Skip to content

Humanitarian Organisations

Humanitarian organisations help to ensure that there is swift, efficient humanitarian assistance available when sudden natural disasters strike or wars occur or in connection with long-term conflicts.
UNICEF distributing plastic canisters to a village in Uganda.Photo: Jørgen Schytte

Humanitarian NGOs provide the greater part of emergency aid all over the world and are an important part of Danish humanitarian efforts. Experienced humanitarian organisations have solid expertise, detailed knowledge of specific local areas and the capacity to supply the right help to the most vulnerable population groups.

Therefore Denmark cooperates with a number of humanitarian organisations to supply emergency aid that is swift and efficient.

Danish humanitarian organisations 

Danish humanitarian organisations have achieved special status as important and competent partners for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark in the implementation of Danish humanitarian assistance. This applies to both long-term development assistance and acute humanitarian interventions.

International humanitarian organisations 

International humanitarian organisations have a key position in humanitarian assistance. This applies for instance to the UN’s humanitarian organisations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The EU’s humanitarian work

EU humanitarian assistance is coordinated by the Commission’s humanitarian office, ECHO (the Humanitarian Aid Office of the European Commission). While ECHO does not itself implement projects, it channels the assistance through other organisations.

Multilateral Analysis

In order to assess Denmark’s most important multilateral partner organisations the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have in 2013 completed an analysis of 17 international and humanitarian organisations, all receiving substantial contributions from Denmark. The organisations have been assessed in relation to Danish development priorities as described in the strategy The Right to a Better Life and in relation to their organisational effectiveness. Furthermore, under the heading “New Multilateralism” the analysis provides recommendations for Denmark’s engagement with the organisations in the years to come. The analysis can be downloaded here.