Looking Back to 2023: Dutch Funding Remains Limited towards the Government's Long-term Multilateral Partner Organisations

Since its gender mission during the October 2005 post-earthquake disaster in Pakistan, Gender Concerns International has worked for the inclusion of women's needs assessment in early post-disaster assessments by women's organisations and gender experts. In the lead-up to the review debate on Humanitarian Help held on 11th May, an urgent call for action was sent to the Dutch government, once again addressing the persisting gender inequalities in the distribution of resources during emergencies and post-disaster management efforts. We were pleased that the Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Committee emphasised the need to prioritise humanitarian policies that met the relief and protection needs of 'the vulnerable group' (meaning (older) women, girls, (including) the LGBTQI+ community, and people with disabilities). Hereby, they questioned whether local organisations representing these marginalised groups should be directly funded. It was evident from the Ministry of Foreign Affair’s own IOB evaluations of humanitarian help that the ministry was aware of the shortcomings concerning its humanitarian assistance and diplomacy efforts that demanded more inclusion and localisation. However, the policy memorandum clearly showed that the government's efforts at that time remained limited to dialogue and diplomacy towards its long-term multilateral partner organisations only.