Welcome to the ReliefWeb API! Our API provides access to a vast archive of humanitarian information, designed to be developer-friendly and follow current API best practices. Whether you need to get the latest updates or publish your own content, our API has you covered.
Jump to: Documentation | Taxonomy terms | Feedback and support | Terms of Service and Quotas | FAQ
The vast majority of ReliefWeb’s content is owned by our content partners and contributed for re-publication. The API enables access to ReliefWeb’s curated and continuously updated data archive going back to the 1980s. It’s now used to serve many of the ReliefWeb products as well as third-party sites and apps.
Almost all content visible on the ReliefWeb site is available through its API. The API is built to fit with current API best practices and is intended to be friendly to developers, as well as machines. It is publicly accessible using HTTP requests and returns JSON data.
Understanding the structure of ReliefWeb’s content will help in understanding how the API works, so these documents are intended to make both as clear as possible. For clarification or to suggest improvements, please contact us at feedback@reliefweb.int.
Do You Need to Get Content?
ReliefWeb offers all its content through its API to be consumed by any other service. This includes a variety of taxonomy terms.
- Does your site or service provide awareness on disasters? Use the ReliefWeb API to get the latest updates when a disaster happens.
- Do you want to have the latest information about humanitarian training all around the world? Use the ReliefWeb API to get ReliefWeb’s posted training that fits better with your goals and embed the information into your corporate training system.
- And much more!
Do You Need to Publish Content?
ReliefWeb now has a Publishing API to allow our content partners to submit updates, jobs, or training automatically.
This feature, currently in testing, enables more efficient content handling and a seamless way to keep information up to date. It also ensures that we don’t miss any updates. To automate your content posting, please visit the ReliefWeb API Documentation for more information.
Stay tuned for more updates as we progress towards the official release!
Documentation
Visit our API Documentation page to find out more and to get started. The documentation has live examples that you can modify and see the results directly on the help page!
Taxonomy terms
Requests should be made to the corresponding ReliefWeb API endpoint through https with an additional parameter of your application name (appname).
Taxonomy terms you can obtain:
Disaster Types: Contains terms used by ReliefWeb to label content to a type of disaster. Page listing all Disaster Types and corresponding descriptions: https://reliefweb.int/taxonomy-descriptions
Disasters: The Disasters list provides access to disaster names and disaster types covered by ReliefWeb, humanitarianresponse.info, and Humanitarian ID 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
Location Maps: Contains small locations maps of all the countries that ReliefWeb covers. Included are both preview (thumbnail) and full size versions of PNG and PDF formats. Page listing all location maps, including formats, and licensing details: https://reliefweb.int/location-maps
Organization Logos: Contains humanitarian organizations logos used by ReliefWeb.
Organizations: Contains organizations’, unique IDs and corresponding Financial Tracking Service org id (where relevant) for ReliefWeb’s various sources.
Themes: Contains terms used by ReliefWeb to label content according to thematic topics. Page listing all themes and corresponding descriptions: https://reliefweb.int/taxonomy-descriptions
Feedback and support
If you have questions or you have noticed something strange with our API then please get in touch.
If you use ReliefWeb’s API or want to know more about it, please join our API support forum and feel free to ask any question or tell us about how you are using the API.
If you have some questions or feedback, including big ideas for improvements, you can write to us at feedback@reliefweb.int.
Terms of Service and Quotas
Anyone can use the ReliefWeb API. Reports, Jobs and Training data available via ReliefWeb API is contributed by information partners and may contain copyrighted material owned by the original source. You should respect the intellectual property rights of the original source when using content retrieved through the API.
To improve its service, ReliefWeb may log your API calls and analyze usage patterns. Please, use the parameter appname in your calls, so we can track the usage of the API for statistical and performance purposes.
In order to ensure optimum performance for everyone, the API is restricted in two ways:
- The maximum number of entries returned per call is 1000.
- The maximum number of calls allowed per day is 1000.
We feel that these limitations are reasonable and should not interfere with most applications. If they cause significant problems for your use case, please let us know at feedback@reliefweb.int and we will review on a case-by-case basis.
ReliefWeb does not guarantee the accuracy of its data and is not responsible for any damages resulting from the use of API. There are no fees associated with the use of ReliefWeb API.
Changes to the Terms of Service will be announced on the API support forum.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get started?
Head over to the API documentation, play with the examples and feel free to edit them!
Does the API offer access to all ReliefWeb data?
Reports, Jobs, Training and associated metadata are accessible through the API. For Job and Training data, only data after 2011 are available.
How far does the data go back?
We have been posting Reports continuously since 1996 when ReliefWeb was launched. UN reports on major disasters from the 1980s are also available. We started carrying Jobs in 2001 and Training in 1998, but data is available only from 2011 onwards.
How often is the data updated?
In real-time, every time content is added to ReliefWeb.
Is there a list showing all data types returned by the API?
Yes, check out the endpoints section in the API documentation.
What does "primary country" mean?
Please see Fields table section in the API documentation. We also explain the meaning of the rest of the fields. For a detailed description of each value, please see the Taxonomy Descriptions page
Can anyone use the API? What restrictions are there?
For details, see the Terms of Service.
Why is there no data for some specific topic before certain year?
As times change, we might change the way we tag content. For example, South Sudan didn't exist until recently, and themes may be added or removed. These changes are infrequent and we do our best to preserve consistency. Please ask on the API support forum for specific cases.
Where do I get help?
For details, see the Feedback and support section on this page.