UNHCR seeks $953.7 million

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on 15 December that the agency needed US $953.7 million next year to help and protect more than 22 million people driven from their homes or otherwise affected by war, violence and contempt for basic human and civil rights around the globe. A statement from the agency quoted the High Commissioner, Sadako Ogata, as warning that UNHCR could not make further cuts in its budget without jeorpardising the essence of its work. “We have been forced repeatedly to prioritise and reduce the budget,” she said in the preface to a 258-page funding appeal issued in Geneva on Friday. “The cutbacks have curtailed activities with a direct bearing on UNHCR’s policy priorities,” she noted.

According to the agency, the largest single portion of the agency’s 2001 global appeal - more than $255 million - is destined for UNHCR’s work in sub-Saharan Africa. “UNHCR handles a string of protracted refugee and internal displacement crisis on the continent, from Tanzania and Burundi to the Horn of Africa, Guinea, Sierra Leone, the Congos and Angola,” it said. The agency has received pledges totalling $214.7 million towards the $953.7 million it requested for in the global appeal for 2001. The agency, which marked its 50th anniversary on Thursday, has some 5,000 staff and hundreds of offices on five continents. It looks after refugees and people displaced within their own countries, as well as impoverished communities which host large refugee populations.