The Refugee Rapid Response Fund

What is the Refugee Rapid Response Fund?

UNHCR exists to protect refugees wherever and whenever they need us, and to be ready when emergencies arise. That’s why we set up our Refugee Rapid Response Fund. 

By supporting the Fund, you will help to ensure UNHCR can respond when an emergency strikes and provide urgent life-saving support to those who have been forced to leave their homes.

Your support will also helps to make sure UNHCR can stay on the ground long after emergencies fall from the headlines and provide ongoing support to those in need.

How can I support the Refugee Rapid Response Fund?

You can join the Refugee Rapid Response Fund with a monthly gift of an amount of your choice. By giving monthly, you will help UNHCR to plan ahead and respond within 72 hours of an emergency striking.

After emergencies fall from the headlines and direct support declines, the Fund also ensures UNHCR can stay and continue delivering essential aid.

With your help, we can make sure we are always there for those who have been forced to flee, whenever and wherever they need us. Visit this link to donate today.

What will a regular gift to the Refugee Rapid Response Fund achieve?

You can help UNHCR get emergency aid to displaced families right now. 

You can help UNHCR stand prepared for the next time a crisis breaks out.

You can help UNHCR maintain stocks of emergency supplies such as family tents, bedding and hygiene supplies. 

You can make a commitment to stand with refugees and displaced people, whoever they are, wherever they come from, whenever they need us. 

Where does the money in the Fund go?

All donations to the Refugee Rapid Response Fund are what we call ‘flexible funding’. This means they are not restricted to a specific emergency or situation. By donating to the Fund, our kind supporters allow UNHCR to use the money where it is most needed. Flexible funds help UNHCR to kick-start an emergency response and bolster forgotten or under-resourced crises.

Ukraine. Vulnerable people receive shelter support from UNHCR.

“With our income, what can I buy? Sometimes my children do not eat for three days because I cannot buy food to cook for them.” Noor Bibi.

Noor Bibi lives in Kabul with her two daughters and two sons. Noor used to earn money by washing clothes, however due to restrictions on women’s ability to work now, it is very difficult for her to go out and work. Instead, her 11-year-old son works in the market cleaning vegetables to help the family afford food.

Families like Noor’s, who have already endured decades of conflict, are currently living amid a deepening economic crisis and are in urgent need of assistance. Thanks to our generous donors, UNHCR is on the ground providing displaced families with emergency payments to help them access life-saving items like food, medicine and clothes.

Right now, refugees and displaced people are caught in the grip of the coldest weeks of winter. Your monthly donation can help make sure vulnerable families can survive the cold…

When a shell landed in Valentyna’s garden in Ukraine, the windows and doors of her house were shattered in the blast. 75-year-old Valentyna lives alone and now as temperatures are plummeting to as low as -20 degrees she cannot keep her home – or herself – warm.

Thanks to our generous donors, UNHCR is working to assist thousands of displaced people like Valentyna with payments to help insulate their damaged homes against sub-zero temperatures.