Funding cuts put 8.3 million refugees at risk of losing vital aid

The family received a one-time cash grant from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) while crossing the border, but with no steady income and a leg injury that limits his ability to work, Mr. Shafi now lives in a temporary shelter in Kabul province, its walls filled with stones and its windows covered with plastic sheets.

“If there is little food, I give it to the children. If they are hungry, they cryhe said.

“We don’t have any preparations for winter. If someone helps, we can overcome it. If no one helps, we have nothing.”

Rugged autumn

His family is among nearly 8.3 million refugees and forcibly displaced and stateless people who are on the verge of losing access to vital aid as deep funding cuts push the protection system to breaking point, UNHCR warned on Tuesday.

In a new report entitled Protection Eroded: The Human Cost of Lack of Fundsthe agency said available funding falls from $5.178 billion to $3.932 billion between 2024 and 2025.

In July, they received only 32 percent of the $8.5 billion needed this year – although the number of people under its mandate remains at historically high levels.

Below a certain threshold the system does not shrink, it simply fails

“When registration stops, safe homes close or child protection services disappear, refugee risks – violence, exploitation and abuse – reemerge in displacement,” said Dominique Hyde, UNHCR Director of External Relations.

System ‘failed’

In the Afghanistanwhere more than a million people have returned in 2026 alone the cash-on-arrival grant has been cut from $375 per person to $170 per householdand new reintegration grants reached 175 households this year, compared to 5,300 households in 2024.

In the Chad, 319,000 refugees face registration delays This puts 200,000 women and girls at risk of losing access to safe places, and around 233,000 children will lose child protection services.

In the Ethiopiathe number of safe homes for survivors of gender-based violence has more than halved in a year, from 29 to 13, while Child protection coverage in some areas has decreased by as much as 85 percent. In Sudan, more than 50,000 survivors of sexual violence in Darfur and Kordofan could lose access to life-saving post-rape care.

The report warns that unlike food and shelter, shelter cannot be rationed in smaller portions. “Below a certain threshold, the system does not shrink, it simply fails,” it said.

Flexible funding ‘essential’

The refugee agency says that’s happening cutting its workforce by a third by 2025 and closing offices in 140 locationsbut even the highest priority work is now affected.

The share of funding related to specific projects has increased from 19 percent in 2022 to 51 percent this year.

“Flexible funding helps us move the right skills and funds to where they are needed most,” Hyde said, adding that protections cannot be “reduced indefinitely without the system collapsing”.

UNHCR urges donors and partners to provide urgent support and expand flexible funding to protect the progress made.