UNHCR’s Grandi: critical funding gap may force deeper cuts to refugee aid

The impact of the latest funding gap could spill into next year, with no money to cover expenditure at the start of 2026. This follows an “incredibly damaging” period when various programmes to provide emergency aid, education, resettlement, and support to survivors of torture and gender-based violence were shuttered – decisions that Grandi said were the result of “political choices with disastrous financial implications”.

“As things stand, we project that we will end 2025 with $3.9 billion in funds available – a decrease of $1.3 billion compared to 2024 – or roughly 25 per cent less,” Grandi told Member States and other stakeholders in his opening speech to UNHCR’s Executive Committee plenary session in Geneva – the last of his 10-year tenure.

“The last time we had less than $4 billion was in 2015, when the number of forcibly displaced people was half of what it is today,” the High Commissioner added, referencing the current figure of 122 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. The humanitarian funding crisis has already resulted in nearly 5,000 UNHCR staff losing their jobs this year and the downscaling or modification of 185 offices globally.

Grandi urged donor governments to urgently fill the $300 million budget gap with flexible funding before the end of the year, and to pledge and disburse funds for 2026 as swiftly as possible. But he also promised that UNHCR would recover and emerge from the current crisis. “We will be smaller, but we will remain strong.”

UNHCR’s mandate to assist, protect and find solutions for refugees is perhaps more vital now than at any point in its 75-year history, the High Commissioner said, pointing to the displacement resulting from unchecked violence in places like Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as in Gaza.

No easy fix

He acknowledged the growing sense of powerlessness in the face of intractable conflicts and large population movements, leading states and societies to abandon cooperation and compromise in favour of a more transactional approach to global challenges.

But Grandi said any attempt to undermine the principle of asylum enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention and its subsequent Protocol would be “a catastrophic error”.

“It would lead us down blind alleys and, ultimately, it would make the problem more difficult to address. Beware, please, the easy fix!” he said. It would also ignore the fact that three-quarters of the world’s refugees are hosted in low- and middle-income countries, whose generosity should be recognized with greater international solidarity.

“The challenge in front of us is one of implementation, not of principles,” he added.

UNHCR will continue its work with governments, other UN agencies and partners to address the challenges posed by mixed movements of refugees and migrants in many parts of the world with interventions in the early stages of their journeys. The aim is to stabilize populations before they cross multiple borders by providing support and protection to refugees and more regular pathways for migration, coupled with dignified return and readmission procedures.

The agency will also build on its collaboration with humanitarian and development partners to find more sustainable approaches to protracted humanitarian situations. These aim to reduce reliance on unsustainable humanitarian funding by boosting longer-term international support for refugees and their host communities, based on the inclusion of refugees in national and local systems.

Doors to peace

Through these approaches and UNHCR’s unwavering commitment to providing life-saving aid and protection in emergencies, the agency will play its part in creating the conditions to resolve long-standing conflicts by addressing one of their most harmful consequences: forced displacement.

“One of the greatest privileges to work with UNHCR is to straddle the boundaries between aid and diplomacy. To help refugees and, in so doing, help open doors to peace when peace seems impossible,” Grandi said. “This is why we can say that peace – against all odds – is possible in more situations than we sometimes imagine.

He pointed to the example of Syria, where more than 1 million people have already returned since December, following the abrupt end of 14 years of civil war and crisis. Returning Syrians now require more help from the international community to ensure they have homes, jobs, schools and lasting security, and to seize the opportunity to bring a lasting end to one of the world’s largest displacement crises.

Grandi closed by thanking refugee-hosting countries, UNHCR’s public and private donors, the agency’s many partners around the world, and refugees, displaced and stateless people themselves, whose grace, courage and determination in the face of pain and tragedy are the organization’s driving force.

“Thank you for giving me strength and inspiration for more than 40 years. This certainly was not an easy year for any of us. But remember, please: there has never been an easy year to be a refugee – and there will never be.”