1. The Turkish nation has an enduring tradition of humanitarian aid emanating from its history and culture. In this regard, Türkiye regards helping countries in difficult times due to natural disasters, war, poverty and social clashes as a humanitarian duty and an important element in achieving stable international community.

On the basis of this notion, Türkiye exerts efforts to provide speedily humanitarian aid to those who need help within the bounds of its possibilities and without discrimination towards race, religion or gender. Furthermore, it always supports and contributes to the international efforts of humanitarian assistance.

Türkiye’s humanitarian assistance efforts, which was initiated in the mid-1980s by providing food aid, have gained a remarkable impetus in the last decade, expanded to many regions across the world and diversified in terms of quantity and quality covering a wide range of activities.

Turkish NGOs including Turkish Red Crescent Society have also been very active in conducting humanitarian operations over the world.

Furthermore, Türkiye extends its humanitarian assistance not only at bilateral level but also through international organizations such as the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and World Food Programme (WFP). Thus, Türkiye’s humanitarian aid contributions have gained an international dimension and its cooperation with international institutions operating in the field has been enhanced. In this regard, on 1 July 2014, Türkiye became a member of the OCHA Donor Support Group (ODSG). ODSG is a consultation mechanism aiming at shaping humanitarian policies followed by the OCHA and brings together top OCHA donor countries.

According to the Global Humanitarian Assistance Report, Türkiye has continued to be the biggest donor country of the world in 2018 with an official humanitarian aid of 8.399 billion US Dollars. Türkiye has remained as the “most generous country” in 2018 in terms of official humanitarian assistance to its national income with 0.79% of its Gross National Income. The figures of Türkiye in 2017 were respectively, 8.07 billion US Dollars and 0.85%.

2.The underlying factor of Türkiye’s recent humanitarian assistance has been the humanitarian dimensions of the ongoing crises in her vicinity such as Syria. The global effects of these crises are increasing day by day while strengthening Türkiye’s position within the current humanitarian aid system.

Türkiye has also been facilitating the cross-border humanitarian aid deliveries of UN aid agencies into Syria till 2014, pursuant to the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions.

In this context, the cross-border humanitarian aid deliveries through our border gates in Öncüpınar and Cilvegözü make up 80% of the total cross-border humanitarian aid deliveries to Syria. This also means that 31% of humanitarian aid to Syria has been delivered through Türkiye.

In the context of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, Türkiye's humanitarian aid has reached a significant level. In 2017, approximately 50 tons of medicines and medical supplies used in the treatment of cholera, as well as flour, food and clothing, wheelchairs and two field hospitals were delivered to Aden with the contributions of our related institutions. This aid amounts to 10,600 tons and its value is 8.9 million USD.

In addition to our bilateral assistance to Palestine which has a special priority in our foreign policy, Türkiye has been providing financial and in-kind assistance to Palestinian people at multilateral level mainly through United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) of which Türkiye is a founding member. The value of Türkiye’s contribution to UNRWA during the last two years has reached 28 million USD in total.

3. Türkiye has been providing emergency relief assistance to man-made crisis and natural disasters. The foremost humanitarian aid operations of Türkiye in the recent past were conducted after; the South-East Asia earthquake in December 2004, Pakistan earthquake in 2005, humanitarian crisis in Lebanon in 2006, Gaza Crisis at the end of 2008, Haiti and Chile earthquakes and flood disaster in Pakistan in 2010, Japan earthquake in 2011, typhoon in Philippines, floods in the Balkans and attacks to Gaza in 2014, earthquake in Nepal and conflict in Iraq in 2015, humanitarian crisis in Yemen and Libya in 2015-2016 and flood in Macedonia in 2016.

In this regard, our emergency relief assistance has been growing in recent years. Türkiye allocated financial and in-kind assistance to Colombia and Georgia in 2017 and Vietnam, Laos and Indonesia in 2018 as well as Mozambique in 2019 due to the natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and forest fires.

4.Türkiye, in light of its experiences in the field of international humanitarian assistance, supports the efforts under the leadership of the UN to surmount the deadlock the international humanitarian aid system is facing today and to establish a just and efficient system. Hence, the World Humanitarian Summit which was initiated by Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary –General of the UN, was hosted by Türkiye and held in Istanbul on 23-24 May 2016.

The Summit was held at the level of Heads of State and Government and on a multi-stakeholder platform with the participation of the representatives of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, academia, private sector and leaders from crisis-affected communities. During the Summit, all stakeholders of the humanitarian assistance field made various commitments for the future of the system and shared their opinions and experiences. Türkiye, taking this opportunity, also shared its solution proposals for the problems of the humanitarian assistance system and its national practices with the representatives of international humanitarian assistance community.

180 UN member states participated in the Summit and 55 of them were represented at the level of Heads of State and Government. More than 60 Ministers were present in the event as well. Moreover, more than 40 international organizations were represented at the Secretary General / President level. Along with other stakeholders, a total of 9 thousand participants attended the Summit. Thus, the World Humanitarian Summit has gained the title of the largest Summit organized - apart from the UN Headquarters in New York – in which the greatest number of countries participated at once.

Türkiye continues to play an effective role in implementing and monitoring the outcomes of the Summit and the commitments made by all stakeholders in the humanitarian assistance field. In this context, Türkiye hosted a workshop and a high level panel on May 18-19, 2017 in Istanbul, within the scope of “New Way of Working Initiative”, which is one of the major outcomes of the WHS and aims at ensuring an efficient coordination and cooperation between humanitarian and development actors in the field.