploying shutdowns even after natural disasters. It is about time that the top humanitarian agency heralds this change both in policy, by supporting the protected status of civilian telecommunications, and in practice, by including telecommunication systems and networks to the deconfliction lists.
Looking at digital threats against affected communities, not just UN operations
The scope and extent of the violence brought against vulnerable communities and their defenders through digital systems is well documented, be it during natural disasters, in conflict, or even after that violence has subsided. Harmful information fueling violence, spyware and malware targeting human rights defenders and activists, cyberattacks against local and international NGOs and civilian infrastructure, the wanton and deliberate destruction of civilian telecommunication systems, the use of AI and automated systems for indiscriminate military targeting, and the overall weaponization of digital systems and networks do not remain online but generate very concrete and tragic outcomes. Online and cyber threats against civilians have become so ubiquitous that hundreds of organizations recently came together to call for a digital ceasefire, and we are now actively and collectively developing this concept. In the face of this mounting evidence, the top humanitarian agency must do more. To date, official reports on the Protection of Civilians have so far framed digital threats mostly as a physical and reputational risk for the UN and its personnel. This inward-looking approach is no longer enough: we invite OCHA to address the digital protection of civilians, and those communities at risk.
We see an opportunity for you to speak more publicly about the impacts of new and emerging technologies on your mandate. For instance, we hope that OCHA will bring a digital-aware and rights-based protection approach to the analysis, policy, and reporting, including on the Protection of Civilians and Accountability to Affected Population, to the UN Secretary-General, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, and the broader UN community, as well as through OCHA’s briefings to the General Assembly and the various UN bodies.
We understand that over the next few weeks, you will be traveling and learning about the challenges your teams are facing daily, and we encourage you to take this opportunity to start reframing your analysis and assessments to include these aforementioned perspectives.
Once you settle into your new position, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you and your team, to discuss and learn more about what digital rights have to offer to complete and fulfill the promise of the humanitarian mandate that we all hold so dear.
We also invite you and your colleagues to the next convening in our RightsCon Summit series, from February 24-27, 2025 in Taipei. RightsCon is the world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age, and will connect you directly with people at risk, human rights defenders, liberation technologists, indigenous leaders, and civil society across the world, as well as leading ecosystem players like major internet platforms and tech policymakers.
We look forward to engaging with you in this important new role.
Best regards,
Alejandro Mayoral Baños
Executive Director
Access Now