Switzerland | Global Focus

As the host of UNHCR’s headquarters since its inception, and a generous and flexible supporter throughout the years, Switzerland is one of UNHCR’s key governmental partners.

Switzerland has been a member of the Advisory Committee on Refugees since 1951 and is a founding member of UNHCR’s governing Executive Committee established in 1958, thus demonstrating its long-term commitment to improving the situation of those affected by forced displacement and to finding durable solutions wherever possible.

Flexible and predictable multi-year support from Switzerland ensures that vital resources are available to UNHCR, especially in underfunded operations. In line with its Grand Bargain commitments, Switzerland is a co-lead of the Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative, aimed at improving the quality and effectiveness of donor governments humanitarian assistance and reinforcing the idea that donor governments have a responsibility to ensure their aid facilitates more effective humanitarian action. Switzerland also supports UNHCR’s work through emergency deployments of expert staff from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)—Switzerland’s international cooperation agency—providing technical advice to ensure quality implementation of projects in the fields of protection, shelter, cash-based interventions, and water, sanitation and hygiene. UNHCR also collaborates with the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), which provides targeted contributions that help to strengthen UNHCR's asylum support and protection activities in refugee hosting countries such as Rwanda, Libya and Turkey.

As a key resettlement partner for UNHCR, Switzerland provides lifesaving opportunities for refugees fleeing persecution and conflict. Since 2013, Switzerland has accepted 4,000 vulnerable refugees from the Syrian crisis and over 100 refugees who were evacuated from detention centers in Libya. In 2020-2021 Switzerland plans to continue and diversify its engagement in resettlement with an annual quota of 800 places. Furthermore, Switzerland hosted the Global Refugee Forum in December 2019 and is home to the annual Nansen Refugee Award ceremony.

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Mr. Azizbek Ashuro, the 2019 UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award winner accepts the award in Geneva, Switzerland.

Ashuro was honoured for his outstanding 16-year commitment to ending statelessness in Kyrgyzstan. The Government of Switzerland and the City of Geneva are long-standing partners of the Nansen Refugee Award, which celebrates everyday heroes who go to extraordinary lengths to help forcibly displaced or stateless persons in great need.

©UNHCR/Mark Henley

Venezuelan refugee Mariana (left) paints a picture with Ecuadorian local Marjorie (right), featuring the message "Let's be happy without borders" at a UNHCR art workshop in Huaquillas, Ecuador.

Since 2015, an estimated 4.5 million people have left Venezuela, fleeing the socioeconomic crisis. Switzerland has contributed generously to the Venezuela situation, supporting the underfunded crisis. These valuable funds allow UNHCR to deliver initiatives to local youth and refugees to speak out against discriminatory attitudes including creating paintings about integration, gender, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights.

©UNHCR/Jaime Giménez Sánchez de la Blanca

In Uganda, nursery workers load a UNHCR vehicle with tree seedlings for distribution to local villages where they will be planted to reverse deforestation.

In 2019, Uganda was the third largest refugee-hosting country in the world, with over 1.2 million refugees. With so many refugees living across a wide area alongside host communities, there is an inevitable impact on the environment. UNHCR funded community projects in the camps at Rhino Imvepy to start tree nurseries and tree planting efforts around the West Nile, spearheading efforts at reforestation. Unearmarked funding from Switzerland supports UNHCR’s work to reverse some of the damage done to the environment.

Aya, a former Iraqi refugee, addresses delegates at the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, Switzerland.

Aya Mohammed Abdullah fled Iraq via Syria and has settled in Switzerland with her family. Today she attends university in Geneva—as one of the only 3% of refugees in the world enrolled in higher education. “I am grateful to Switzerland for having welcomed me and offering me and my family the chance to integrate here, in this new country of refuge, where I stand a chance of creating a better life for myself, my family and the world.”

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