UNHCR Standing Committee - EU Statement - Agenda Items 2(a) Finance and oversight; and 3 Programme budgets and funding;

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UNHCR 97th STANDING COMMITTEE
8-9 September 2026
Agenda Items 2(a) Finance and oversight; and 3 Programme budgets and funding;
Statement on behalf of the EU and its Member States
Thank you, Chair.
I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.
We take note of the proposed 2027 programme budget and welcome UNHCR's continued focus on protection, solutions, and lifesaving emergency response amid record levels of displacement. We reaffirm our strong support for UNHCR's core protection mandate and the Centrality of Protection, and stress that dedicated protection expertise and capacity must be preserved through the current restructuring. We also underline the importance of addressing the specific protection needs of women and girls, children, persons with disabilities, survivors of trafficking and gender-based violence, and other persons in vulnerable situations, with particular attention to age, diversity and gender.
We remain concerned about the widening gap between available resources and existing needs. We reiterate our call for UNHCR to increase coordination, complementarity and a clearer division of labour, to increase shared services and reduce duplication,
We welcome the new hybrid budget model set out in the conference room paper, comprising a primary needs-driven budget complemented by an income-aligned implementation plan, presented as an annex. We hope this annex will offer a transparent picture of how UNHCR intends to align operations with anticipated funding. We look forward to continued engagement on this model as it moves towards becoming operational in 2028, and value the High Commissioner's and his office's transparency in consulting Member States on the budget and on the new Strategic Directions.
We recognise High Commissioner Salih's leadership priorities, including the "50 by 35" goal and reducing aid dependency, and look forward to further details on how this will be reflected in budget and staffing and how this will unfold at country level, also given UNHCR's core protection mandate. Amid internal review and leadership change, the EU and its Member States remain stable, reliable and strategic partners to UNHCR.
We recognise the difficult adjustments across operations and their impact on the UNHCR's ability to deliver protection and assistance, with consequences ultimately felt by the people it is mandated to serve. We would also like to express our solidarity and appreciation to the thousands of UNHCR colleagues affected by these changes and acknowledge their continued commitment and dedication.
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We recognise the generosity of host countries and communities, who continue to support refugees despite increasingly challenging circumstances, and call on more partners to support sustainable responses, durable solutions- including resettlement- and a route-based approach. We welcome the recent reinforced action on self-reliance by the World Bank and UNHCR. It is more important than ever to work closely with host governments in a coordinated manner to increase their capacity to include displaced persons in their systems. We reiterate that refugees' self-reliance requires an enabling environment - legal documentation, freedom of movement, the right to work, and inclusion in nationally-led services such as education, healthcare, social protection, as well as access to financial services, - underpinned by stronger engagement with host governments, development actors, IFIs and the private sector, and by sustained support to host countries in delivering these responses, including by mobilizing adequate and sustainable development financing for the inclusion of refugees in national systems.
In the year of the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, we welcome the series of dialogues UNHCR has convened to renew commitment to the Convention and look forward to the High Commissioner's Dialogue on Protection in December, feeding into the new Agenda for the Future of Protection and Solutions in early 2027.
We welcome UNHCR's proactive role in UN80 and the Humanitarian Reset. We reiterate our call for UNHCR to lead in driving the Reset forward, align its internal review with these processes, and operationalise the approach of making the response "as local as possible, as international as necessary", while safeguarding its unique protection mandate.
We encourage e UNHCR to strengthen its efforts to prioritise internal controls, audit, risk management and investigative functions despite budget constraints, and welcome the report of the Board of Auditors. We are concerned, that shrinking audit budgets have limited OIOS's ability to apply its risk-based audit strategy and encourage UNHCR to strengthen internal audit arrangements and follow up on outstanding recommendations.
We commend UNHCR's leadership on fraud prevention and anti-corruption coordination and welcome the new Inspector General to the role. The IGO must remain independent, sufficiently resourced, and with swift action to recover funds where needed. Protection from sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment remains non-negotiable. We encourage UNHCR to continue leading efforts to shift institutional culture and embed a victim-survivor-centered approach, in close cooperation with UN and NGO partners to strengthen prevention and response.
Thank you.