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Lessons from operations
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Emerging from the ongoing UNHCR field pilots on information integrity, risks may not only be linked to specific protection incidents for forcibly displaced and stateless people but can foster an environment of heightened protection risks.

It is clear that the forcibly displaced and stateless people are particularly vulnerable to the effects of information risks in part due to them often being both a target of and a subject of information risks. UNHCR’s field-based pilot projects on information risks have highlighted several emerging learnings related to humanitarian and protection issues in displacement contexts:

Key Findings

Forcibly displaced and stateless people, humanitarian organisations and partners and impacted.

  • Information risks undermine protection and humanitarian service delivery, social cohesion and trust. Information risks which directly or indirectly target UNHCR and humanitarian partners can lead to issues of staff security and have serious reputational ramifications, shrink operational spaces and create wariness amongst donors and policy makers. Furthermore, inaccurate rumours can undermine trust in organizations like UNHCR and put forcibly displaced and stateless communities at greater risk, for example from people traffickers.
  • They can cause immediate harm and indirect harm over time by enabling environments where protection risks are heightened. 
  • They have a psychological impact which can take a mental toll as well as a physical one.

They are becoming increasingly complex, and the reach and speed of digital platforms make them easy to scale.

  • They are multi-platform and increasingly AI-generated.
  • They can be organic (i.e. rumours) and/or coordinated (i.e. an organised campaign with strategic, political and/or financial goals) information risks. 
  • There can be direct links to policy and political goals of actors.
  • Financial incentives for creation and dissemination – monetized for income.

There are broad implications UNHCR and humanitarian organisations.

  • Integration of information risks into situation/protection analyses and response is needed.
  • Cross-border and regional implications of both narratives and their consequences. 
  • Implications for UNHCR's Digital Transformation (including Accountability to Affected People (AAP) and Communicating with Communities (CWC)).

Furthermore, UNHCR has conducted surveys to better understand the impact of information risks on forcibly displaced and stateless populations and on UNHCR personnel. While the findings relate to both online and offline information risks, the findings remain stark. 

A survey of refugees attending the Global Refugee Forum in December 2023, found that 85 per cent of the respondents had witnessed hate speech or misinformation that they believe was targeting forcibly displaced people, while 72 per cent of them said they had personally been targeted with hate speech or misinformation. Respondents noted the following impact of misinformation and hate speech:

  • Psychological harm: Feeling insecure, being bullied or traumatised
  • Social harm: Isolation from society, avoidance of speaking the mother tongue
  • Financial harm: Exposure to fraud, limited access to employment opportunities and material assistance
  • Lack of access to services: Social services, support for newly arrived refugees
  • Physical harm: Danger to a person's safety and security, physical harm, being beaten.

A second survey of UNHCR's workforce found that the majority of the 450 staff who replied, confirmed they had witnessed hate speech on digital platforms in the last year that had a negative impact on the delivery of UNHCR’s mandate. Further findings include:

  • 20% indicated that they had been the target of misinformation, disinformation or hate speech in the capacity of their roles.
  • 6 out of 8 respondents have witnesses hate speech that they believe impacts UNHCR's mandate
  • 37% of respondents report that they have witnessed mis- and disinformation that impacts UNHCR's mandate on a monthly basis.
  • 29% of respondents report that they have witnessed hate speech that impacts UNHCR's mandate on a monthly basis.

In the 2024 Communicating with Communities Survey conducted by UNHCR in Poland, 20% of respondents reported encountering fraud or intentional misinformation targeting refugees and migrants.

Findings from UNHCR's field pilots and the work of partners have shown that information risks are centrally relevant to protection activities in the displacement contexts examined and that humanitarian actors and UN agencies working in conflict settings are increasingly the subject to online information risks. Additionally, there are worrying trends towards the politicization of asylum and increase in online xenophobia. These trends coincide with an increase in the number of refugees and other people forced to flee. These findings and the confluence of these trends indicate the importance of further understanding information risks, the heightened protection risks that arise from them and how they can be addressed.

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