OCHA launches IRIN French website

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) launched today the French website of the Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN). This new service is aimed at providing the francophone community with a dynamic and flexible system for receiving humanitarian news on sub-Saharan Africa. “This is a very significant and timely development,” Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Kenzo Oshima said. “It is important for a UN service such as IRIN to make a concerted effort to keep French-speaking communities and humanitarian workers adequately informed.” The new site - http://www.irinnews.org/frenchfp.asp - provides easy access to IRIN's web-based services and offers an electronic mail subscription service in French that can be tailored closely to users' needs. Part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, IRIN was established six years ago in Nairobi, Kenya, to promote better flows of information in the Great Lakes region. By providing accurate and impartial information on events as they unfold, IRIN helps aid workers and donor governments to respond more effectively to crises. IRIN publishes a wide variety of reports on events and themes every day in English, French and Swahili on 46 different countries in sub-Saharan Africa and eight in Central Asia. Information products include analytical reports, interviews, daily news items, weekly digests and in-depth features on issues of concern. Although IRIN is a key source of information in donor capitals, more than half of the estimated 90,000 subscribers who receive its reports by electronic mail, live in developing countries. IRIN, which has three offices in sub-Saharan Africa and one in Central Asia, is a free service. It does not receive funds from the UN's core budget, and is wholly dependent on the generosity of donor governments to survive. IRIN is currently providing a scaled-back French service for the Great Lakes region and West Africa. Further development of the French service, including more original reporting, will depend on the receipt of additional funding from interested countries and organizations. For further information, please contact: Pat Banks, IRIN Coordinator, Nairobi, tel +254 2 622147 Ken Blackman, IRIN Editor in Chief, Abidjan, tel: + 225 22 44 40, email: [email protected] Joanne Clarke, IRIN/Genève, tel: + 41 22 321 84 25, email: [email protected]