2006 UNHCR RSD Statistical Portrait

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1 August 2007

 

UNHCR RSD continues to grow in 2006, while government RSD declines again

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The number of new individual applications for refugee status determination filed at UN refugee offices grew for the fourth straight year in 2006 while applications to governments continued to decline, according to provisional statistics released by UNHCR. The High Commissioner for Refugees continued to be the world’s largest decision-maker on refugee status, receiving 91,500 new refugee claims.

 

The highest number of RSD applications received by any single government in 2006 was 53,400 in South Africa. The United States came in second, receiving 50,800 applications. UNHCR’s office in Kenya alone received 37,300 applications.

 

Globally, the vast majority of individual RSD applications are lodged with governments. Yet UNHCR’s RSD operations have been growing while government RSD systems are steadily shrinking. UNHCR offices received 15 percent of all individual RSD applications worldwide in 2006, compared to 7 percent in 2003.

 

In addition, there are at least seven others countries where  UNHCR and a government make refugee decisions jointly. These countries (including Ecuador, Burundi, and Israel) received 23,800 applications in 2006, compared to 4,900 in 2003.

 

In principle governments that ratify the Refugee Convention should set up their own RSD systems, rather than rely on UNHCR. Yet more RSDWatch’s analysis of the 2006 data indicates that more than 70 percent of new RSD applications to UNHCR were in countries that are parties to the Convention.

 

One of the challenges in developing an independent appeal system in UNHCR is the vast disparity in size of RSD operations at different UNHCR offices. There were only three UNHCR offices that received more than five thousand RSD applications in 2006 (Kenya, Malaysia and Egypt), and only 15 that received more than a thousand applications.

 

At the same time, at least 19 UNHCR field offices received fewer than 100 applications. More than two dozen other offices that did not report data accounted for just 3,185 applications combined.

 

 

 

 

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For more information, read: Where do these numbers come from?       

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