The Netherlands | Global Focus

The Netherlands is one of UNHCR’s most reliable partners in refugee protection and humanitarian assistance, providing invaluable financial, political, humanitarian and policy support around the world. The Netherlands is UNHCR’s second largest contributor of unearmarked funds, and the eighth largest government donor overall. Its contribution is vital to UNHCR in assisting refugees, IDPs and others in need. The Netherlands is a leading actor in humanitarian policy forums on issues such as transparency and accountability, as well as on the humanitarian-development nexus.

As UNHCR’s second largest contributor of unearmarked funding, the Netherlands plays an instrumental role in helping UNHCR to respond where the needs of refugees and other displaced people are the greatest. This includes allowing UNHCR to kick-start emergency responses, and fully respond to situations of protracted and neglected conflicts. The Netherland’s support includes specific humanitarian assistance for vulnerable people, including women and girls, and also aims to tap into and support the increasing resilience of those who are forced to flee. The Netherlands and UNHCR are both strongly committed to the prevention of and response to sexual and gender-based violence, as well as a zero tolerance approach to sexual harassment and sexual exploitation and abuse. The Netherlands strongly supports the Global Compact on Refugees, establishing a new partnership aimed at bringing development actors closer to the humanitarian response to displacement crises.

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Jalila and her granddaughter fled the war in the Syrian Arab Republic and found shelter in the Maalaqa settlement in Lebanon.

In 2015, a ferocious snowstorm hit the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon while Jalila and her family were living in the area. Shelter support from UNHCR helped them in 2016, and winter cash assistance today helps them prepare for every subsequent winter. It is because of unearmarked support from donors like the Netherlands that these programmes are available for Jalila and many other Syrian refugees.

©UNHCR/ Hannah Maule-ffinch

Tartus is a 22 year-old Syrian refugee with two young daughters.

As a woman who works two jobs, she finds a bank card is more practical and time-saving than queuing for cash distributions. UNHCR’s cash assistance program allows Tartus to pay for her rent, heating, healthcare and other essentials, and also works to boost the local economy in Lebanon. As the crisis is now in its eighth year, UNHCR is using unearmarked funding to continue supporting Syrian refugees, including through cash assistance programmes like this one.

©UNHCR/Diego Ibarra Sanchez

Venezuela’s dire and long-running humanitarian crisis has forced more than 4 million Venezuelans to leave the country.

Many, like this mother and baby in the Pintolandia refugee camp, travelled to Brazil in search of safety. UNHCR relies on unearmarked funding from donors like the Netherlands to respond to emergencies. It enables UNHCR to mobilize and reach refugees with urgent humanitarian assistance, registration support and protection.

Khalimey is a 53-year-old mother of six living in an IDP settlement in Somalia.

She owns a small shop where she sells retail items and food that she learned to make in a UNHCR-funded skills training program. Khalimey is one of 1,500 internally displaced people who were settled into the Salama IDP settlements. Somalia is an under-funded and protracted crisis and therefore relies on unearmarked funding from donors like the Netherlands to support programmes for IDPs.

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