Readiness assessment of UNHCR’s Focus area strategic plan for climate action

EvO/2026/03

Purpose

UNHCR’s Evaluation Office has commissioned a global strategic and thematic readiness assessment (RA) to provide a formative assessment of how well-positioned UNHCR is to implement its Focus area strategic plan for climate action (2024–2030). Specifically, the RA will:

• inform real-time implementation of the strategic plan
• establish a baseline for any future evaluation (the RA was originally Phase 1 of a two-part longitudinal evaluation, with Phase 2 on hold due to organizational funding pressures)
• contribute to an upcoming strategic review by the senior executive team (currently scheduled for 2026/27).

The assessment seeks to strengthen the agency’s approach to climate action (CA) by:

• generating evidence
• identifying lessons learned
• providing recommendations.

The RA focuses on UNHCR’s capacity to support forcibly displaced persons, stateless individuals, and host communities in countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change.

Approach

The RA used a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative data from both primary and secondary sources. The team reviewed over 900 documents, coding 360 in MAXQDA, a software tool, against the RA framework. These included:

• strategies
• policies
• reports
• presentations
• risk analysis.

The assessment team engaged a total of 124 stakeholders through a combination of 34 key informant interviews and 24 focus group discussions conducted over a period of 9 weeks. The process included a mix of internal staff and external partners (with a weighting to internal staff due to the organizational nature of the assessment), ensuring representation from selected field and country operations, all regional bureaux, and relevant units in HQ.

1. To what extent does UNHCR have the necessary enabling dimensions in place to effectively operationalise, monitor, and achieve its four inter-related objectives, priority actions and programming outputs and accelerate climate action?
2. Which specific enabling dimensions (or combination thereof), in which contexts, require strengthening in order to accelerate progress towards achievement of these objectives, priority actions and outputs?
3. What other actors and factors have hindered or supported UNHCR’s ability to
   leverage the enabling dimensions and operationalize climate action so far in UNHCR?
4. What conclusions and recommendations can be drawn to support regional bureaux and countries’ implementation of the strategic plan? What conclusions can be drawn regarding the relevance and appropriateness of the strategic plan?

1. The Strategy 2024-2030 requires fundamental reprioritization:
   The focus area strategic plan for climate action is too ambitious given the 2025 funding contractions, restructuring and future forecasts. Spanning four objectives and five priority actions across 22 countries, it is too broad for available resources. Low awareness of the plan's priorities at country level also reveals a gap between headquarters (HQ) aspirations and strategy and operational understanding. A fundamental reprioritization is required to focus on specific operations at the intersection of high climate vulnerability, conflict and displacement, where UNHCR's mandate, field presence and protection expertise position it for greatest impact.
2. Staffing losses pose the single greatest risk to climate action progress:
   Severe funding cuts have resulted in the loss of 62 climate-related focal points and staff, dismantling teams, disrupting continuity and stalling key initiatives. This has diminished institutional memory, affected external relationships, and the ability to design complex climate projects – including those required to access multilateral climate funds, which demand specialized skills the organization can no longer readily source internally.
3. Inconsistent prioritization and weak integration across core processes are hindering progress:
   Progress on climate action has historically depended on individual 'champions' rather than systematic leadership and accountability. Mixed messaging following the restructuring has created confusion about climate action's priority relative to UNHCR's core mandate. Furthermore, climate action is not yet robustly integrated across UNHCR's core processes and systems. Integration of climate risks into emergency preparedness, contingency planning, and risk management is inconsistent. While innovations like the Climate Risk Toolkit and Climate Vulnerability Index show promise, they are not yet universally applied. The dual climate markers are underutilized (only 55% uptake) and fail to capture the full scope of UNHCR’s climate-related work. Crucially, the organization lacks standardized climate training, guidance, and performance objectives, hindering staff capacity and accountability.
4. Strategic partnerships and UNHCR's core strengths offer a viable path forward:
   In this resource-constrained environment, strategic partnerships are more critical than ever. UNHCR's trusted field presence, protection expertise, and externally recognized age, gender and diversity integration are unique assets that cannot be easily replicated. To succeed, the organization must deepen collaborations with UN agencies, multilateral climate funds, the private sector, and refugee-led organizations to pool resources, access complementary skills, and leverage influence. Despite the challenges, well-implemented climate initiatives deliver co-benefits – improved protection, social cohesion, livelihoods, and environmental resilience – making climate action a strategic opportunity to advance UNHCR's protection mandate.

1. Revisit the CA strategic plan:
   1. Concentrate resilience and anticipatory action (like early warning systems) on highly vulnerable, high-displacement priority countries
   2. Advocate for inclusion and prioritize integrating forcibly displaced persons into broader climate policies, programs, and platforms
   3. Mainstream climate action and establish a "minimum standard" across all operations to identify and mitigate risks. Achieving this requires targeted investments in technical staff, expertise, and data.
2. Strengthen strategic positioning and resource mobilization by focusing efforts on countries with the highest potential to access multilateral climate funds (e.g., green climate fund, adaptation fund). This requires close collaboration with UNHCR's climate finance team and investment in key partnerships to access complementary technical skills and enable successful proposals. UNHCR should also ensure the inclusion of forcibly displaced persons in climate fund programs and build flexibility into budgeting and planning processes to better accommodate a projectized approach and access new funding opportunities.
3. Clarify leadership, accountability, capacity. UNHCR should reassess prioritization of climate action in relation to its mandate, providing unambiguous guidance to resolve post-restructuring confusion regarding its relevance. In addition to reviewing the strategic plan, UNHCR needs to clarify its role in disaster response in non-conflict settings. The organization needs to determine where human resource capacities should sit in support of operational delivery related to climate action.
4. Improve data and evidence, processes and systems:
   1. Simplify climate markers: Integrate the dual markers to better capture progress in advocacy and leveraging for inclusion
   2. Standardize knowledge sharing and establish a clearer knowledge-management system to share learning and align internal efforts
   3. Mandate annual reporting and require a climate action section in all Country Annual Results Reports to close data gaps, aiding resource mobilization and global advocacy.
5. Sustain mitigation efforts (e.g., Greening the Blue, operational sustainability, supply chain) by making them a specific inclusion in all funding proposals and sustaining the central Green Financing Facility. Mitigation should not be treated as a standalone activity but integrated into operational planning. Partnerships with other UN agencies and the private sector are essential to pool resources, access innovation, and demonstrate to donors that UNHCR is committed to reducing its own environmental footprint while protecting displaced populations.