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A Sierra Leonean child stands outside a classroom for internally displaced children in Freetown, May 2000.(c) 2000 by Molly Bingham for Human Rights Watch
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50 Years On
What Future for Refugee Protection?
Underfunding and donor funding cuts have left UNHCR in a dire financial situation, unable to fund some of its most basic assistance and protection programs, especially in Africa
Disparity in the international response to refugee crises The economic, environmental, and security strain from years of hosting large refugee populations and the concomitant lack of international financial and other support, is a significant factor in the declining commitment to refugee protection in many developing countries. In 1999, the international community, most notably Western states, demonstrated its ability to respond with speed and generosity to the Kosovo refugee crisis. Funding and assistance poured in to the refugee camps in Macedonia and Albania, and relief agencies were overwhelmed with public offers of donations and assistance. Western governments also assisted by airlifting refugees out of Macedonia, under the "humanitarian evacuation program", in order to ease the pressure on Macedonia and enable it to keep its borders open to in-coming refugees. Clearly, the Kosovo crisis was unique both in the level of media, political, and public interest it generated, and the strategic military and geopolitical importance of the refugees whose flight occurred in the midst of the largest NATO offensive in mainland Europe. Refugee crises elsewhere fared less well. In Guinea, for example, the security of refugees was severely compromised due to the chronic lack of international funding and assistance. In 1999, UNHCR was unable to raise any funds towards a U.S.$4million appeal to move the refugee camps away from the border with Sierra Leone where they were at serious risk of cross-border attacks and incursions. At the same time, the agency had a weekly budget of U.S.$10million for the Kosovar refugees. UNHCR recently reported that in 1999 the international community spent some U.S.$120 per person of concern to UNHCR in the former Yugoslavia, more than three times that spent in West Africa - about U.S$35 per person. Faced with serious security threats including cross border attacks and incursions from both Sierra Leone and Liberia, Guinea closed its borders to refugees from Sierra Leone in August 2000. The deteriorating security conditions in the border areas, where the majority of the refugee camps are located, and the murder of the head of UNHCR's office in Macenta, on the Liberia border in September 2000, caused UNHCR to cease most operations in the border areas, leaving the refugees largely unprotected and unassisted and vulnerable to attacks and abuse. The international response to the crisis in Guinea has been negligible. The situation has hardly touched the world media headlines, international funding has been seriously lacking, and there has certainly been no airlifting of refugees to safety in Western countries On the eve of its fiftieth anniversary, UNHCR announced that it would be forced to borrow US$40 million from its working capital in order to finance its programs until the end of the year. Underfunding and donor funding cuts have left UNHCR in a dire financial situation, unable to fund some of its most basic assistance and protection programs, especially in Africa. Challenges for donor governments to UNHCR
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