All-Member State briefing with the High Commissioner

1. Introduction

Good morning, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Colleagues,

It is an honour for me to address you today in my first briefing to Member States as High Commissioner for Refugees. I am pleased to see so many of you here in the room today, and I understand that many are also joining us online. This reflects the importance you attach to UNHCR and our work.

I assume this position with a deep sense of both honour and responsibility. The challenges before us are profound, and the international context in which we operate is increasingly complex, marked by unprecedented and protracted displacement, geopolitical tensions, constrained resources, and rising pressures on the asylum system.

I was deliberate to begin my tenure with missions to Kenya and Chad at the end of my first full week in office, followed soon after by visits to Türkiye and Jordan.

The authority and credibility of our organization are ultimately exercised in the field through the daily work of our colleagues in difficult conditions, and through the choices that States make at their borders and within their national systems. It is where protection is most acutely tested, where our collective decisions have immediate consequences, and where the value of collective action is most clearly demonstrated.

I chose this sequence deliberately because it is essential to ground my early understanding of UNHCR’s work in the realities on the ground. Next week, I will also travel to Ukraine.

2. Update on field missions

I want to begin by sharing what I have seen in my first missions.

In Kenya, in Kakuma, I saw both the limits of traditional camp-based models and the possibilities that emerge when protection is paired with solutions.

Kenya remains a long-standing refugee-hosting country under considerable pressure, yet I saw tangible evidence of what can change when policy enables inclusion, where government policy, at both national and regional levels, has enabled refugees to work, study, and participate in the life of their host country.

I was deeply encouraged by my discussions with the national leadership of Kenya, and by the clear political commitment behind the Shirika Plan, which seeks to integrate refugees more fully into local economies, services, and governance structures while easing pressures on host communities.

I met refugees who are working, studying alongside host communities, and beginning to participate in the social and economic life around them. What struck me was their sense of agency and their determination to build lives, contribute to their communities, and shape meaningful futures.

At the same time, I was reminded of how fragile this progress remains. Inclusion is uneven. Opportunities are still constrained. And the sustainability of these efforts ultimately depends on continued political will, development investment, and international responsibility-sharing. Kenya’s example illustrates both what is possible and what is required to scale solutions.

In Chad, particularly in Farchana, Iriba, and Adre near the Sudanese border, I saw a different reality, one shaped by acute emergency and the generosity of a country facing immense pressures of its own. Chad is hosting people fleeing the brutal war in Sudan that has now entered its fourth year.

I met refugees who had survived unspeakable violence. I saw families arriving exhausted, traumatized, and uncertain of their future, yet met by colleagues from government, UNHCR, and partner organizations working relentlessly in remote and difficult conditions.

What left the deepest impression on me was the contrast between the scale of need and the limits of available resources. Protection capacity is stretched. Services are under pressure. Host communities are bearing significant costs.

Yet, despite this, I witnessed extraordinary solidarity, generosity from local communities, and a continued commitment from Chadian authorities to keep borders open and uphold protection.

These two contexts — Kenya and Chad — are very different. One illustrates the potential of inclusion and solutions when policy space exists. The other underscores the continued centrality of life-saving protection in acute crises.

Last week, I went to Türkiye and Jordan where I encountered a different dimension of displacement, one shaped by hopes of return and the conditions that would make it genuinely possible.

In Türkiye, I visited the Öncüpınar–Bab al-Salam border point, where I saw refugees returning to Syria. I saw firsthand the remarkable efforts of the Turkish authorities, supported by UNHCR, to assist and facilitate the returns of those who chose to do so.

In Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, I met Syrians who first arrived 14 years ago, fleeing the carnage in their country in search of safety. Türkiye and Jordan have shown extraordinary generosity in hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees for over a decade.

As of 5 February, UNHCR estimates that nearly 1.4 million individuals have returned to Syria since 8 December 2024. Nearly 3.75 million Syrian refugees remain displaced across Türkiye, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq.

Most refugees told me clearly that they want to return home, but only when they can do so safely, with dignity, and with a real chance to rebuild their lives; when they can make a living, send their children to school, and have access to basic services.

Their message was simple and powerful: return is possible, but it must be voluntary, safe, and sustainable.

More broadly, recent developments in Syria show both what is possible and how vulnerable the progress can be. Around a million and a half refugees returned last year, yet episodic eruptions of conflict have already displaced thousands of people; a clear reminder that such moments must be carefully monitored and renewed conflict prevented. Syrians are watching closely to see whether conditions will truly allow them to return.

That depends not only on refugees’ wishes, but on conditions on the ground, and critically on our collective willingness to work together to make those conditions real.

The international community must act together to support stability in Syria and to prevent situations from sliding into instability. Across the region, efforts to consolidate peace and prevent renewed hostilities remain critical to protecting civilians and creating the conditions for safe return.

This is an opportunity for the international community. But for return to become a genuine option at scale, political processes must deliver tangible improvements on the ground. Sustained peacebuilding, alongside investments in schools, hospitals, and infrastructure, will be essential to make safe, voluntary, and dignified return a reality — not only in Syria, but in many other contexts around the world.

Together, my missions to Kenya, Chad, Jordan, and Türkiye crystallized the responsibility of UNHCR: to save lives today, and to prevent lives from being trapped in indefinite displacement tomorrow.

3. Scale of displacement and protracted displacement

Excellencies, I am acutely aware of the immense responsibility inherent in this moment as I assume this role at a time when the international refugee regime is under significant strain.

UNHCR is operating amid record levels of displacement, heightened polarization, constrained humanitarian and development resources, and after a period of significant internal downsizing.

Nearly 117 million people are now forcibly displaced worldwide, among them are 42.5 million refugees. In addition, there are 67.8 million people internally displaced within their own countries. There are also 4.4 million stateless people. The scale and duration of displacement are reshaping the very nature of our work.

Across the world, the majority of refugees are living in situations of protracted displacement, often for five, ten, twenty, or even forty years, without a meaningful prospect of a durable solution or the chance to rebuild their lives. They may be safe from immediate violence, but they are trapped in limbo, excluded from national systems, and often forced into long-term dependence on humanitarian aid.

This is not inevitable. It reflects policy choices, incentives, and systems that have not kept pace with the realities of modern displacement. This is not only a humanitarian concern. It is equally a protection, development, political, and increasingly, a fiscal concern.

This is the context in which we operate. And it is why I am convinced of two fundamental issues.

First, our responsibility to uphold the 1951 Refugee Convention is as important as ever. The Convention was born out of catastrophe and a collective determination that people fleeing persecution would not be left without protection. That commitment remains as relevant today as it was 75 years ago.

At the heart of that Convention is the core principle of non-refoulement—the prohibition on returning a refugee, who has a well-founded fear of persecution, to a territory where their life or freedom would be threatened, as defined by the Convention. UNHCR will continue to defend this principle. Upholding non-refoulement is not only a legal obligation for States party to the Convention; it is also essential to the credibility of international cooperation and to the trust that refugees place in the international protection system. Our work will remain firmly anchored in this foundational principle.

Second: humanitarian response alone, however indispensable, is no longer sufficient as the model for the displacement realities of today. Emergency assistance saves lives. It must continue wherever needs arise. But when emergency tools become the long-term default, and entire generations remain in dependency because systems do not create pathways to rights, inclusion, and solutions, we are not meeting our obligations, and we are not building sustainability.

My vision, Excellencies, is that UNHCR must be both principled and practical — a credible guardian of international protection standards, and a practical actor able to deliver protection in real conditions.

Protection is not only advocacy. It is the daily work of ensuring access to territory, legal status, safety, documentation, family unity, child protection, prevention of violence, and the ability to live in dignity. Our authority depends on that operational reality and on your confidence that UNHCR exercises its responsibilities with discipline, neutrality, and competence, all with full respect for the sovereignty of states.

But protection, Excellencies, is not only about survival.

When refugees remain in prolonged displacement for years and decades dependent on humanitarian assistance, it is a violation of their basic human rights and dignity, and it is unsustainable. We must not become enablers of this unacceptable state of dependency.

We must challenge it. Not by withdrawing from responsibility, but by reorganizing our collective effort toward outcomes that reduce long-term dependency and expanding inclusion and solutions. We cannot remain trapped in models designed for short-term emergencies when most displacement today is protracted.

We cannot measure success only by how well we manage scarcity. We must measure it by whether people can rebuild their lives.

The real solution to displacement is peace. The international community must work together to resolve ongoing conflicts, prevent new ones, and create the conditions for lasting stability that enables peace.

I would say displacement in Sudan could have been prevented a few years back, had there been a concerted effort to prevent that conflict, and probably we would not be dealing with the tragedy of literally millions of people being traumatized, abused, and displaced. I would say the same about Syria. Perhaps in 2011-2012, had there been real attention to the dynamics in Syria, that conflict could have been brought under control. We may not still be talking about the horrendous tragedy that Syrians endured, with huge impact on the rest of the world.

4. Overarching aim

Excellencies,

This brings me to a core element of my direction as High Commissioner for Refugees: to prioritize an ambitious, yet specific and time-bound strategic aim to reduce the number of refugees living in a situation of protracted displacement reliant on humanitarian assistance by 50 per cent by 2035.

Let me be explicit about what this does and does not mean.

In the first instance, it means creating greater opportunities for self-reliance so that refugees can meet their essential needs in a sustainable manner and with dignity. Ultimately, it means UNHCR cooperating with governments to advance durable solutions for refugees, as mandated by the UN General Assembly 75 years ago.

Let me also recall the pillars of UNHCR’s mandate: protection, life-saving assistance, and advancing durable solutions. Durable solutions are at the heart of our mandate and we must prioritize it.

Providing international protection and delivering humanitarian assistance in emergencies is vital. In acute emergencies, life-saving response remains essential, and we will continue to deliver it.

The international system cannot and should not accept, as normal, the indefinite displacement of refugees without realistic prospects of solutions.

Addressing this reality requires a decisive shift: from managing displacement indefinitely to resolving it collectively. We must reorient our collective effort toward measurable outcomes that reduce long-term dependency, by strengthening pathways toward self-reliance and durable solutions. This also requires UNHCR to work more efficiently and cost-effectively, focusing our resources where they deliver the greatest protection and solutions impact.

Ultimately, the most decisive driver of solutions remains peace. Syria shows what becomes possible when conditions begin to change and people see a credible pathway home, but only peace and stability will determine whether return can be safe, sustainable, and at scale.

Sudan shows the cost of the absence of peace: ongoing conflict is driving new waves of displacement, deepening needs, and keeping solutions out of reach. This is why reducing protracted displacement must be closely linked to international efforts to resolve conflicts and support peace.

Against this backdrop, progress towards this aim of reducing long-term refugees dependent on humanitarian assistance by 50 per cent within the next 10 years, must be tracked through concrete indicators:

• increased access to reliable legal status and core rights, such as freedom of movement and the right to work;
• inclusion in national systems such as education, health, and social services;
• improvements in self-reliance and sustainable livelihoods;
• safe and voluntary returns where conditions permit;
• local integration opportunities where appropriate; and
• expanded access to resettlement and complementary pathways.

I acknowledge that this is an ambitious goal.

This ambition reflects both the letter of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the commitments of the Global Compact on Refugees.

It is also increasingly a question of sustainability: the mounting economic, social, and political costs of prolonged displacement are borne by refugees, host communities, and States. Host nations, in particular, shoulder an extraordinary responsibility.

Refugees are entitled not only to protection, but to dignity, opportunity, and the prospect of a future beyond indefinite displacement.

It is a target, an ambitious target, but cannot be achieved by UNHCR alone, and it is far beyond the means and tools available to UNHCR.

It requires a shift in how we work with others: strengthening our engagement with governments; deepening collaboration with development and peace actors; working more systematically with international financial institutions and the private sector; and using UNHCR’s convening power to help States share responsibility more equitably.

This requires us to work more deliberately across the humanitarian–development–peace nexus, bringing in development actors, including the World Bank and regional development banks, earlier and at scale, while aligning our work with broader and more fundamental efforts to reduce conflict and build peace.

We can already see promising approaches: Kenya’s Shirika Plan, Uganda’s inclusive refugee model, Ethiopia’s recent reforms to expand refugees’ access to work and services, and emerging pathways in Thailand. These may not be perfect, but they show what is possible when protection, development, and national policy align.

We build on strong foundations. The Global Compact on Refugees and the commitments of the Global Refugee Forum have reshaped how the international community approaches cooperation, responsibility-sharing, and solutions. They have given us tools that did not exist a decade ago. In a more volatile and contested world, our task is to use those tools with greater strategic clarity so that responsibility-sharing is understood not as charity, but as a matter of stability, predictability, and shared interest among States.

Excellencies, UNHCR has a distinctive role. Our leadership must be exercised not only through delivery, but through convening, alignment, and catalytic action across the humanitarian, development, and peace pillars. This requires a more disciplined partnership model and a clearer division of labor across the system.

This approach is consistent with the Humanitarian Reset’s emphasis on sharper prioritization, localization, efficiency, and measurable results that reduce long-term dependency by linking humanitarian, development, and peace efforts. It also aligns with UN80’s call for a more coherent and collaborative UN system that works in a coordinated manner at country level. Together, this reinforces UNHCR’s protection mandate while maximizing collective impact and credibility.

Where development actors are best placed to support inclusion in national systems, our role is to bring them in earlier and more systematically and to ensure that inclusion is protection-centred and rights-based.

Where local actors, including refugee-led organizations, can deliver efficiently and effectively, with technical depth and community reach, UNHCR must increasingly act as a partner and enabler, shifting decision-making closer to affected communities while ensuring protection safeguards are strong.

Meaningful refugee participation must be structural, not symbolic. Refugees must have sustained influence in how policies are designed, programs delivered, and solutions shaped.

Our core responsibilities remain: to provide protection, to deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance where needs are acute, and to advance durable solutions for refugees. Durable solutions must not be an afterthought—they must be a priority. The same solutions-focused vision will guide our work on statelessness and with internally displaced persons. That is our mandate.

5. Reforms

Excellencies, while the mandate remains constant, our operating environment has changed. And in that environment, how we deliver must continue to adapt, and modernize, strengthening efficiency, accountability, and transparency in how we operate and deliver to protect people and sustain credibility.

That is how I have framed my approach to the work of UNHCR in my draft plan of action which I will share with you soon, and why I am launching an independent management review that is focused and time-bound to inform our strategic direction and priorities, stabilize the organization, strengthen confidence and accountability, and align our structures and resources with the protection and solutions outcomes we must deliver.

UNHCR is emerging from a period of significant restructuring and fiscal contraction. Many of you have observed this closely, supported UNHCR through difficult budget cycles, and rightly asked how the organization will maintain protection standards, set priorities, reduce duplication, and ensure that what you fund translates into tangible outcomes in the field.

The management review will be focused and independent to strengthen efficiency, cost-effectiveness, accountability, and alignment between headquarters, regional bureaux, and country operations so that our structures, processes, and resources are organized around protection and solutions outcomes rather than inherited structures.

Crucially, budget reform will run through this review, and I will provide a further, more detailed briefing to Member States later, once the structure of the review and the initial action plan have been defined, including the implications for planning and budgeting. In the current environment, we must adopt sharper prioritization, clearer accountability, greater discipline, and demonstrate value for money. We must also manage risk effectively and avoid fragmentation and duplication.

We must place far greater emphasis on outcomes and results, with clear benchmarks, rather than on processes alone, so that UNHCR is demonstrably more efficient, cost-effective, and impactful.

I intend to strengthen financial transparency and accountability in ways that are practical for Member States and donors, including by enabling near real-time monitoring of projects and budget expenditures, and more disciplined reporting against protection and solutions impact. I know that transparency is not optional; it is absolutely essential to credibility.

We will be building on a lot of very good work that the organization has been doing over the past few years in order to improve efficiency, accountability, and transparency.

In that regard, the review, Excellencies, will also examine not only how we allocate resources, but how we define priorities, how we assess trade-offs, how we measure impact, and how we communicate transparently about what we can and cannot sustain.

This is not about reducing ambition. It is about aligning ambition with resources, so that the organization remains credible and effective, and so that the people we serve do not pay the price for inefficiency.

Throughout this process, Excellencies, I will ensure that Member States are kept closely informed and I seek your active engagement and advice, in line with our commitment to transparency, accountability, and shared responsibility.

6. Finance update

Let me come to a brief overview of our financial update.

The reforms and reviews I have outlined are inseparable from the recent financial context, which I know you have already been briefed on by my predecessor, Mr. Filippo Grandi, whom I want to salute for his service to this organization over the years.

I do not intend to repeat those details today; I raise them as the backdrop against which I am acting and to signal how they inform my priorities going forward.

In 2025, UNHCR faced an exceptional financial crisis that required difficult decisions, including a significant downsizing of operations and adjustments to staffing and office structures across the globe.

In my first weeks, I have been struck by the professionalism and resilience of many colleagues who carried these changes through under intense pressure. I am also grateful to those donors who stepped forward with additional support at a critical moment.

As UNHCR closes last year’s accounts and completes the audit certification process, I have to acknowledge that there is a clear deficit. Procedurally, we expect that part of the remaining deficit will be covered through self-administered funding mechanisms—details of which will follow shortly and our controller will be available to talk to you about some of these issues. I want to also say that we operate with a rather short window for cash flow within the organization.

As you know from previous briefings, UNHCR submitted a budget of US$10.604 billion for 2025, of which we expect to reach around 35 per cent once year-end accounts are finalized.

I also want to acknowledge again the support provided by Member States and partners in 2025. The United States, the European Union, Germany, and Sweden were our largest contributors. Several partners increased their support, including the EU, the African Development Bank, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, and I welcome Luxembourg joining the group of top donors for the first time.

22 governments and the European Union provided over US$20 million last year, and 8 donors contributed over US$100 million.

Despite a difficult financial year, it is notable that UNHCR raised US$697 million from the private sector. Thirty-six foundations, corporations, and high-net-worth individuals gave more than US$1 million each.

At the same time, Excellencies, earmarking trends remain a concern. Tightly earmarked funding rose from 24 per cent of UNHCR’s income in 2024 to 40 per cent in 2025. In this context, flexible, and especially unearmarked, funding is even more valuable, because it allows UNHCR to address the needs of the most vulnerable forcibly displaced and stateless persons across the globe and to continue carrying out valuable normative work through our program-based model. In this context, I am particularly grateful to Sweden, España con ACNUR, and Norway who were the top donors of unearmarked funding.

Turning to 2026, UNHCR is seeking US$8.5 billion for its program. To date, we have recorded US$1.574 billion, due in large part to the recent pledging conference, where US$1.176 billion was pledged.

We count on donors’ continued support in 2026 and appeal in particular for predictable and flexible funding that will help UNHCR sustain its readiness, surge capacity in emergencies, and core protection and solutions functions including in forgotten crises.

7. Diversifying funding and private sector partnership

Excellencies,

You will also see, Excellencies, a more deliberate push to diversify and stabilize UNHCR’s financing base. Not because we can replace State support; we cannot, and we should not pretend otherwise. But because the world we are operating in cannot be sustained by a narrow donor base alone.

We will continue to engage closely with traditional donors while expanding outreach to non-traditional donor States, all guided by the call for more predictable and flexible funding that enhances UNHCR’s ability to deliver on our core mandate.

We will scale partnerships with global philanthropy and further institutionalize credible, transparent channels for faith-based giving, including Islamic philanthropy such as Zakat and Sadaqa.

In parallel, we will deepen our engagement with development banks and other IFIs so that protection outcomes are more systematically linked to development financing in refugee-hosting contexts, easing pressure on host communities and enabling inclusion at scale.

I want to emphasize again, Excellencies, our financing strategy will be tied to outcomes, cost-efficiency, and credible performance. I recognize that this is what many Member States have been asking for, and it is what the system requires.

On private sector engagement, we will strengthen our partnerships beyond corporate social responsibility. To support this, we will establish a Global CEO Council to mobilize leadership, innovation, and co-financing at the highest level of the private sector. More broadly, we will seek longer-term, outcome-oriented collaboration that can expand access to livelihoods, digital connectivity, skills, and economic inclusion for refugees, while also supporting host communities.

I will have to also talk to you, albeit briefly, about the imperative of utilizing technology.

Technology, data, and evidence are critical to this plan of action. In the current environment, digital and analytical capabilities are not optional enablers. They are proven levers to strengthen accountability, improve delivery, and generate productivity gains while safeguarding protection and our core responsibilities.

We will build on UNHCR’s existing digital strategy and strengthen governance across IT, data, and innovation to reduce risk, improve interoperability, and ensure ethical use in line with UN standards on data protection. We will be seeking to utilize data and the new AI technologies to improve our management processes and enable us to do better with predictive assessments of refugee and displacement dynamics.

8. Responsibility sharing

I also want to address directly one point about responsibility-sharing.

Responsibility-sharing has become harder to sustain, but I would dare say it is more necessary than ever. Many host States are facing genuine pressures: fiscal constraints, social demands, service delivery gaps, and political tensions. Excellencies, these pressures are real. They must be acknowledged openly.

Our role is to work with you to share responsibility more effectively as a matter of stability, predictability, and shared interest, and to link responsibility-sharing to pathways that reduce long-term dependence, rather than perpetuating indefinite crisis management.

This means engaging with you —host States and donors— early and pragmatically, listening to your constraints, and identifying solutions approaches aligned with national priorities where possible, while remaining firm on the fundamental legal and protection principles that underpin the system.

9. 75th Anniversary of the Convention

Finally, Excellencies, I want to situate this direction in the year ahead.

2026 marks the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention. This milestone is a strategic opportunity for us to collectively reaffirm the Convention’s relevance, mobilize political commitment and public support for asylum, and demonstrate that international cooperation can still deliver both for displaced people and for the States and communities that host them.

We intend to use the year to build momentum toward a high-level milestone event in December 2026, and toward the next Global Refugee Forum in 2027, with a renewed focus on solutions and responsibility-sharing.

Excellencies, if we stabilize the organization, anchor reform in protection, and align the international effort more decisively around durable solutions, I am confident we can deliver more efficiently and effectively for displaced people, host communities, and States alike.

I look forward to working with you, candidly, practically, and in partnership in the period ahead. Thank you again for your time and for your attention. Thank you so very much.