No other donor provides UNHCR with more unearmarked funding than Sweden.
No other donor provides UNHCR with more unearmarked funding—the kind of funding UNHCR can spend on the most urgent needs anywhere in the world—than Sweden. Its leadership in providing such reliable multi-year and flexible funding allows UNHCR to send resources to areas where the needs are the greatest and respond to forgotten and underfunded emergencies. As a strong advocate for the protection of women and girls, Sweden and UNHCR work together to promote and safeguard the rights of forcibly displaced communities in a sustainable manner.
Sweden’s partnership with UNHCR stretches back decades. It was one of the first signatories of the 1951 Refugee Convention and has been a member of UNHCR’s Executive Committee since 1958. Looking into the future, Sweden and UNHCR will continue to work together to find solutions for displaced people by ensuring reliable multi-year financing, providing resettlement places and advocating for solutions to allow people to return home.
We are now witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record. Conflict, persecution and civil strife has uprooted more than 70 million people from their homes. UNHCR is operating in extremely complex environments and a central challenge for the organization is having the ability to respond, especially as more and more of the funding UNHCR receives is earmarked, meaning it must be spent in a certain place or on a certain activity.
Sweden’s dedication to providing unearmarked funds to UNHCR supports our work around the world, ensuring we can respond quickly when disasters strike, bolstering an otherwise forgotten or under-funded crises, and enables UNHCR to implement programmes as fully as possible. By providing funds in this way, Sweden has shown a great deal of trust in UNHCR and our partners, allowing us to deliver on our core mandate to reach the most vulnerable people of concern, and help them to thrive, not just survive. Sweden’s unearmarked funds give UNHCR vital flexibility to allocate the funds where the needs are greatest. As a donor, Sweden sets an example within the humanitarian community.