‘Efficiency has limits’: UNHCR chief warns refugee protection is buckling under cuts

This article is published in association with United Nations.

The money is running out faster than needs are growing: with 117 million men, women and children now forced from their homes, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has received just $3 billion of the $8.5 billion it needs this year – and its chief, Barham Salih, warns that the global support system for asylum-seekers risks buckling.

Protection at risk

UNHCR was created after the Second World War with the pledge that people fleeing persecution should be protected and not sent back to places where they might be in danger. Today, that pledge is under strain as deep funding cuts take effect.

In his first keynote address to UNHCR’s Executive Committee meeting in Geneva on Monday, Mr. Salih stressed that the world’s most vulnerable are going without the help they need.

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“There is…a difference between doing more with less and being asked to do the impossible,” he said, while also highlighting the “exceptionally difficult year” at the agency, marked by the departure of 8,000 staff since 2024.

Cost of cuts in Sudan, Chad and beyond

He added: “In Sudan, insufficient funding threatens specialised medical care, legal assistance and psychological support for more than 50,000 survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. In Chad, services for thousands of unaccompanied and separated children and children with specific protection needs are at risk.”

In Ethiopia, meanwhile, refugee registration has been halted for tens of thousands of people arriving from South Sudan and Eritrea, while hundreds of thousands more are awaiting verification and integration into the national identification system.

Worldwide crisis

Conflicts are uprooting people faster than governments and aid agencies can help them.

So far in 2026, UNHCR has responded to 22 emergencies in 18 countries, from Yemen to the Horn of Africa and from Sudan to the Sahel.

Despite growing humanitarian needs, the agency has received less than one third of its funding requirement for this year.

Mr. Salih warned that countries that have hosted refugees for decades are frustrated at the lack of international solidarity, while refugees themselves are increasingly afraid for their safety, amid deep cuts to assistance.

The result is that women and girls are more exposed to violence and exploitation, children are losing years of education and persons with disabilities face protection barriers, the High Commissioner said, in an appeal for greater support.

“Efficiency has limits. There comes a point when greater efficiency cannot compensate for fewer resources. When funding falls below that point, the consequences are not abstract, they are borne by people who depend on it,” he insisted.

Inhumane treatment

At the end of last month, Mr. Salih – a former Kurdish politician and President of Iraq – told the Security Council that the situation for refugees today was “genuinely, truly, inhumane”.

Speaking in Geneva, the UNHCR chief highlighted an initiative launched earlier this year that aims to halve the number of refugees living in protracted displacement and depending on humanitarian assistance by 2035.

Nearly 14.5 million refugees in low and middle-income countries currently rely on aid to meet their basic requirements, he said. 

“We cannot claim success simply because assistance has been reduced or responsibility has been transferred to host countries,” he added. 

“Success is measured by whether people’s lives have genuinely improved and whether they have become self-reliant and active contributors to their communities. For those who still require humanitarian support, our responsibility remains.”

Mr. Salih urged solidarity and empathy with asylum-seekers, whose long-standing plight and hardship remains unresolved around the world. “When we speak about refugees and displacement, we should do so with humility,” he said. 

“None of us knows who may be forced to flee tomorrow, or who may be called upon to offer refuge.”