JOB CUTS
UNHCR is seeking to preserve frontline operations by cutting jobs at its Geneva headquarters and worldwide regional offices, with 88 per cent of staff remaining outside headquarters, Salih said.
About 95 per cent of the staff doing protection work, such as registering refugees and providing legal assistance, and helping refugees find longer-term solutions, such as returning home safely, have been retained in field locations, he said.
He cited several examples of programmes under threat.
In Chad, he said, insufficient funding risks disrupting specialised medical care and legal assistance for more than 50,000 survivors of conflict-related sexual violence who fled neighbouring Sudan.
In Ethiopia, refugee registration had been suspended for tens of thousands of refugees from South Sudan and Eritrea, he said.
Colombia has raised concerns on behalf of Latin American countries that their region is being disproportionately impacted.
The Americas, which include the US, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean, face a budget reduction of 32 per cent in 2027 compared to this year, or about $485 million — the largest budget reduction of any region — while the number of forcibly displaced and stateless people in the Americas is projected to increase by 4 per cent to about 24.5 million people in 2027, Salih said.
