Refugees left out in the cold as doors slam shut

The world is a tough place for refugees and displaced people in 2026, and the more New Zealand can do to help, the better.

This was the message that came across loud and clear at an event to mark 75 years of the 1951 Refugee Convention, held on 26 June at the University of Auckland’s Waipapa Marae.

Established after World War Two to manage the unprecedented numbers of displaced people across Europe, the Convention, alongside its 1967 Protocol, guarantees the fundamental principle of non-refoulement, meaning no state can expel or return a refugee to a territory where their life or freedom would be threatened.

Ben Farrell, head of external engagement at the UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) in Canberra, was one of three guest speakers at the event, which was hosted by the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies, the Public Policy Institute and the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs.

Farrell came in lieu of Soo-Jin Rhee, the UNHCR Representative, who was unable to be there for medical reasons.

His speech made grim listening.

The agency itself has lost US$2 billion in funding just in the past two years and plummeted from a US$5 billion annual budget in 2004 to US$3 billion in 2026, largely due to the United States recently withdrawing 40 percent of its funding.

This has led to 6,000 job cuts, 185 offices restructured or closed, and cuts to programmes that fund things like education and gender-based violence prevention.

“So we’re facing a lack of solutions for refugees,” said Farrell, “of which there are 117 million currently displaced and 117,000 (one in 70) who’ve been displaced for more than five years.”

The whole system, he said, relies on international cooperation, but that is breaking down in the current political climate.

“Which always happens when people are facing housing and cost of living crises,” creating a perceived contest for resources.

Farrell made the point that no one is automatically exempt from being displaced or becoming a refugee.

“It’s universal, it could happen to any of us.”

He looked back on the “waves of displacement, conflict and persecution” that have forced people out of their homes from the late 1940s right through to the present day.

Hong Kong in the 1960s, Vietnam in the 70s, Central America in the 80s, Rwanda in the 90s, Darfur in the 2000s, Syria and Myanmar (Rohingya) in the 2010s, right through to the current situation in places like Ukraine and South Sudan.

“It’s the same need for safety and refuge, and the Convention’s lifesaving framework keeps making that promise of the right to safe harbour, and to not be forced back to danger.”

Farrell referred to New Zealand’s own “proud history” of accepting refugees, citing the 733 mostly orphaned Polish children fleeing the Nazis in 1944 who were welcomed here years before the 1951 Convention, to which the country is a signatory.

New Zealand has formally resettled 35,000 refugees since World War Two, and welcomed many more through different pathways, making the figure closer to 50,000 according to some estimates. The country’s annual quota remains at 1,500.

However, Farrell warned, refugee rights are under extreme threat and neighbouring countries – like Lebanon, Jordan and Uganda – with the fewest resources are often the ones having to accommodate the largest influx.

He said around 4.5 million people returned to their home countries last year, which might have been good news but wasn’t, because they were forced to leave by restrictive asylum policies, deportations, and severe economic hardship.

And once home, in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo or Syria, for example, faced “adverse conditions,” which is no way in the spirit of the Convention.

The world now has a global annual quota of 30,000 refugee resettlement places, with the need more like 2.5 million per year.

“If things continue this way, the whole global settlement system will wither,” Farrell said.

However, he left things on a positive note, saying that the new UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Barham Salih, has ambitious goals for his term.

“He plans to cut the list in half of those languishing in protracted situations and organise safe, voluntary and dignified returns. He’s also focusing on increased inclusion in host countries and economic self-reliance. We want refugees themselves to shape that agenda.”

Professor Yvonne Underhill-Sem, a Pacific feminist scholar from the University’s Pacific Studies, said the Pacific wasn’t exempt from current geopolitical tensions.

“It’s a complex world, and the Pacific is facing issues with peace and security, shrinking funding and the movement of people, and also of drugs.”

Underhill-Sem noted the situation of the people in the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Highlands, who are facing severe climate crises and intense tribal warfare as well as an escalation of sorcery-related crimes; all causing forced displacement.

“There are 15 million people in the Pacific and about 11 million of those live in PNG, so what happens there is significant.”

She also mentioned the funding constraints on her own ‘Oxfam in the Pacific’ charity and the looming threat of becoming a climate refugee for many, as well as the lingering effects of nuclear testing in the region that are still being felt.

As the big powers jostle for position and influence, "Pacific nations are trying to be united and not be fractured in the face of the beefing up of militarisation in the region,” she said.

Madiha Ali, a solicitor with Auckland legal firm Dixon and Co, echoed many of Farrell’s concerns about shrinking available places and “skyrocketing” funding cuts in asylum countries.

“The time between making an asylum claim and getting an interview in New Zealand is about two years on average. This creates a huge backlog for appeals and visas, as well as a long period of limbo and uncertainty, as well as separation from families.”

Clearly, she said, more resources are required, but the current Immigration Amendment Bill, which will tighten things up for asylum seekers, reflects the current political climate.

“We need to have more complementary pathways (beyond the 1,500 quota), including an emergency pathway to residency when a crisis occurs, as we did for people from Ukraine and Afghanistan.

“There needs to be a principled framework [for making these selections] that’s fair for everyone, rather than just ‘picking and choosing’; it’s feasible, legally it can be done and we’ve done it before.”

Ali believes countries like New Zealand, who have the capacity, are duty bound to offer support in this time of global need.

“Small ripples make big waves.”

Professor Yvonne Underhill-Sem and Madiha Ali are both affiliated scholars of the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies.