Humanitarian Aid Programme - Performance

Programme in a nutshell

Concrete examples of achievements

Budget for 2021-2027

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Rationale and design of the programme

Humanitarian aid is a key pillar of the EU's external action and an important element of the EU's ability to project its values globally. The EU humanitarian aid programme provides emergency, life-saving assistance to people, particularly the most vulnerable, hit by human-induced or natural disasters.

Budget

Budget programming (million EUR):

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  Financial programming:
  + EUR 3 142.9 million (+ 27%)
  compared to the legal basis*

^{* Top-ups pursuant to Article 5 of the multiannual financial framework regulation are excluded from financial programming in this comparison.}

• Given its centrality in dealing with current crisis, the programme has been reinforced substantially at different times.
• In 2021, budget has been reinforced by EUR 665.1 million during the year through the Solidarity and Emergency Aid Reserve (SEAR), amending budget, redeployments from Heading VI instruments and the Virement d’Aide Humanitaire (VAH) cater for increasing humanitarian needs, such as the crises in Afghanistan and in the Nagorno-Karabakh or the Kenya and Somalia droughts. 
• In 2022, the humanitarian aid budget was reinforced by EUR 635.7 million. In part, the transfers originated from the SEAR and redeployments from Heading VI instruments to cater for the needs arising in response to the Russian war against Ukraine and the worldwide deterioration of food security. Further funds became available through the VAH to tackle the security and displacement crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition to the reinforcements, ECHO also received frontloading of EUR 211 million from the Solidarity and Emergency Aid Reserve at the beginning of the year. 
• For 2023, an initial budget increase was secured in the form of multiannual financial framework funding amending letter (AL/01) for EUR 150 million. The budget was further reinforced throughout the year by a total of EUR 631.1 million to address escalating humanitarian needs in various key crises (including Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, Armenia/Nagorno-Karabakh, and the war in Gaza, amongst others). The extra funding was sourced from transfers via the SEAR, Heading VI instruments, and the VAH.

Budget performance – implementation

Annual voted budget implementation (million EUR)^(*):

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Contribution to horizontal priorities

Green budgeting

Contribution to green budgeting priorities (million EUR):

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• The figure for 2023 (EUR 970.2 million) is the result of the application of the methodology to track spending contributing to climate mainstreaming. The Commission is implementing central tracking at the commitment level, to improve the accuracy and reliability of data on climate action. The tracking is based on the EU’s climate-marker methodology, made up of three scores (0%, 40%, and 100%). Generally, humanitarian aid projects have climate adaptation as a significant objective (40% coefficient), with some exceptions   (such as ECHO flight, epidemics or communications actions, which have a 0% contribution to climate), while preparedness actions within humanitarian aid have a 100% contribution to climate, as climate adaptation and/or mitigation are fundamental to the design of their objectives or are the motivation for the activity.
• In order to reduce the carbon footprint and the environmental damage of humanitarian aid, minimum environmental requirements and associated guidance became mandatory in 2023 for all EU-funded humanitarian aid operations. New voluntary environmental indicators were also released in 2023 to help partners reflect the minimum environmental requirements in their projects.
• In the 2023 Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the EU, represented by Commissioner Lenarčič, endorsed two relevant non-negotiation outcomes: (1) the ‘Declaration on Climate, Relief, Recovery and Peace’, focusing on climate action in fragile and conflict-affected settings, underpinned by a package of solutions encompassing individual pledges and announcements by signatories; and (2) ‘Getting ahead of disasters: A charter on finance for managing risks’, setting out principles for the future of finance for disasters. Furthermore, at the launch event of the Secretariat of the Climate and Environment Charter, the EU became the first financial supporter of the secretariat by announcing EUR 200 000 of financial support.
• The Commission   continued to encourage partners to include preparedness measures and climate-, environmental- and conflict-risk considerations in all the humanitarian actions it funds, to help ensure that impacts, including those related to the climate, are accounted for in all sectoral interventions (e.g. displacement). The resilience marker is a tool that supports partners in doing so throughout the design of their interventions by ensuring that they consider and address these risks. The following examples illustrate the Commission’s response to the consequences of climate change and the relief of affected populations in 2023.
• In response to the impact of Hurricane Otis on the west coast of Mexico, the EU provided EUR 1.3 million in humanitarian assistance to help address the most urgent needs of the affected population. As many as 270 000 homes were affected to varying extents. Key infrastructure sustained significant damage, with over 120 healthcare facilities and 33 educational institutions affected. The funding will provide assistance to the most vulnerable, including shelter, water, sanitation and hygiene, along with support for livelihoods and other basic needs. Furthermore, the EU activated its Copernicus satellite service to provide damage assessments, producing more than 14 maps to support the Mexican authorities. Moreover, since July 2023, the two regions have been working on the signature of a memorandum of understanding to strengthen their partnership and improve disaster preparedness, early warning and climate resilience for the years to come.
• In response to the devastating climate-induced floods affecting large areas of the Horn of Africa and the resulting overwhelming emergency needs in the region, an additional EUR 10 million in humanitarian assistance (including assistance from the Disaster Response Emergency Fund) was made available in 2023. One example of this intervention is a project entitled ‘Improving living conditions of conflict and disaster affected populations in Somalia’, implemented by IOM during a period of 5 months in 2023.
   

Gender

Contribution to gender equality (million EUR) (*):

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• The Commission is committed to ensuring that EU humanitarian aid takes into account the different needs and capacities of women and men of all ages. The Commission is working on a methodology for gender expenditure tracking, and has provisionally assigned score 1 to the total humanitarian aid budget for 2022 (EUR 1.806 billion). This is a Commission-wide methodology, and differs from other assessment methods used to track humanitarian funding, such as the Commission’s humanitarian gender-age marker and the gender equality marker used by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It is clear that humanitarian aid has some impact on gender equality (therefore, scores 0 and 0* could not be assigned), but gender equality is also not the principal objective of the programme (therefore score 2 could not be assigned).
• The EU continued mainstreaming gender and age across all sectors of intervention, outlining the approach to gender and gender-based violence in humanitarian crises in the staff working document ‘Gender: Different needs, adapted assistance’. The EU remained an active member of the ‘Call to action on protection from gender-based violence in emergencies’ initiative and reported concerning the commitments made on the road map for 2021-2025. The EU furthermore increased its focus on conflict-related sexual violence in response to observations in several recent and ongoing crises.

Digital

Contribution to digital transition (million EUR):

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The programme does not have the contribution to the digital transition as an objective.

Budget performance – outcomes

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• Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has deeply impacted the global humanitarian landscape, both directly and indirectly, by raising food insecurity worldwide, thus significantly exacerbating the humanitarian situation in many parts of the world, which had already deteriorated drastically. Conflicts and escalating tensions in Sudan or in the Middle East, particularly in and around Gaza, and the major or complex crises in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and the Sahel region underscore the persistent challenges faced by vulnerable populations worldwide.
• Furthermore, a contested multilateral order and the challenges deriving from climate change are exacerbating tensions and fuelling existing regional conflicts and protracted crises. Other factors, such as failed governance and structural poverty, have contributed to the current outlook. The deterioration in the humanitarian situation is a visible illustration of a global and sustained increase in humanitarian needs, which are currently at an all-time high. In addition, continued widespread violations of international humanitarian law and impediments to humanitarian access are making the delivery of humanitarian aid even more difficult and dangerous.
• The EU humanitarian aid programme performed well in 2023 in providing emergency assistance to people worldwide, particularly the most vulnerable, hit by human-induced or natural disasters. However, despite these efforts, a record-high funding gap at the global level left millions of the most vulnerable people without needed assistance (according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 60% of needs were not met in 2023). The Commission’s share of the global humanitarian aid system decreased slightly compared to the previous year ⁽⁶⁾.   The EU and its Member States are no longer jointly the world’s largest humanitarian aid donors, providing around 30.9% of the global share of committed humanitarian aid contributions. This is partially due to the maintained high share provided by other donors such as the United States (providing over 40% of the funds committed to the global humanitarian system since 2021).
• Owing to the high level of operational knowledge and technical expertise of its unique network of humanitarian field offices, present in 40 non-EU countries, in 2023 the EU maintained a solid platform for reaching most of the areas in the world where humanitarian aid is needed. The EU was able to fund more than 577 million interventions ^{(7) (8)} and provide aid in 95% of the countries for which the United Nations launched an appeal ⁽⁹⁾. The EU was able to take advantage of its comprehensive range of humanitarian partners (around 200 organisations, including United Nations agencies, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, non-governmental organisations and specialised agencies from Member States), through which people in need can receive assistance, even in the areas of the world that are most difficult to reach.
• In 2023, more than 17% of the initial budget was spent on forgotten crises, thus contributing to the objective of needs-based delivery of EU assistance to people faced with natural and human-made disasters and protracted crises.
• The programme also contributed to the objective of building the capacity and resilience of vulnerable and disaster-affected communities. In 2023, 32.3% ⁽¹⁰⁾ of EU-funded humanitarian operations included elements of disaster preparedness. In this context, in order to adapt to a higher number of climate-related disasters, initiatives such as adopting a risk-informed approach to projects (considering current and future risks), scaling up anticipatory action or greening humanitarian operations (through the adoption of the minimum environmental requirements compulsory for EU-funded humanitarian partners) are being implemented in the context of humanitarian aid.
• The following examples illustrate the wide variety and extensive reach of the EU’s support in relation to humanitarian crises in 2023.
  • The response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine by allocating EUR 300 million to provide life-saving assistance, mainly through cash transfers and humanitarian protection, to populations directly exposed to war and displacement. More than 17.7 million people in the country needed humanitarian support in 2023. Since the start of Russia’s war of aggression, almost 984 000 Ukrainian refugees have fled to Moldova, of whom nearly 112 000 remain in the country. In response, the EU made EUR 20 million in emergency assistance available to Moldova, including cash assistance and protection services, to address the needs of refugees and their host communities. Since February 2022, the European Commission has allocated EUR 926 million for humanitarian aid programmes to help civilians affected by the war in Ukraine. This includes EUR 860 million for Ukraine and EUR 66 million for refugees that have fled to neighbouring Moldova. Between January and November 2023, 10.5 million Ukrainians, including in hard-hit-areas, received humanitarian support in Ukraine thanks to the EU and other donors.  EU humanitarian funding is helping people inside Ukraine by providing them with (1) food, (2) water, (3) essential household items, (4) healthcare, including mental health and psychosocial support, (5) psychosocial support, (6) emergency and winterised shelter, (7) protection, including education in emergencies, and (8) cash assistance to help cover their basic needs.
  • The escalation of violence in the Middle East following the terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 led to large-scale destruction in Gaza, the displacement of almost the entire Gazan population of 2.2 million people and massive humanitarian needs in all sectors, accentuated by the serious risk of famine. Violence also escalated in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The Commission responded by quadrupling its assistance to Palestine ⁽¹¹⁾ to more than EUR 100 million, to address the most basic needs of Palestinians. In 2023, 33 humanitarian air bridge flights were operated in the context of this crisis, and 1 310 tonnes of essential supplies were mobilised.  The aid transported includes nutritional items, shelter and logistical equipment, hygiene kits and medicines .
  • By the end of 2023, the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces that erupted on 15 April had displaced 7.5 million people, half of whom were children. Sudan is estimated to be the country with the largest number of internally displaced persons, with more than half of the population (24.7 million people) in need of assistance, and one of the five countries with the highest risk of hunger requiring the most urgent attention. In 2023, the programme   focused its assistance on basic multisectoral life-saving services, allocating EUR 128 million to address the deteriorating crisis, prioritising emergency actions in the most conflict-affected areas and the localities hosting displaced households. EU humanitarian aid provided health and nutritional care, cash, food assistance, water and sanitation, shelter, protection and education to the most vulnerable households – internally displaced people, refugee families and host communities. Furthermore, the EU contributed to the nutritional treatment and care of children under 5 and pregnant or breastfeeding women across Sudan.
  • In February 2023, two earthquakes caused massive destruction and suffering in southeast Türkiye, creating new needs among both refugees and the Turkish people. This disaster further exacerbated the living conditions of the already vulnerable refugees. In 2023, the EU provided EUR 78.2 million in humanitarian funding in response to the earthquake, including some EUR 40 million in fresh funds. Key priorities to address after the earthquakes included access to social assistance and protection for vulnerable groups, namely psychosocial support; the rehabilitation of health and education services; water, sanitation and hygiene; and shelter and protection .
  • In 2023, the number of people in need in Afghanistan increased to 29 million, mainly requiring support in the form of food, water, sanitation and hygiene, protection and education. The main drivers of the crisis remain droughts, insecurity and violence, restrictions for women’s participation in society, food insecurity, global and local economic shocks and the deterioration of basic services. In 2023, the EU allocated over EUR 149 million of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, focusing on emergency food assistance; healthcare and nutrition; education in emergencies; access to clean water and sanitation facilities; shelter, non-food items and winter support; and protection services, including de-mining activities . Moreover, Commission-funded humanitarian air bridge flights delivered 710 tonnes of life-saving medical relief items (mainly) to humanitarian organisations in Afghanistan. The Commission also supported the 5 million people affected by the floods in Pakistan.
  • The severe humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa continued in 2023, with close to 35 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. Conflicts and the impact of natural hazards, such as large-scale droughts and floods, aggravated by the El Niño phenomenon, are driving internal displacement, food insecurity and cross-border flows. Multiple and volatile conflicts are generating wide protection gaps, affecting particularly vulnerable groups, such as women and children. The regional context was further characterised by constrained access and international humanitarian law violations. The Commission continued to support the most vulnerable through multisectoral humanitarian action. Throughout the year, the Commission mobilised additional top-up funding to respond to cholera outbreaks, the regional flood situation and new population displacements, while facing a growing gap between needs and available funding, along with issues of aid accountability and effectiveness.
  • The EU responded to the complex crisis in the Sahel and Lake Chad regions (where humanitarian needs are growing at an alarming pace for 50.5 million people), providing aid to meet the most urgent needs of conflict-affected populations that had been forcibly displaced across the region or affected by food and nutrition crises induced by climate conditions, poverty and insecurity.
• Delivering principled humanitarian assistance is at times extremely difficult in certain protracted crises, where warring parties occasionally disregard humanitarian principles, violate international humanitarian law and interfere with the delivery of assistance in the field. In addition to this, EU humanitarian partners may have to face difficult logistical challenges when delivering assistance in hard-to-reach areas, and other types of unexpected developments in the field that may hinder aid delivery. In that context, the Commission appropriately promoted the consistent inclusion of humanitarian exceptions, in particular humanitarian exemptions in line with the UN Security Council Resolution 2664(2022) in EU sanctions regimes. In 2023, the humanitarian exemption was introduced in approximately 30 EU sanctions regimes, including in Myanmar/Burma, Nicaragua, Niger, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.
• In order to cope with challenges in delivering humanitarian aid, the following two main risks are recurrently considered in activities under the programme.
  • A risk relating to access, referring to the increasing number of countries and set-ups where the governments, or de facto authorities, are limiting access in a way that affects seriously the delivery of humanitarian assistance, for instance in Ethiopia, Myanmar/Burma, Palestine, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen. To ensure full, safe, unhindered and durable humanitarian access to people in need, DG European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) continuously engages with EU Member States, other donors and the broad humanitarian community on key issues such as humanitarian coordination.
  • A risk relating to physical security, referring to maintaining the security of Commission staff in a deteriorating context that seriously affects the operational environment for humanitarian actors and hinders their ability to carry out life-saving assistance. The Commission constantly monitors such volatile situations, and adapts its security set-up as necessary. In 2023, the Commission’s security sector managed two security incidents involving staff and held several crisis management meetings on ongoing crises. Total evacuation was undertaken for our office in Sudan.
• In 2023, the Commission engaged at all levels with development and peace actors in all relevant settings, with the objective of increasing the coherence of the EU’s action in a given context and thus jointly addressing the causes of fragility and seeking durable solutions for affected populations. In that context, the Emergency Social Safety Net was successfully handed over from humanitarian to development funding under the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument – Global Europe in July 2023, in line with the EU humanitarian–development–peace nexus approach.
• The Commission also deployed the European Humanitarian Response Capacity,   which is a set of operational tools designed to fill gaps in the humanitarian response to sudden-onset natural hazards and human-induced disasters. The mechanism was launched in 2022 and further developed in 2023. It responded to 16 crises affecting 15 countries (Afghanistan, Armenia, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt/Palestine, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Syria and Ukraine). EUR 56 million has been allocated for the development and deployment of the European Humanitarian Response Capacity. Since its creation it has contributed to assisting more than 100 partners with logistical and stockpile services in 15 different countries, delivering humanitarian goods and transporting humanitarian workers to hard-to-reach areas. It has been a key tool in overcoming one of the main challenges of the programme, which is providing humanitarian aid assistance in zones where access is difficult.
• Regarding food security, the situation in 2023 remained largely unchanged compared to 2022, with 258 million people considered acutely food insecure in the world. At the end of 2023, five countries were considered at risk of famine, with Palestine being the most severe food crisis in recent times. This led to a surge in humanitarian needs throughout the year, far exceeding the available funding and resources. Food security appeals were funded only at around 35%. The proliferation and escalation of conflicts, high global food prices as a result of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, economic shocks and climatic events such as El Niño contributed to this situation. In this context, the Commission managed to mobilise additional resources from reserves, reaching around EUR 670 million   for humanitarian food assistance in 2023. Whilst this is lower than the exceptional levels reached in 2022, it remains high compared to the average level of funding over the last several years. The Team Europe response to the global food crisis, adopted by the EU and its Member States in 2022, remains the frame of reference for a joint EU response. The European Commission committed EUR 8.3 billion for 2021-2024. Including Member State commitments, the pledge reached approximately EUR 18 billion for the same period.    

^{(7)Interventions refer in this case to the estimated number of action beneficiaries as declared by the partners implementing humanitarian projects funded by the programme.}

^{(8)The figure of 577 million interventions was extracted from Eva Actions (a data management tool compiling data from humanitarian operations) on 6 February 2024. It should be noted that a beneficiary might be covered by several interventions. The number of direct beneficiaries will be available during the second quarter of 2024. For reference, the number of direct beneficiaries for the Commission´s humanitarian aid actions in 2022 was 106.43 million.}

• ^{This figure double-counts beneficiaries targeted by more than one intervention, as evidenced in 2021 where over 590 million interventions were recorded, reaching a total of 85 million direct beneficiaries. This difference is partly explained in 2021 due to the vaccination roll-out campaigns, where a single beneficiary received various vaccines.}
• ^{The number of interventions changes though time, increasing continually on the basis of the progressive encoding of data by partners (i.e. for 2021 data around 590 million interventions were noted in the first quarter of 2022, while 672 million interventions were registered for the same period in March 2023).}

^{(9) Of the 74 countries targeted by United Nations appeals in 2023, Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia were included in the United Nations’ Ukraine situation regional refugee response plan. Due to its specific mandate, DG European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) does not provide humanitarian aid in Member States, however assistance was provided to them through civil protection actions. The abovementioned Member States were then left out of the calculation of this indicator. DG European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) provided humanitarian aid to 63 of the 65 remaining countries targeted by United Nations appeals. The three countries not reached by the EU’s humanitarian operations were included in United Nations regional appeals for which the EU a provided response to other countries.}

^{(10) The original methodology applied to set the baseline and targets for this indicator in the strategic plan was based on individual review of elements in disaster-preparedness projects, in collaboration with operational units. The methodology was changed in 2022 in order to simplify and speed up the procedure. It now only includes projects that have disaster-preparedness-specific results, and does not include those that have disaster-preparedness considerations in other sectors. The result for this indicator in 2022 is stable in comparison with 2022. Other possible methodologies are being discussed in order to overcome such issues.}

^{(11) This designation shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the Member States on this issue.}

Contribution to the sustainable development goals