THE International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has stabilised its finances after drastic crisis cuts, its new director said in comments published on Monday (Apr 29).

The director general of the global aid agency, Pierre Krahenbuhl, also insisted it has no mandate to replace the embattled United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, in an interview with Swiss daily Le Temps.

In growing demand to aid and mediate in conflicts and disasters worldwide, the ICRC hit severe financial trouble in recent years.

It cut its 2024 budget by around US$770 million to US$2,2 billion and laid off 4,000 people – more than a fifth of its workforce.

“We had to cut budgets to reduce the institution’s size but alongside that we also had to develop a new institutional strategy,” said Krahenbuhl, who took over as ICRC chief this month.

“Succeeding in doing both those things at once has allowed us to cleanse and stabilise the ICRC’s financial situation. Managing to do that in one year is no small matter.”

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He acknowledged however that the cuts had a hard impact on the ICRC’s staff and that it remained necessary to “rebuild cohesion and trust”.

He said the 160-year-old organisation now wanted to return to its core mission as “a humanitarian organisation specialising in situations of armed conflict. That is our essence.”

Krahenbuhl dismissed the suggestion that the ICRC could take over the role of the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA.

Numerous donors abandoned UNRWA after Israel accused some of its members of involvement in the October seven attacks on Israel by the militant group Hamas.

Krahenbuhl, who himself had headed UNRWA between 2014 and 2019, said the ICRC and the UN body “have completely different mandates”: UNWRA’s comes from the UN General Assembly and the ICRC’s from the Geneva Convention.

“We already have enough to do without replacing other organisations,” he said.

Last week, an independent UN-commissioned report concluded that UNRWA lacked “neutrality” in Gaza but said Israel had failed to provide evidence that some UNRWA employees had links to “terrorist organisations” such as Hamas.

The October seven attacks led to the deaths of around 1,170 people – mostly civilians – according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 34,454 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory. AFP