UNHCR: The funding crisis may deprive 8.3 million people of aid

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The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees warned on Tuesday that the worsening funding crisis could leave approximately 8.3 million refugees and forcibly displaced people without access to aid this year, and push protection systems in some countries towards collapse. The UNHCR is facing one of the worst funding crises in its history, in the wake of the United States and other countries reducing aid. A new UNHCR report stated that it faces a funding gap of $5.789 billion, after the funds available to it decreased by 24 percent between 2024 and 2025. As of July, the Commission had received only 32 percent of the $8.505 billion it requested for 2026, while the number of forcibly displaced and stateless people globally remains close to record high levels.

UNHCR expects the population under its mandate to reach 131.2 million by the end of the year, up from 129.4 million at the end of last year. “Below a certain level, the system does not shrink, it fails,” the commission said in its 26-page report outlining the impact of budget cuts on refugee registration, child protection programs and services for survivors of gender-based violence. IDPs. In Chad, where refugees have fled conflict in neighboring Sudan, 319,000 people face registration delays, while 200,000 women and girls may lose access to safe spaces and prevention programmes.

In Sudan - considered by the United Nations to be home to the world's worst displacement crisis due to the civil war that entered its fourth year in April - about 140,000 refugees and asylum seekers remained unregistered by mid-year after registration activities were suspended for the first five months of 2026. In Afghanistan, UNHCR grants for those returning to the country were reduced from $375 to $170 per person, while the country received more than a million people this year alone, due to forced or voluntary returns. From neighboring countries such as Iran and Pakistan. The Commission said that further cost-cutting measures cannot make up for the shortfall in funding, after it had already reduced its workforce by 33 percent in 2025, closed offices in 140 sites, and halted its operations in 15 countries compared to 2024.

She also said that there is an increasing share of donor funding allocated strictly to expenditures, rising to 51 percent in 2026 from 19 percent five years ago, limiting UNHCR's ability to shift resources to the most urgent priorities. UNHCR warned that the decrease in funding is gradually eroding the protection system, as it exacerbates the risk of refugees remaining undocumented and leaving survivors of gender-based violence without the support they need.