62 million dollars over the next three years, the largest private donation the UN has received in its history. It’s the amount of money Ikea is donating to the UN refugee agency for the people in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. The camp, which is the biggest in the world, is designed for 90 thousand people but now holds 440 thousand refugees. Its population has swollen by 150 thousand in the past months, following the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa. According to the UN, thousands of people have already died in Somalia and about 3.2 millions are now considered to be starving.
According to Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, “The crisis in the Horn of Africa continues to deepen with thousands of people fleeing Somalia every week. We are extremely grateful. Help like this can’t come a moment too soon.” The UNHCR said that the money from the Ikea Foundation will be used for emergency relief and to assist up to 120 thousand people.
In a statement, Per Heggenes, chief executive officer of the Ikea Foundation, said the donation was a “bold but natural extension of Ikea Foundation’s longstanding commitment to making a better everyday life for children and families in need throughout the developing world”.
However, Ikea’s social responsibility policy has not always been worth praising, as it was reported in the book, The secrets in Ikea’s closet by Olivier Bailly (freelance journalist), Denis Lambert (Oxfam-Magasins du monde secretary general) and Jean-Marc Caudron (researcher at the Oxfam-Magasins du monde,) about the company’s exploitation of child labour and the use of dangerous materials.
