Funding and donors

Resource mobilization is a top priority for the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT).

With just under 4% of the Office’s annual funding needs covered by the UN Regular Budget (RB), UNOCT is reliant on the generous contribution of donors to the United Nations Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism and other extrabudgetary allocations to finance its mandated core functions of leadership, policy and coordination as well as capacity-building, advocacy and visibility efforts in support of Member States.  

Terrorism represents a global threat. No country, big or small, is immune to the scourge of terrorism. UNOCT is uniquely positioned to garner support of the international community to join efforts against terrorism and in support of victims of terrorism. A contribution to UNOCT – regardless of the amount – sends an important message of support and unity against terrorism.

The UN Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism was established by the Secretary-General in 2009 under the Department of Political Affair (DPA) (now the Department of Peacebuilding and Political Affairs (DPPA)). In line with General Assembly resolution 71/291 that established UNOCT in June 2017, the Trust Fund was transferred to UNOCT. The UNOCT has also received allocations from the Peace and Security Sub-Fund of the United Nations Peace and Development Trust Fund which is managed by the Executive Office of the Secretary-General (EOSG).

Member States’ financial contributions have allowed UNOCT to expand its reach both geographically and thematically, reflecting the growing interest and confidence of Member States in UNOCT’s operations across the globe. Extra-budgetary resources are currently supporting capacity-building projects at the global, regional and national levels, mainsteaming human rights and gender considerations, with many of these efforts implemented jointly with Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact entities.

Since the establishment of the Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism in 2009, UNOCT has mobilized $267.3 million in pledges from 34 donors and through allocations from the Peace and Security Sub-Fund managed by EOSG (China). The Office has made efforts to attract new donors and has welcomed contributions from seven new donors since 2018 (2018: India, Russian Federation; 2019: Algeria, Finland; 2020: Hungary, Portugal, UNDP for a joint project funded by the European Union).

The Office has made efforts to attract new contributions and enter into more multi-year funding agreements.  The contributions received (cash received or allocations made available from other funds) have steadily increased year-on-year. 

The majority of contributions received are earmarked or require co-funding, which highlights the need to attract more unearmarked funding to provide the flexibility to quickly respond to Member States’ requirements and emerging issues, attract multi-year pledges and diversify the donor base to ensure sustainable and predictable funding for multi-year programmatic activities as well as other core mandate functions. 

UNOCT welcomes contributions from Member States to the UN Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism. These contributions can be both un-earmarked funds for the core functions and capacity building programmes identified here or earmarked for specific projects. UNOCT welcomes funding for project activities from multiple interested donors.

For more information on fundraising including project details, please contact: OCT-ResourceMobilization@un.org. 

Funding for UNCCT

The United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) relies heavily on voluntary contributions for funding of its mandated activities. The UNCCT was established in 2011 through a voluntary contribution of $10 million from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, following the recommendation in the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (A/Res/60/288, Pillar II, para 9) ‘that the question of creating an international centre to fight terrorism could be considered, as part of international efforts to enhance the fight against terrorism’. In 2014, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia donated an additional US$100 million to help finance the work of the UNCCT. 

The General Assembly has encouraged Member States to collaborate with UNCCT, to provide resources and voluntary contributions to the Centre and to contribute to the implementation of its activities. In the Sixth Review of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in 2018 (A/Res/72/284), the General Assembly stressed the need “to continue to provide the tangible capacity building assistance to Member States in counter-terrorism matters,” and recognized in this regard “the need to contribute more resources for capacity building projects”. 

UNCCT continues efforts to obtain co-funding for its various projects and initiatives, to diversify the donor base and ensure sustainable funding for multi-year projects.  This has so far allowed the Centre to cover a broader spectrum of its thematic and geographic areas, while maintaining the consistent and balanced implementation of the 5-Year Programme. This has also allowed UNCCT to increase its geographical reach and the scope of activities in Central Asia and South-East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, the G5 Sahel and CARICOM.

As of December 2020, out of the total mobilized in the Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism, $151.3 million (57% of the total) were allocated to UNCCT programmes.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia continues to be the largest contributor to UNCCT’s annual budget with the contribution made in 2011 and 2014.  This has been supplemented with contributions received (cash or allocations from other trust funds) from other donors of approximately $4.5 million annually since 2017.

We call on all Member States to consider providing voluntary contributions to UNCCT, through the Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism, to help with capacity-building projects in a number of priority areas, in particular strategic communications and other PCVE issues, information sharing on foreign terrorist fighters, border security and management, countering terrorist financing, cyber security, human rights, victims of terrorism, civil society and youth engagement, in support of the comprehensive and balanced implementation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. More information can be found here.

Consolidated Multi-Year Appeal

One of the five functions of UNOCT as mandated by the UN General Assembly, is to improve the visibility, advocacy and resource mobilization for United Nations counter-terrorism efforts. 

To enhance coordination, coherence and efficiency in resource mobilization across the Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact entities, and to diversify and improve the predictability and sustainability of resources, UNOCT initiated the first consolidated  Multi-Year Appeal to donors in February 2019, in close coordination with Global Compact entities.

This donor appeal is unique in adopting an “All of UN” approach to resource mobilization and consolidates projects on counter-terrorism assistance across the UN system in need of new or additional funding. It presents a coordinated picture of resource needs to donors, with 60 global, regional and national projects from 10 Global Compact entities. 

While the Appeal does not intend to replace individual UN entities fundraising efforts, it does provide a platform to present an aggregated set of projects from across the UN system that require sustainable funding, and allows donors to allocate funding according to their defined priorities.