A high-level session organized by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sweden and the EU yesterday discussed ways to bridge the humanitarian funding gap.
Held on the sidelines of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, the meeting brought together representatives of countries and humanitarian organizations, including Advisor to the Saudi Royal Court and Supervisor General of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief) Dr. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Rabeeah, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths, Sweden’s Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Johan Forssell, and European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic.
Addressing the attendees, Dr. Al Rabeeah stressed that more efforts must be exerted to expand the base of donors, at country, organization and individual levels, and to increase the level of coordination and impact of humanitarian assistance, so as to ensure a more effective work.
He noted that Saudi Arabia holds annually a campaign to collect gift dates, in partnership with the World Food Program, at a value of over $136 million, from which 72 countries around the world benefit.
KSrelief also lent support to efforts to respond to the COVID-19 crisis around the world by providing vaccines, medical devices, medicines and intensive care units, as well as financial support, said Al-Rabeeah, stressing the importance of encouraging in-kind support to motivate countries and donors to provide any necessary resources they can and thus achieve complementarity in humanitarian action.
He added that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an active member of the donor group of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and chaired the donor group in 2022-2023, during which the Kingdom activated communication with donors and mobilized their support for OCHA.
The Kingdom is also working with donor countries to expand the donor base, support OCHA initiatives and work, tackle humanitarian problems and crises, and provide solutions through donor countries.
Dr. Al Rabeeah highlighted the importance of expanding the donor base to expand global humanitarian action, which is still very limited, called for coordinating efforts of countries, institutions and the private sector, and urged countries and the private sector to fund the global humanitarian action as needs are increasing.
Source: Saudi Press Agency