Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 14 November 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence

Global Humanitarian Response: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Mr. Ramesh Rajasingham:

Just to clarify, this is for the entire humanitarian system, not just OCHA, so these are the major donor countries. A lot of it depends on government policy in those countries. Some of those countries, for example, have earmarked let us say 0.7% of gross national income or GDP for international assistance. Some countries do not have that in law or the figure is lower. Some countries have lowered it over the past years mainly because of domestic fiscal pressures they face as a result of the economic impact of Covid-19. The Deputy is absolutely right, however. For some countries, the humanitarian funding nature and DNA are not necessarily there. We have expanded and are expanding our efforts to make sure we can bring them on board. This includes the Gulf countries. It is not to say they are not necessarily contributing but that they are not contributing to us. They may be doing it through other channels. They have their own organisations through which they do it. We are also approaching countries in Asia and, for example, the BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - to see if we can improve those funding channels as well.

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