France will increase its contribution to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) by a third this year to bring it to 120 million euros, reported the head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna, in Geneva.
France “will strive to maintain it at this level in 2024,” she said at the opening of the UN Refugee Forum, which France co-sponsors with Colombia, Japan, Jordan and Uganda. “France will therefore continue to support the UNHCR, and it has decided to triple, in three years, its financial contribution, as it had committed to doing,” insisted the French minister.
In 2022, this contribution was 91.6 million euros, and around 30 million euros three years ago, according to ministry figures. At the opening of the forum, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, recalled that his agency still needed 400 million dollars (371 million euros) by the end of the year.
“The multiplication of armed conflicts has forced millions of people, more and more, into exile. More than 110 million people were forcibly displaced last year (…) including a third of them refugees,” underlined Catherine Colonna.
As crises and conflicts multiply, more than 114 million people were displaced around the world at the end of September, a record number, according to UNHCR. The global refugee population has doubled over the past seven years, reaching 36.4 million people by mid-2023, another record. This represents a 3% increase from the end of 2022.
3,000 refugees “resettled” per year in France
“As COP28 ends with a consensus calling for an exit from fossil fuels, in order to achieve “net zero” in 2050 as is essential – an ambition that will now have to be realized –, I would like to also to remember that climate change has very serious consequences on migratory movements,” explained Ms. Colonna.
She also called on the international community “to fight resolutely against criminal networks” and “to mobilize more collectively to eliminate human trafficking through legal proceedings, severe sanctions and the drying up of financing for this trafficking.” . The minister also called for “supporting countries bordering areas of armed conflict, which are the first host countries”. And “we must help alleviate the pressure on host countries,” she said.
The French minister explained that France “welcomes 3,000 refugees per year as part of the UNHCR resettlement program, and [that] it will maintain this commitment in 2024 and 2025.” The UNHCR resettlement program allows refugees who have found refuge in a first country to settle in another country which has agreed to provide them with international protection and, ultimately, permanent residence.
Catherine Colonna also announced that France “is committed to resettling in France [through the] “Women in Danger” system isolated and particularly vulnerable refugee women, in particular victims of violence, exploitation or human trafficking humans.” “This system will be implemented jointly with the UNHCR. It will, initially, allow the reception of Afghan women,” she explained.