Sweden is UNHCR’s largest provider of multi-year unearmarked funding—allowing UNHCR to meet the most urgent needs anywhere in the world, whether it is for new crises or responding to forgotten and underfunded emergencies.
Unearmarked funding which arrives early in the calendar year allows UNHCR operations and global programmes to kickstart emergency response as crises arise and support underfunded and unpredicted needs. Sweden’s flexibility, predictability and timeliness of support has been UNHCR’s bedrock for responding to these needs. More time to implement activities, together with the ability to reallocate funding in response to shifts in programme focus or based on learning within programmes, means UNHCR interventions can respond, and respond better, to actual needs as they evolve.
Sweden and UNHCR have a longstanding partnership, with Sweden being one of the first signatories of the 1951 Refugee Convention and a member of our Executive Committee since 1958.
The partnership is focused on promoting and safeguarding the rights of forcibly displaced communities, including the most vulnerable, in a sustainable manner and operationalizing the humanitarian-development-peace nexus.
75% of the contribution was softly earmarked and unearmarked
The impact of Sweden as a donor
Sweden and UNHCR spotlight impact on South Sudan after a year of Sudan conflict
UNHCR’s Deputy High Commissioner, Kelly T. Clements, and Sweden’s State Secretary for International Development Cooperation, Diana Janse, have concluded a joint visit to South Sudan, where they witnessed the impact of one of the world’s most complex and challenging humanitarian crises a year since the start of the conflict in neighbouring Sudan.
Nine years on – Swedish help has been vital in aiding the people of Yemen
The commitment by Sweden over the years, and especially now when the people in Yemen need it most, has been vital to making a difference through their humanitarian action and political efforts to bring an end to the conflict. Sweden’s assistance has provided crucial relief and hope for a dignified future to those desperately struggling to survive in Yemen.
Unearmarked funding makes a difference in the lives of people living amidst neglected humanitarian crises
In 2023, UNHCR has been challenged by financial constraints despite ever-growing humanitarian need and forced to do more with less. Unearmarked contributions, such as those from Norway and Sweden, fund UNHCR’s vital operations in forgotten crises and enable UNHCR to plan and implement effective and sustainable humanitarian responses.
Swedish support across the globe
