UNHCR Says 8.3 Million Displaced People Could Lose Aid as Funding Gap Reaches $5.8 Billion
The UNHCR funding shortfall has left nearly 8.3 million refugees and other forcibly displaced or stateless people at risk of losing access to assistance this year, the United Nations refugee agency said on 29 September. UNHCR faces a gap of $5.789 billion against a 2026 requirement of $8.505 billion, and by the end of July it had received only 32% of that sum, roughly $2.7 billion. The warning comes in a 26-page report, "Protection Eroded: The Human Cost of Underfunding," published in Geneva. The 8.3 million figure is UNHCR's own estimate of people exposed to losing help, not a count of those who have already lost it.
How the UNHCR funding shortfall grew
Money available to the agency fell from $5.2 billion in 2024 to $3.9 billion in 2025, a drop of 24%. Reuters reported that the decl...