GENEVA: A deepening funding crisis could leave nearly 8.3 million refugees and forcibly displaced people without access to assistance this year and push protection systems in some countries towards collapse, the United Nations refugee agency warned on Tuesday.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was facing one of its worst funding crises following aid cuts by the United States and other donor countries.

According to a new 26-page report, the agency faces a funding gap of $5.789 billion after the resources available to it fell by 24 per cent between 2024 and 2025.

As of July, UNHCR had received only 32 per cent of the $8.505 billion it requires for 2026, while the global number of forcibly displaced and stateless people remains close to record levels.

UNHCR expects the population under its mandate to reach 131.2 million by the end of the year, compared with 129.4 million at the end of 2025.

“Below a certain threshold, the system doesn’t shrink, it fails,” the agency said, warning that funding reductions were already affecting refugee registration, child protection programmes and services for survivors of gender-based violence.

The report highlighted the impact on countries hosting large displaced populations.

In Chad, where refugees have fled conflict in neighbouring Sudan, around 319,000 people face delays in registration, while an estimated 200,000 women and girls could lose access to safe spaces and prevention programmes.

In Sudan, which the United Nations describes as the world’s worst displacement crisis, around 140,000 refugees and asylum-seekers remained unregistered by mid-2026 after registration activities were suspended during the first five months of the year.

The agency also highlighted the situation in Afghanistan, where financial grants for people returning to the country have been reduced from $375 to $170 per person.

More than one million people have returned to Afghanistan this year through forced or voluntary returns from neighbouring countries, including Iran and Pakistan.

UNHCR said further cost-cutting measures could not compensate for the funding shortfall after the agency had already reduced its workforce by 33 per cent in 2025, closed offices in 140 locations and discontinued operations in 15 countries compared with 2024.

The agency also raised concerns over the increasing proportion of donor funding that is tightly earmarked for specific purposes.

Such funding accounted for 51 per cent of donor contributions in 2026, compared with 19 per cent five years earlier, limiting UNHCR’s ability to redirect resources towards emerging priorities.

UNHCR warned that continued funding reductions were gradually weakening refugee protection systems, increasing the risk that displaced people remain undocumented and that survivors of gender-based violence are left without essential support.

The agency said the scale of the funding crisis threatened to undermine basic protection and assistance for millions of displaced people at a time when global displacement remained at historically high levels.