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Map of the Month

Voluntary contributions to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in 2025

by Sarah Ultes

Map of the Month 02/2026

In early February, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk presented his office's annual UN Human Rights Appeal for 2026 and warned that, in light of mounting crises, the world cannot afford a human rights system in crisis. The clear appeal was also made against the backdrop of the “financial shockwave” that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), like many other UN organizations faced in 2025. There was a funding gap of over $65 million due to both a lack of contributions from the regular UN budget and voluntary contributions from member states. Voluntary contributions amounted to $262 million, accounting for around 60% of the OHCHR's income in 2025. The EU Commission and EU member states alone contributed 60% of all voluntary contributions. Germany was the second largest donor with USD 29 million. Traditionally the United States used to be the biggest donor to the OHCHR. In 2024 it contributed 36 mio. USD. Last year, however, the voluntary contributions by the US went to zero. As a result, several human rights monitoring missions, dialogues and country visits of the Treaty Bodies or Special Rapporteurs could not take place last year. Even the investigative bodies mandated by the UN Human Rights Council were unable to fulfill their mandates fully. The office itself lost around 300 staff (out of a total of 2,000, ca. 15%) and was forced to close or radically reduce its presence in 17 countries.

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World map with countries highlighted in different colors reflecting the amount of voluntary contributions to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2025. The following seven countries are marked in dark blue and contributed more than US$10 million: Sweden, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Denmark. The EU Commission is also in this category. The following seven countries contributed between US$4 million and US$10 million: Canada, Ireland, Finland, Spain, Belgium, China, and the Republic of Korea. Eight countries contributed between US$1 million and US$3.9 million: Italy, Saudi Arabia, Luxembourg, Australia, Austria, New Zealand, Poland, and the United Arab Emirates. The following nine countries contributed between US$0.5 million and US$3.9 million: Greece, Iceland, India, Kuwait, Morocco, Liechtenstein, Japan, Portugal, and Qatar. Five countries contributed between US$0.1 million and US$0.49 million: Cyprus, Türkiye, Algeria, the Philippines, and Mexico. The contributions of the following 21 countries ranged from US$0.02 to US$0.09 million: Ivory Coast, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic, Monaco, Lithuania, Slovenia, Andorra, Malta, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Chile, Egypt, Malaysia, Uruguay, Pakistan, Peru, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, and Thailand. The contributions of the following 12 countries were less than US$0.2 million: Albania, Singapore, Slovakia, Romania, Costa Rica, Cambodia, Georgia, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tajikistan, Bahamas, and Benin.

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Sarah Ultes

Sarah Ultes
Research Associate
sarah.ultes@kas.de +41 22 748 70 73

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About this series

The "Map of the Month", a new series of the Multilateral Dialogue Geneva of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, uses maps to illustrate global trends and the role of Germany and Europe in the world on a monthly basis.
Andrea Ellen Ostheimer
Andrea Ostheimer
Director KAS Genf Office
andrea.ostheimer@kas.de +41 79 318 9841

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