UN is ‘indispensable’, refugee chief tells Washington

GENEVA – The United Nations refugee chief said on Dec 18 he wanted to remind Washington that despite valid criticisms, the UN remains hugely useful in a world beset by conflicts and crises.

Outgoing UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi told reporters he wanted to remind the United States, traditionally his agency’s biggest donor, of the value the UN can offer.

“There are situations where the UN is indispensable, because nobody else can do that work,” he said at the end of a three-day global refugee forum in Geneva.

“We have the legitimacy, we have the know-how and we have mandates,” he said.

He acknowledged the criticism that the UN is “a bloated, big, inefficient organisation”.

“My message to Washington is now that the point has been made, now that we are all scrambling to reorganise ourselves, please remember that the UN has a value.”

The UNHCR, like many other UN agencies, has been clobbered by international aid cuts since US President Donald Trump returned to office in January, and as numerous other leading donors have also tightened their purse strings.

As global displacement surges – in June, the UNHCR estimated that more than 117 million people have fled from their homes, a figure that has nearly doubled in the past decade – the deep cuts have forced the agency to reduce aid and shutter services.

It also had to shed nearly 5,000 jobs in 2025, amounting to more than a quarter of its workforce.

Mr Grandi, who will be stepping down at the end of December after a decade in charge, said it was “painful” to leave at a time of such crisis.

Mr Barham Salih, 65,

Iraq’s president from 2018 to 2022, is expected to be officially named the next UN refugee chief on Dec 18.

Among the challenges he will face is “the extreme uncertainty of the resources”, Mr Grandi said.

The United States remains the UNHCR’s biggest donor, but has slashed its contribution from US$2.1 billion (S$2.7 billion) in 2024 to US$840 million in 2025.

Mr Grandi acknowledged “an over-reliance on US funding in the past” and stressed that Washington and others had no obligation to continue providing voluntary contributions.

But he lamented that cuts “came too abruptly”.

“They’re not doing anything against the law, but... a lot against common sense and compassion,” Mr Grandi said.

“Those cuts were unstrategic and we had to respond with fairly unstrategic responses to reduce expenditure.” AFP