DanChurchAid

Profile

Country/TerritoryDenmark

Activity

  • According to its website, “DanChurchAid is rooted in the Danish National Evangelical Lutheran Church.”
  • Aims to conduct “humanitarian aid and development assistance in close cooperation with churches and other cooperative partners.” According to its “statutes,” this “means that DanChurchAid shall engage popular and political powers and seek to influence decision makers in order to improve conditions for the world’s poorest. These efforts shall be conducted on local, national and global levels.”
  • In 2016, established a “joint office” with Norwegian Church Aid in Jerusalem.

Funding

  • In 2022, total income was 981.6 million Danish kroner (DKK); total expenses were DKK 980.5 million, of which DKK 36.5 million spent in “Palestine.”
  • DanChurchAid donors include Denmark, European Union, Norway, Norwegian Church Aid, Lutheran World Federation, PAX, Church of Sweden, and the United Nations.  (See table below for further funding information.)
  • DanChurchAid received €1.5 million (2016-2019) from the European Union via the East Jerusalem Programme in partnership with PalVision for “Promoting Change and Youth leadership in East Jerusalem.”

Funding to Politicized NGOs

Political Advocacy and Activities

  • Some of DanChurchAid’s partners and grantees promote BDS (boycotts, divestments and sanctions) and lawfare campaigns, false “war crimes” allegations, and even antisemitic propaganda.
    • BADIL is the main Palestinian “right of return” NGO, and a leader of BDS campaigns and political warfare against Israel. This NGO publishes antisemitic cartoons on its website, as well as imagery calling for the destruction of Israel (also a form of antisemitism) and denying Israel’s right to exist. Cartoon published by BADIL include classic antisemitic tropes, featuring a Jewish man, garbed in traditional Hasidic attire, with a hooked nose and side locks. He stands above a dead child and skulls, holding a pitchfork dripping with blood. Additional graphics deny the legitimacy of Israel in any form, and oppose peace agreements, in direct contradiction to Danish government policies. These are direct and blatant displays of antisemitism.
      • In correspondence with NGO Monitor, a representative from DanChurchAid agreed that the cartoon was antisemitic, attributing “this unfortunate incident” to “a misjudgment or error on behalf of Badil management.” NGO Monitor also requested information from DanChurchAid on its funding for BADIL. Despite repeated emails and phone calls, DanChurchAid did not respond to these questions.
  • In August 2022, DanChurchAid was a signatory on a statement condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the statement, “This offensive…is an appalling attack on Palestinian civil society working to uphold human rights and to document and denounce serious human rights abuses and violations of international law. It is yet an attempt to delegitimize, discredit and isolate these organisations.”
  • In June 2022, DanChurchAid funded an investigation by Forensic Architecture on “Sheikh Jarrah: Ethnic Cleansing in Jerusalem.”
    • Forensic Architecture is a pseudo-research project that consistently generates analyses that are inaccurate, misleading, and blatantly prejudiced.
  • In May 2021, DanChurchAid released a statement stating that five children of one of their employees had been killed “when the Israeli military bombed northern Gaza.” The statement appears to be referring to a blast in Beit Hanoun, caused by a Palestinian rocket that fell short of its intended target (Israeli civilians).
  • In June 2017, to mark “50 years of occupation,” DanChurchAid organized a panel with Shawan Jabarin, Director of Al-Haq, and Hagai El-Ad, Director of B’Tselem.
  • In May 2017, DanChurchAid published a statement defending itself against criticism that it partners with organizations that promote antisemitism and individuals with alleged ties to terrorism. NGO Monitor responded to the statement, outlining how DCA’s defensive and misleading response to criticism reflects a lack of due diligence in its funding of and partnerships with NGOs.
  • Publishes one-sided condemnations of Israel that erase the context of terrorism, repeat the Palestinian narrative, ignore corruption, and blame Israel for Palestinian poverty and the continuation of the conflict.
  • Was a signatory to the 2012 report “Trading Away Peace,” which repeats the BDS agenda and calls on EU and individual European governments to wage political warfare through various forms of economic sanctions against Israel.
  • Claims that the “Palestinians are not able to move freely and are denied access to land and water,” ignoring evidence that Israel provides Palestinians in the West Bank with more water than required under the Oslo framework and that thieves are responsible for stealing up to 50 percent of supplies in some Palestinian areas. In so doing, DanChurchAid manipulates and distorts water and land issues in order to falsely portray Israel as a brutal regime.
  • For three years beginning in June 2011, DanChurchAid partnered with Grassroots Jerusalem in a EuropeAid funded project to improve “respect for human rights and international humanitarian law in occupied East Jerusalem, where many Palestinians are exposed to poverty, violence, and violations of human rights.” Grassroots Jerusalem regularly describes Jerusalem as being “ethnically cleansed” and “colonized by the Israeli settlements” and claims that Israel is engaging in “collective punishment” and turning Palestinian villages into “ghetto[s].”
  • As part of a “Gaza Emergency Response” campaign, DanChurchAid described the 2014 Gaza war as “the Israeli military’s ‘Operation Protective Edge’,” which “displaced” civilians in Gaza.  This attributes sole responsibility to Israel, ignoring that the military operation was launched in response to indiscriminate Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and that Hamas’ systematic policy of operating in civilian areas caused the displacement.
  • In 2007, DCA joined with BADIL to implement a “Call to Action,” which included anti-Israel boycott and sanction campaigns; efforts to “[e]nlist journalists to organize a targeted campaign to expose the lies of AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League and to expose the Jewish and Zionist community’s double standards regarding Nakba & Occupation”; and enlisting the help of anti-Israel “Jewish” NGOs to “rais[e] awareness of the . . . right of return among the Jewish public in Israel.”

YPlus

EAPPI

Partners

2018-2022 Funding to DanChurchAid (amounts in Danish Kroner (DKK)) 

Donor20222021202020192018
DANIDA (Denmark)272.5 million236.2 million232.2 million220.6 million200.9 million
European Union142.8 million173.3 million125.9 million111.3 million98.9 million
United States87.9 million78.2 million93.1 million72.8 million34.4 million
United Kingdom23.2 million8.3 million5.8 million4.5 million
Norway3.3 million
Sweden875,218
France3.1 million
Denmark373,423
Bread for the World - EED2.5 million
FinnChurchAid50,866
Norwegian Church Aid27.7 million
Open Society Foundations492,816

 

NGO Grantees (amounts in Danish kroner (DKK) unless specified)

Information taken from DanChurchAid’s 2021 Project Overview. Amounts in NIS are based off information submitted to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits.

Implementing partnersFunding - TotalYear / s
EAPPI250,0002021-2023
Breaking the Silence450,0002019-2022
Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ)639,4612017-2019
Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC)450,0002019-2022
Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC)Undisclosed 2015
B’TselemNIS 110,9762023
438,0002019-2022
PalVision1,263,4682021-2022
Badil300,0002019-2022
Women’s Affairs Center1,250,0002019
Who ProfitsNIS 13,1992017
NIS 13,8392016
Ma’an Development Center14,378,3192021-2023
Norwegian Church Aid5,518,1582016-2020
ACT Alliance EU75,0002020-2021
Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR)300,0002019-2022
YMCA- East Jerusalem14,456,4422021-2023
Human Rights Defenders Fund450,0002019-2022
Ma’an Development Center and Culture and Free Thought Association3,749,0042021
Ma’an Development Center and Women’s Affairs Center1,307,4182021

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