Key Takeaways
- UNHCR faces $5.789 billion funding gap, down 24% between 2024 and 2025.
- Registration delays and loss of safe spaces for women and girls in Chad.
- Afghanistan receives over one million people this year due to forced or voluntary returns.
The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, has issued a stark warning that a deepening funding crisis could leave nearly 8.3 million refugees and forcibly displaced people without access to essential aid this year.
According to a new report, UNHCR is facing one of its worst-ever funding crises, with a $5.789 billion funding gap, a 24% decrease between 2024 and 2025. As of July, the agency had received only 32% of the $8.505 billion it required for 2026.
The number of forcibly displaced and stateless people globally remains near record levels, with UNHCR expecting the population under its mandate to reach 131.2 million by year end, up from 129.4 million at the end of last year.
In Chad, where refugees have fled conflict in neighbouring Sudan, 319,000 people face registration delays, while 200,000 women and girls could lose access to safe spaces and prevention programmes.
In Sudan, which the UN considers the world’s worst displacement crisis due to the ongoing civil war, 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 given to people returning to the country have been slashed from $375 to $170 per person, while the country has received over one million people this year alone, due to forced or voluntary returns from neighbouring countries including Iran and Pakistan.
The agency has already cut its workforce by 33% in 2025, closed offices in 140 locations, and discontinued operations in 15 countries compared with 2024. Further cost-saving measures are not expected to compensate for funding shortfalls.
A growing share of donor funding is tightly earmarked, rising to 51% in 2026 from 19% five years earlier, limiting UNHCR’s ability to shift resources to the most urgent priorities.
UNHCR warned that reduced funding is gradually eroding the protection system, increasing the risk that refugees remain undocumented and that survivors of gender-based violence are left without the support they need.
