Canada | Global Focus

Canada is the ninth largest government donor overall and provides a robust and generous contribution to UNHCR in both unearmarked and softly earmarked funds.

Canada provides significant financial, diplomatic and policy support to UNHCR and is a key political and strategic ally in the work of protection, humanitarian assistance and solutions. Canada is a leader on gender-equality, and for the empowerment and education of women and girls. It is also the leading country in the resettlement of refugees. Canada is the ninth largest government donor overall and provides a robust and generous contribution to UNHCR in both unearmarked and softly earmarked funds.

As a significant contributor of unearmarked and softly earmarked funding, including multi-year funding, Canada’s contributions are critical to the type of flexible response that enables UNHCR to direct resources to refugees and displaced people who are most in need, whether they are affected by a new crisis or in a protracted situation. Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy, a new gender-responsive humanitarian action policy launched in 2019, lays the foundation for positioning Canada as a leader on gender-equality in its aid programming. This policy has reaffirmed both Canada and UNHCR’s strong commitment to mainstreaming prevention and response to sexual and gender-based violence, as well as to an integrated age, gender and diversity approach that ensures inclusion of women and girls in programme design. Canada has also provided strong support on solutions through its resettlement programming, commitment to complementary pathways, capacity-building initiatives, and through its strong support for the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Refugee Forum.

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Limited access to schooling perpetuates and magnifies the challenges of life in exile.

It also limits the potential of refugee women and girls to rebuild their lives and take a lead in shaping the lives of their communities. Because of the crisis in Syria, in east Aleppo most children - especially girls—were unable to attend school. Some lost as many as 6 years of much-needed education. UNHCR and its partners worked to rehabilitate schools in Aleppo to address this need and now many children are starting school for the first time. UNHCR’s response in Syria is supported by flexible funding from government donors including Canada.

For the 900,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, an estimated 739 tons of firewood are consumed every day.

Young children and women are often given the hard and dangerous job of collecting firewood, walking several kilometers every day. UNHCR’s holistic response to the includes innovative projects to improve the lives of women and children by mobilizing the financial support of government donors such as Canada. UNHCR instituted a durable fuel solution by distributing liquid petroleum gas in cylinders, a clean alternative that protects the environment and the health of Rohingya women and children in the camps.

Atim Josephine lost her parents in South Sudan at the age of 10.

At 14, poverty pushed her into child marriage. At 15, she fled to neighboring Uganda to escape conflict, and at 16, she had a daughter. Now, she’s going back to school through an Accelerated Learning programme in the Kiryandongo refugee settlement. Since 2013, brutal conflict in South Sudan has driven millions from their homes, but UNHCR’s response in 2019 was only 45% funded and relied on flexible contributions from donors to ensure we could address the humanitarian needs of South Sudanese refugees like Atim.

When Filsan grows up she wants to be a doctor but right now she lives in the Ifo refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya.

The camp is home to over 208,000 Somali refugees, more than half of whom are children. Drought and food insecurity are major concerns, and UNHCR works to address those issues, and many others, by mobilizing the financial support provided by unearmarked funding from donors such as Canada.

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