Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said that Estonia would continue to provide strong support to Ukraine, where a nearly year-long wide-scale war has caused a humanitarian disaster that is deteriorating with each passing day. “In addition to military, political and economic assistance, it is key to provide humanitarian aid to help ease human suffering and support refugees who have been forced to leave their families and homes. At the same time, looking ahead, we will continue with development cooperation projects to help Ukrainians rebuild their country after the war and make it stronger than ever,” he said.
Estonia will allocate €275 000 to international organisations for Ukraine. The sum is divided between OCHA, the OSCE and the OHCHR. The aim of the OHCHR monitoring mission in Ukraine is to monitor the human rights situation in Ukraine and document violations of humanitarian law and human rights to ensure perpetrators are held accountable. “Fighting Russia’s impunity is among Estonia’s priorities,” Reinsalu said.
The foreign minister underlined that Estonia remained focused on crisis zones and the most vulnerable population groups across the world. “We will continue providing support to help and protect refugees, mitigate humanitarian crises, assist children and young people who are suffering and advance school education,” Reinsalu highlighted.
To this end, Estonia is allocating €475 000 to OCHA, €100 000 to UNICEF for the protection of children across the world, and €50 000 to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, which helps to respond to sudden acute humanitarian crises by providing emergency assistance to save lives and ease human suffering.
We are also supporting the WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies (CFE) with €30 000, the World Food Programme with €50 000 and the Global Partnership for Education with nearly €200 000 to help improve the availability of quality education across the world.
The foreign minister stressed the importance of the protection of human rights. “Estonia will continue to support organisations that contribute to the priorities of Estonia’s human rights diplomacy.” This is why Estonia continues to concentrate on supporting UN Women (€50 000). The organisation deals with women’s rights and equality and Estonia played a central role in its establishment. As children are often subjected to the worst suffering in conflicts, we are allocating €30 000 to the UN special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed conflict. Estonia also considers it crucial to fight sexual violence in armed conflicts.
Support will continue to the UN’s organisations for indigenous people to help protect and advance the rights of indigenous people. “Estonia considers it crucial to preserve the language, culture and living environment of indigenous people, including Finno-Ugric people, therefore ensuring the cultural diversity of the world,” Reinsalu said.
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