Funding Trends

Expenditure

In 2024, 55.7 per cent of total expenditures (US$450.1 million), including regular budget and voluntary contributions, were allocated to fieldwork and work carried out at headquarters to support the field, particularly for capacity-strengthening projects and human rights monitoring. These activities were predominantly financed through voluntary contributions. Further, approximately 62.5 per cent of all extrabudgetary funding was used to support work in the field, which receives minimal support from the regular budget. The remainder of the voluntary funding was distributed between other areas of UN Human Rights’ work and often had to supplement the limited resources that were provided by the regular budget.

Regular budget and voluntary contributions

Over the last 10 years, an average of approximately 40 per cent and 60 per cent of the funding for UN Human Rights came from the United Nations regular budget and from voluntary contributions, respectively. In the past several years, the increased share of the United Nations regular budget for UN Human Rights activities came from additional resources that were allocated to cover the human rights treaty body strengthening process. These were based on entitlements of the resource formula of General Assembly resolution 68/268 and additional mandates, including the commissions of inquiry that were established by the HRC.

Funding partners/donor base

In 2024, UN Human Rights received funding from a total of 95 funding partners, compared to 96 in 2023. Contributions from multilateral organizations, including the European Commission (EC) and UN partners, decreased to US$43.9 million, compared to US$54.6 million in 2023. In 2019, the Funding Compact was established by Member States and members of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG), including UN Human Rights, to ensure more predictable and flexible funding for UN development activities to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In line with the Funding Compact, the 2024 contributions received by UN Human Rights through the inter-agency pooled funds and trust funds amounted to US$14.5 million. The Funding Compact calls for Member States to increase their multi-year commitments. UN Human Rights began 2024 with only US$66.3 million of predictable and sustainable income from pledged contributions that were annual instalments of multi-year funding agreements. During the year, UN Human Rights had such agreements with 24 donors, including 15 Member States (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America), the EC and eight other donors (the Asia Foundation, Belgique/Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Coventry University, Education Above All Foundation, the Ford Foundation, ILO, UNODC and the World Bank). Among the 24 donors, 15 made additional pledges during the year. As of the beginning of January 2025, US$77.2 million had been registered by 25 donors as part of multi-year agreements.

In-kind contributions

A number of Member States host UN Human Rights offices and provide in-kind support by covering certain costs, including the rent of premises, utilities and vehicles. These contributions are credited to their assessed contributions to the United Nations regular budget.

Earmarked versus unearmarked contributions

In 2024, UN Human Rights received US$94.1 million in unearmarked funds from 49 donors. While the level of earmarking reduced to 65 per cent in 2024 from 70 per cent in 2023, this continues to be a proportionally high level, making it difficult for the Office to efficiently implement the OMP. This results in reduced flexibility, higher transactional costs and additional constraints on OHCHR’s ability to effectively respond to emerging needs. The increase in earmarking can be partially attributed to locally-sourced funding for fieldwork and contributions from non-traditional budget lines that can only be accessed as earmarked funds, such as humanitarian and development budget lines. Other contributions that were previously unearmarked are now provided as more circumscribed funding.

Junior professional officers and united nations volunteers

Some Member States provided indirect financial support to UN Human Rights by contributing to the United Nations Junior Professional Officers (JPO) Programme, which is administered by UN DESA, in New York. In 2024, 41 JPOs (31 women, 10 men) were working at UN Human Rights and were supported by 17 governments, namely: Australia, Austria, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland and the United States of America. The Netherlands also funded JPOs who were nationals of developing countries. Two of the 41 JPOs were non-nationals. In terms of location, 30 JPOs were deployed to headquarters and 11 were deployed to the field (one in the Africa region and 10 in the Asia-Pacific region).