Shaping EU Humanitarian Leadership in a Time of Crisis: VOICE sets priorities for the upcoming EU Humanitarian Communication
As the European Union prepares its upcoming Communication on Humanitarian Aid, VOICE has published a new position paper outlining clear priorities for principled, people-centred, and effective EU humanitarian leadership.
The Communication is being drafted against a backdrop of unprecedented humanitarian needs, shrinking humanitarian space, widespread violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), and increasing political and financial pressures on humanitarian action. As the world’s largest humanitarian donor, the EU has a decisive role to play in shaping how the humanitarian system responds to these challenges.
VOICE calls on the European Commission to use this Communication as a political anchor to defend humanitarian principles and ensure that EU humanitarian action remains needs-based, impartial, neutral, and independent, as enshrined in the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid.
The position paper is structured around three core pillars of EU leadership:
PROTECT – Defend principled humanitarian action by safeguarding humanitarian space, making humanitarian diplomacy a permanent and coordinated EU function, and reasserting EU leadership on IHL and accountability.
REFORM – Advance people-centred humanitarian reform by aligning funding, compliance, and reform processes with quality, localisation, and accountability to affected people, including through predictable, flexible, and multi-year funding.
PARTNER – Reinforce principled partnerships by safeguarding civil society space, strengthening DG ECHO’s partnership model, and ensuring an EU Integrated Approach to Fragility that upholds humanitarian principles while promoting coordination and the HDP nexus.
Developed through extensive consultation with VOICE members and humanitarian stakeholders, the paper provides concrete political commitments for the EU to lead by example—aligning ambition with action at a defining moment for global humanitarian action.
