Part of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), IRIN are impartial and independent information units dedicated to improving the response of the humanitarian community in a crisis.

Presenting the award to IRIN Coordinator Pat Banks on behalf of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Klaus Toepfer, the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), stressed the importance of information in both development and emergency contexts and ensuring universal access to it.

Introduced in as part of Annan's management reform effort, the UN 21 Awards provide recognition and special thanks to staff members who represent the best of innovation and creativity in the Organisation.

A total of 92 projects, including more than 30 from the field, were considered for the 2002 awards. IRIN was one of two winners in the knowledge management category.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Kenzo Oshima said: "OCHA management has long viewed IRIN as a success and I hope you will join me in offering Ms Banks and her team our warmest congratulations."

UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy wrote: "I am grateful to IRIN for providing UNICEF with access to timely information that has enhanced our capacity to respond to emergencies and make a difference in the lives of our children."

IRIN was founded in 1995 to promote effective information flow in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa. One of IRIN's most significant early achievements was pioneering the use of electronic mail to deliver and receive information to and from some of the remotest parts of Africa, cheaply and efficiently.

In its early days IRIN distributed reliable information in its original form, but in March 1996, at the request of humanitarian workers, IRIN began to produce its own reports of events in the region. These reports were based on information gathered, collated and verified by a small team of information experts.

The popularity of IRIN's reports led to requests from donors and aid workers that the IRIN model be exported to other areas of Africa. Offices were subsequently opened in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire in mid-1997 and in Johannesburg, South Africa the following year. In addition, IRIN started to cover previously under-reported countries in the Horn of Africa and East Africa from its Nairobi office. In July 2000, IRIN opened an office in Islamabad to report on humanitarian developments in Central Asia.

A constant feature of IRIN has been its ability to make use of the most up-to-date technology. IRIN's web site, initially launched in 1999, was upgraded last year to a dynamic site with greater use of graphics, photo galleries, audio and video clips, as well as faster updating of critical events. The web-based e-mail subscription service was a particularly useful development as it allows users to develop an individual e-mail profile based on countries of interest and selected themes, thereby helping to prevent information overload.

Today, IRIN's information products include analytical reports, chronologies, interviews, daily summaries and weekly digests and are available in English, French and Kiswahili. Some 100,000 people worldwide read IRIN reports every day via electronic mail services delivering these reports directly to their inboxes. Millions more access IRIN reports through its own web site at www.irinnews.org and through other UN or commercial sites that repost them such as Reliefweb, AllAfrica.com and OneWorld.org.

IRIN's radio service, launched in 2001, reaches communities with limited access to new technology and serves some eight million people in Burundi and Somalia. IRIN also manages PlusNews, a comprehensive service for HIV/AIDS information and advocacy in Africa.