As we head into the second half of 2024, UNHCR is dangerously short of funds to carry out the activities that it is mandated to perform. The estimated funds available to UNHCR currently cover only 35% of its budget. More ominously, the flexible funding contained within that total was $835 million, 18% less than a year earlier (see below).
As of the beginning of July 2024, UNHCR had received $425 million less in new voluntary contributions compared to the same period in 2023.
By the end of 2023, the funding gap was $5.213 billion, obliging UNHCR to temper its ambitions for potentially life-changing activities for millions of people. It is very possible that this funding gap, which was almost 48% of UNHCR’s annual budget in 2023, will grow even wider in 2024. This would be disastrous for people who, through no fault of their own, have been forced to flee. The number of forcibly displaced and stateless people increased by 6% between the end of 2022 and the end of 2023, and with each successive year of underfunding, the negative impact on them keeps accruing.
Another cause for concern comes from an analysis of per capita funding. Forced displacement has expanded hugely since 2010 and funding for UNHCR has not kept up. Since 2013, when funding averaged $72 for every forcibly displaced or stateless person, the number of people in need has grown at a faster rate than the increase in funding or the rate of solutions. In 2023, per capita funding for UNHCR reached a new low of $47, 19% below the 10-year average. On current trends, this could fall to $39 per head in 2024.