The Humanitarian Coordinator is the senior-most United Nations official in a country experiencing a humanitarian emergency. The Humanitarian Coordinator is appointed by the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator when a new emergency occurs or an existing humanitarian situation "worsens in degree and/or complexity".

In most cases, the function is performed by the United Nations Resident Coordinator, who is usually also the Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme.

The Humanitarian Coordinator is supported in almost every case by a local OCHA Office.

Toby Lanzer, a national of the United Kingdom, is the current Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). He was appointed to this position on 26 July 2012. . Since joining UNDP in 1992, he has held various positions within the UN system, including the following:

He has also worked in Brazil, Chile and Georgia.

The holder of a post-graduate certificate in forced migration, a master’s degree in international affairs, with a specialization in economic and political development, and a bachelor’s degree in history, Toby Lanzer was educated at the University of Oxford, as well as Columbia University and the University of New Hampshire.

[1] Interview with Toby Lanzer – UN Humanitarian Coordinator in CAR

Mukesh Kapila CBE has worked extensively and advised in crisis and conflict management, humanitarian affairs, post-conflict recovery and development, and HIV and AIDS. Kapila is currently Special Representative for the Aegis Trust.

Kapila's background is in medicine, public health and, subsequently, international development and humanitarian affairs. He has qualifications from the Universities of Oxford and London.

As a mid-level civil servant in 1994, he was part of the first British teams to see the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide after entering Rwandan Patriotic Front-controlled Kigali.

He was the Deputy Director of the National UK AIDS programme during the 1990s.^{[citation needed]}

He was Head of Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs unit of the British Department for International Development from 1998 to 2002. From 2002-2003, Kapila was a Special Adviser to the United Nations, first to the Special Representative of the Secretary General in Afghanistan and then to the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In 2003-2004 Kapila was the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, and the UN Development Program Resident Representative for the Sudan.

David Gressly is a senior United Nations official.

With a background as a Peace Corps volunteer and as an official of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), he was appointed in 2005 by Secretary-General Kofi Annan as UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Juba, Southern Sudan. Flanked by Éliane Duthoit, head of the local United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), he was involved in facilitating the Juba peace talks between the Government of Uganda and the opposition group Lord's Resistance Army, and in consolidating peace between north and Southern Sudan in the context of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

Between July and August 2007, Gressly was acting UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the Sudan's capital Khartoum, where he played a key role in the humanitarian response to the 2007 Sudan floods especially in terms of advocacy, supported by the local OCHA office headed by Mike McDonagh.

Not to be confused with Mark Bowden, U.N. Resident & Humanitarian Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative for Somalia.

Mark Robert Bowden (born July 17, 1951) is an American writer and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he is a 1973 graduate of Loyola University Maryland. While at Loyola, he was inspired to embark on a journalistic career by reading Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. In 2010, in his acceptance speech for a lifetime achievement award at the National Book Awards, Wolfe called Bowden one of the two "writers to watch" (along with Michael Lewis).

From 1979-2003, Bowden was a staff writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Over the years, he has written for The New Yorker, Men's Journal, The Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, and Rolling Stone. Some of his awards are listed below.

As a result of his book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, Bowden has received international recognition. The book was made into a 2001 movie directed by Ridley Scott.