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Swiss continue to pledge funding for ICRC

For more than 150 years the ICRC has been involved in humanitarian missions, coordinated from its Geneva headquarters Keystone

The cabinet has pledged CHF80 million ($83.1 million) towards the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for this year. The amount is unchanged from 2014.

In addition to the contribution to the headquarters, Switzerland also earmarked CHF50.3 million to finance specific ICRC humanitarian operations in 2015, as well as the cost of new delegates, according to a foreign ministry statement.

“The ICRC is the Swiss government’s most important partner in the humanitarian field. Switzerland is the biggest contributor to the ICRC’s headquarters budget and its total contributions in 2014 made it the ICRC’s third largest donor overall,” it said.

The foreign ministry said the neutral and confidential operating principles made the ICRC one of the few – if not the only – humanitarian organisations that is respected by parties to any conflict.

Switzerland has a long history of close relations with the ICRC as a depositary state of the  Geneva Conventions on humanitarian law.

From its headquarters, the ICRC coordinates its more than 80 delegations worldwide.

Last year there were nearly 1,000 ICRC staff in Geneva and more than 13,000 others in the field.

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