Out of the Spotlight

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Between rising prices, ongoing conflict and shrinking levels of life-saving assistance, refugees and other displaced people are struggling like never before.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had devastating ripple effects across the world. Besides triggering one of the largest and fastest growing forced displacement crises since World War II, the war has disrupted supply chains and inflated food and fuel prices to levels that are simply unaffordable for lower income households the world over.

For refugees and internally displaced people dependent on humanitarian assistance, the consequences of the war have been particularly far-reaching. They are creating another layer of hardship in parts of the world far from the media spotlight where forcibly displaced people were already facing unresolved conflicts, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and extreme weather.

Beyond the outpouring of support for people fleeing Ukraine, funding to support vulnerable displaced people has not kept pace with the rising needs. The impacts of this gap are already being felt but, without significant new funding, are set to deepen in the latter part of this year and into 2023.

In 12 countries where UNHCR works, the situation is particularly dire. Forcibly displaced people are having to make heart-breaking choices, such as whether to buy medicines for elderly relatives or food for their children.

While media attention tends to focus on one or two conflicts at a time, there are in fact high- and medium-intensity conflicts affecting 850 million people in  23 countries  around the world. This is more than double the figure a decade ago. Peace efforts have failed to end long-running violence, even as new conflicts have flared up.

Countries affected by protracted conflicts are more likely to suffer from international political neglect, limited media coverage and donor fatigue, even as humanitarian needs in those countries deepen with each year that passes.

In many parts of the world, the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic has overlapped with the damage caused by ongoing conflicts to compound pressures on forcibly displaced people, and the communities that host them.

While conflict and violence are the  main drivers  of acute food insecurity, measures to contain the spread of the virus, such as lockdowns and restrictions on movement, disrupted livelihoods and made refugees and internally displaced people more reliant on humanitarian assistance.

Globally, extreme weather events such as floods and droughts are becoming more frequent and intense, triggering  new displacements  and worsening poverty and food insecurity for people already forced to flee.

In areas that are highly exposed to extreme weather, where one natural disaster is often followed by another, economies and household incomes no longer have the capacity to recover.

South Sudan

A fragile country struggling to overcome years of conflict and instability, South Sudan experienced its worst flooding on record in 2021. Record rainfall over the past three years has seen rivers overflow and submerge farmland across large swathes of the country. Even between rainy seasons, the flood waters have  failed to recede , decimating livelihoods and displacing hundreds of thousands of people to dike-ringed compounds.

Across the country, 527,000 people were living in displacement as a result of disasters at the end of 2021, four times the figure for December 2020.

Continued conflict and flooding has increased the need to supply displaced people with essentials such as shelter materials, blankets and cooking utensils but a lack of funding means that UNHCR will soon be unable to meet those needs. The construction of dikes and other flood defences is also under threat.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia, like other countries in the Horn of Africa, is experiencing its worst drought in 40 years, following four consecutive years of failed rains in parts of the country. Hundreds of thousands of people have abandoned their homes in search of water, pasture, and assistance and further displacement is expected in the months to come.

Some of the same areas affected by drought have also been impacted by the conflict in the north of the country which has caused huge internal displacement and sent refugees into neighbouring Sudan.

The country’s 4.4 million internally displaced people (as of August 2022) and 874,000 refugees and asylum seekers are also dealing with a significant reduction in food assistance due to funding shortfalls and dramatic increases in food prices.

By 2021, disruptions to economies and foods systems caused by conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic, and weather-related disasters had already contributed to record levels of global hunger. Close to  193 million  people were acutely food insecure and in need of urgent assistance across 53 countries by the end of last year, up by nearly 40 million from the previous high reached in 2020.

People forced to flee are disproportionately affected by food crises. In 2021, 82 per cent of internally displaced people (IDPs) and 67 per cent of refugees and asylum seekers originated from countries with food crises.

In February 2022, the start of the war in Ukraine — one of the world’s largest grain suppliers — sent prices of staple foods such as wheat and vegetable oil soaring on world markets. The World Food Programme has predicted that if the war continues to affect wheat and maize production in the 2022/23 farming season, an additional  47 million  people will be pushed into acute food insecurity, a rise of 17 per cent from current levels.

By May 2022, the war in Ukraine, together with other crises, had pushed the number of people forced to flee their homes to over 100 million, an unprecedented milestone. But as global displacement and hunger have dramatically increased the need for humanitarian assistance, the cost of procuring and delivering that assistance has also risen exponentially. Surging fuel prices – another consequence of the war – together with inflation and supply chain disruptions have made the work of humanitarian agencies like UNHCR more expensive. In the first half of 2022, UNHCR spent 45 per cent more on fuel that it did in the same period in 2021.

Funding shortfalls have forced UNHCR to make cuts to its lifesaving aid to refugees and other forcibly displaced people in a number of operations across the world.

Without an injection of at least US$700 million before the end of the year, UNHCR fears that the next round of cuts in assistance will be catastrophic for people in need. There are no good options. Whether education funding for refugee children in Uganda is slashed or cash assistance for displaced people in Yemen, forcibly displaced people will pay the price.

Basics such as shelter, food and sanitation will take a hit, but also programmes that provide a path out of continued dependence on aid such as support for employment opportunities, local integration and education.

The response to the refugee exodus from Ukraine has shown what is possible when public sentiment and political will align.

Governments, the private sector and individuals have donated generously to humanitarian appeals to help people affected by the war, and countries in the European Union have extended temporary protection to refugees from Ukraine.

Now is the time for that solidarity and compassion to be extended towards all the world’s forcibly displaced people, ensuring that no one is left behind.

•  UNHCR Underfunded Report 2022 
•  The Price the World's Forcibly Displaced Could Pay 
•  Spiraling costs, surging conflict, and soaring climate disasters create a desperate future for millions of refugees across Eastern Africa 
•  Three quarters of refugees and migrants from Venezuela struggle to access basic services in Latin America and the Caribbean