UNHCR in financial crisis

By; Ben Musanje

12^th September 2019

United Nations High Commission for Refugee (UNHCR) in Uganda is under financial crisis of over 600 million US dollars needed to run different activities.

At the beginning of this year, the Commission had budget of 900 million US dollars but currently they only have 330 Million US dollars which is very little for their operations.

The UNHCR representative in Uganda Joel Boutroue says they intend to utilize the upcoming Global conference for Refugees in Geneva- Switzerland to lobby the international community to extend more financial support to refugee programs.

He however adds they are going to put more emphasis on protection of the environment in the camps since the number of Refugees is ever increasing and currently stands at 1.3 million people especially South Sudan, DR Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

Since the beginning of the year, Uganda has continued to receive over 70,000 new arrivals from DRC, S.Sudan and these have continued to put pressure on the available resources and services offered to host communities and refugees.