EU Statement - UNOG Executive Briefing with Mr. Tom Fletcher Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

UNOG Executive Briefing with Mr. Tom Fletcher

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

25 November 2025, Geneva

Dear UN Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator Fletcher, 
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, dear colleagues, 

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.  

We thank the ERC for his sobering update on the humanitarian landscape. And we commend his leadership, whether on humanitarian reform under the Humanitarian Reset and the New Humanitarian Compact, or in coordinating international responses in real-life crises from Sudan to Gaza. 

The EU and its Member States continue to stand for principled humanitarian action, guided by the severity of needs. Just like we continue to strongly support multilateralism: while national authorities have the primary responsibility to respond to humanitarian needs of their people, whenever their response capacity is exceeded, a joined-up and UN-led international response remains a necessity. And we are continuing to put our money where our mouth is: the EU, collectively with its Member States as Team Europe, is today the world’s largest humanitarian donor. We will continue acting as a predictable, stable, and most of all principled donor, policy maker and partner.

All of this does not mean that we believe that the international humanitarian system should remain as it is. We expect the system that will emerge from the Humanitarian Reset and the New Humanitarian Compact to become more efficient, sustainable, inclusive, locally-led and internationally-protected. The system needs to deliver faster, leaner, and more accountable support to people in need. It needs to leverage the unique values, specialised mandates, and responsibilities of UN entities, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and local and international actors, recognising their respective contribution in shaping and delivering humanitarian assistance and protection. 

The Reset should support an agile and context-specific humanitarian diplomacy that preserves the centrality of protection, respect for international humanitarian and human rights law, humanitarian principles, inclusion, diversity, and gender equality. It needs to achieve economies of scale and capitalise on efficiency gains, from joined-up strategic supply chains to common services, and from cash as a cost-efficient aid modality to a collaborative data ecosystem, while reducing bureaucracy. It needs to remove programmatic overlaps through a clarification of roles and aligned responsibilities notably on food security, mobility, health and nutrition. A meaningful Reset entails a transition to a locally-led and people-centred response, promoting ownership and transferring power and resources to local actors, including women-led organisations, to ensure the system better meets the needs of communities, and is better able to sustain resilience over time.  

This should be achieved without leaving behind people in need in deprioritised countries or regions, or specific groups. While reduced humanitarian funding will understandably prioritise saving lives, this should be done with due attention to protection, including the specific needs of women, girls, boys and men, older people, or people with disabilities, and with adequate arrangements for ensuring sustainable transitioning to development and nationally-led systems through responsible exit strategies. We recognise the importance of continuing efforts to build resilience to future shocks, including through anticipatory action, climate smart humanitarian response and strengthening the capacity of local actors and communities, in close cooperation with development, climate and peacebuilding actors. 

We commend your leadership and that of the Secretary-General in this transformation. We expect OCHA and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee to deliver a sustainable, holistic and inclusive vision of the Humanitarian Reset with a realistic implementation timeline. We encourage the UN system to seek the views of other humanitarian actors, including donors, and ensure transparency throughout the process. In this respect, we also welcome the development of a light scorecard for the implementation of the Humanitarian Reset at country level. Importantly, we expect these efforts to be fully aligned with the New Humanitarian Compact under UN80 initiative, and support coherence between humanitarian action and the wider efforts of the development and peace actors, particularly in response to fragility and displacement. 

This is a difficult task. But I can assure you of the unwavering political and financial support from the EU and its Member States in taking this work forward.