UN High Commissioner for Refugees Barham Salih warned on Monday 12 October that the acute funding shortfall was limiting the agency’s ability to help refugees, as the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide remained close to record levels.
UNHCR funding does not cover its needs for 2026
He said budget cuts had forced the agency to significantly reduce its staff while attempting to maintain its core operations in the field. Salih said the funding available to the agency as of 9 October amounted to 3 billion dollars, representing 35% of its total needs for 2026, estimated at about 8.5 billion dollars.
He added that the agency’s current projections indicated it would receive about 2.68 billion dollars in funding during 2027, a future estimate below the amount available to it this year. Salih said the agency had responded during the year to 22 declared emergencies in 18 countries.
Job cuts to protect field operations
The total included 17 new emergencies in 15 countries, adding operational and humanitarian burdens amid limited financial resources and the need to continue providing protection and assistance services to displaced people and refugees. To address the budget cuts, Salih said the agency had sought to protect frontline operations by reducing jobs at its headquarters in Geneva and in its regional offices worldwide.
Their duties include registering refugees, providing legal assistance and helping refugees reach longer-term solutions, including safe return to their homes when conditions are suitable.
Funding shortfall threatens refugee services in Chad
Salih gave examples of programmes threatened by the funding shortfall, saying that a lack of funding in Chad threatened to disrupt specialised medical care and legal assistance provided to more than 50,000 survivors of conflict-related sexual violence who had fled neighbouring Sudan. This places health and legal services for a conflict-affected group under direct pressure from dwindling resources.
In Ethiopia, Salih said the registration of tens of thousands of refugees arriving from South Sudan and Eritrea had been suspended. Registration is one of the protection activities carried out by the agency, alongside providing legal support and helping refugees seek permanent or long-term solutions to their situations.
Salih, a former Iraqi president who experienced exile at one stage of his life, presented this picture during the opening of the agency’s annual Executive Committee meeting, which runs until Friday. In a message issued as the meeting began, he said everyone forced to flee deserved the chance to move beyond mere survival, and that although the world had changed, the promise to protect people had not, stressing that the decisions taken at the meeting mattered to millions of refugees.
According to the agency’s figures, about 117.8 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide at the end of 2025, compared with the record level of 123.2 million recorded in 2024.
Despite this slight decrease, Salih said the number remained close to record levels as the emergency response expanded and the funds available to the agency declined.
