117.8 million and falling: what the first drop in forced displacement in a decade means for Africa

Updating a widely shared chart from 123.2 million (2024) to the latest UNHCR data for 2025.

By Quantec Insight

Draft. This piece is still being reviewed and may be revised before it is finalised.

A decade of relentless growth

At the end of 2014, UNHCR counted 59.5 million people forced from their homes by persecution, conflict, violence and human rights violations (UNHCR, Global Trends 2014). Ten years later, that figure stood at 123.2 million, a more than twofold increase (UNHCR, Global Trends 2024). The growth did not come in a smooth line: the single sharpest jump arrived in 2022, when Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine pushed the number of refugees under UNHCR's mandate from 21.3 million to 29.4 million in one year (UNHCR Refugee Data Finder). Internal displacement drove the rest of the curve, with the number of people displaced inside their own countries by conflict climbing from 38.2 million in 2014 to 73.5 million by the end of 2024 (IDMC). For anyone planning humanitarian budgets, host-country services or development finance, the lesson of that decade was simple: every year brought a larger caseload than the last.

2025 broke the pattern

The UNHCR Global Trends 2025 report, released on 11 June 2026, records the first decline in global forced displacement in a decade. At the end of 2025, 117.8 million people remained forcibly displaced, 5.4 million fewer than a year earlier and a 4 per cent fall (UNHCR, Global Trends 2025). The drop follows directly from returns: 14.7 million people went back to their countries or areas of origin during the year, including nearly 4.4 million refugees and 10.3 million internally displaced people. Refugee returns reached the second-highest level since UNHCR began reporting return statistics in 1965. Even so, the total still equals one in every 70 people on Earth.

The composition of the 2025 figure matters as much as the headline. Internally displaced people account for 68.7 million, or 58 per cent of the total, a 7 per cent decrease on 2024 (UNHCR, Global Trends 2025). Refugees under UNHCR's mandate, people in refugee-like situations and other people in need of international protection together number 35.6 million, while a further 6 million Palestine refugees fall under UNRWA's mandate. Asylum-seekers moved in the opposite direction, growing by 645,300 to almost 9 million, because new claims outpaced decisions. For national asylum systems, that growing backlog signals rising administrative pressure even as the overall total falls.

A decline built on fragile returns

A falling total does not automatically mean improving conditions, and UNHCR states this plainly. The agency reports that most 2025 returns “occurred under adverse circumstances or to extremely fragile contexts” (UNHCR, Global Trends 2025). Afghan refugees were often compelled to return after host countries changed their policies, and over 90 per cent of refugee returns went to just three countries: Afghanistan (1.9 million), Syria (1.3 million) and Sudan (651,500). In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, nearly 3.6 million IDPs returned after the armed group M23 took control of Goma and forced the closure of displacement settlements around the city. These figures describe people moving back into damaged housing, weak services and continuing insecurity, which makes reintegration financing the real test of whether the 2025 decline holds.

New flight also continued at scale. Almost 5.4 million people fled to other countries during 2025, led by Sudan (952,700), Ukraine (788,100), Venezuela (455,300), South Sudan (232,800) and Burkina Faso (221,300) (UNHCR, Global Trends 2025). Half of the eight leading countries of origin that year were African: Sudan, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and Mali (177,200). At the same time, resettlement, the main safety valve for the most vulnerable refugees, collapsed by more than half to 81,800 arrivals, with fewer arrivals in major resettlement countries, particularly the United States. UNHCR had estimated that 2.9 million refugees needed resettlement in 2025, so the gap between need and places widened sharply.

Africa sits at the centre of the story

Sub-Saharan Africa carries a disproportionate share of the global burden. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reports that 31.7 million people lived in internal displacement across the region at the end of 2025, nearly 40 per cent of the global total (IDMC, Global Report on Internal Displacement 2026). The region also recorded 14.5 million new conflict displacements during the year, the highest figure on record for sub-Saharan Africa, with the DRC alone accounting for 9.7 million movements. Sudan remained the world's largest internal displacement crisis, with 9.1 million people displaced inside the country, while the number of Sudanese refugees rose 35 per cent to 2.8 million (UNHCR, Global Trends 2025). This concentration means that any gain or loss in African stability moves the global numbers directly.

African states also carry much of the hosting responsibility. Uganda (1.9 million) and Chad (1.5 million) rank among the seven largest hosts of refugees and other people in need of international protection worldwide, alongside Colombia, Germany, Türkiye, Iran and Pakistan (UNHCR, Global Trends 2025). Globally, 65 per cent of refugees live in countries neighbouring their own, and low- and middle-income countries host 68 per cent of refugees and others in need of international protection. Chad illustrates the strain: in July 2025 UNHCR reported that funding cuts had forced it to pause the relocation of new arrivals from border areas to safer locations in Chad and South Sudan, leaving thousands stranded (UNHCR briefing, 18 July 2025). Hosting at this scale draws down water, land, health and education capacity in some of the world's poorest districts.

The funding shock

The humanitarian financing base weakened just as returns accelerated. In July 2025, UNHCR warned that up to 11.6 million refugees and other forcibly displaced people risked losing direct assistance that year, roughly one-third of those it reached in 2024 (UNHCR briefing, 18 July 2025). The agency reported that $1.4 billion in essential programmes were being cut or put on hold, and that financial aid and the delivery of emergency relief items had been cut by 60 per cent globally. In South Sudan, 75 per cent of UNHCR-supported safe spaces for women and girls closed, leaving up to 80,000 refugee women and girls without access to medical care, psychosocial support and legal aid. In Uganda, malnutrition rates rose in some reception centres. For African host governments, these cuts shift costs onto national budgets and local communities at the worst possible moment.

From aid dependency to inclusion: what works

The policy response is moving from parallel camp systems towards inclusion in national services, and Kenya offers a live case. On 28 March 2025, President William Ruto launched the Shirika Plan, an eleven-year programme (2025–2036) with an estimated budget of $943 million to convert the Dadaab and Kakuma camps into integrated settlements shared by refugees and host communities (Kenya Department of Refugee Services). Kenya hosted 836,907 refugees and asylum-seekers as of February 2025, including 423,674 in Dadaab and 302,372 in Kakuma. The plan builds on the Refugees Act of 2021 and, according to the President's launch speech, more than 70,000 refugees had already enrolled in universal health coverage under the Social Health Insurance Fund. By bringing refugees into national health, education and financial systems, Shirika anchors host-community development in the Global Compact on Refugees, and its inclusion model speaks directly to Sustainable Development Goal target 10.7 on safe, orderly and regular migration.

UNHCR's new leadership has now set a measurable target around this model. Launching the 2025 report, High Commissioner Barham Salih called for cutting by more than half, over the next decade, the number of refugees in long-term displacement who rely on humanitarian assistance, noting that 70 per cent of refugees are trapped in exile for years (UNHCR press release, 11 June 2026). The strategy rests on three pillars: voluntary return as the primary solution, inclusion of refugees in national education, health, financial and labour systems, and expanded pathways abroad such as resettlement, family reunion, work permits and scholarships. Its benchmark is concrete: refugees' self-earned income should reach the national poverty line in the country where they live. For African hosts, that target turns refugee policy into labour-market and local-economic-development policy, linked directly to SDG 1 on poverty and SDG 8 on decent work.

What to watch in 2026

The 2025 decline may prove short-lived. UNHCR reports that the war in the Middle East that began in February 2026 had displaced an estimated 1 million people inside Lebanon by mid-May 2026, with 3.2 million people temporarily displaced in Iran as of the end of March 2026 (UNHCR press release, 11 June 2026). IDMC also recorded a record 32.3 million conflict-related internal displacement movements worldwide in 2025, a sign that the drivers of flight have not eased (IDMC, GRID 2026). Stateless populations grew 3 per cent to an estimated 4.5 million, even as nearly 46,000 stateless people acquired citizenship in 24 countries. For practitioners and investors in Africa, the priorities are clear: finance reintegration where people are returning, fund host-country inclusion where they are staying, and close the protection gaps that funding cuts opened in 2025.

Key takeaways

• 117.8 million people were forcibly displaced at end-2025, down from 123.2 million, the first decline in a decade.
• 14.7 million returns drove the fall, but many took place under pressure and into fragile conditions.
• Resettlement fell by more than half to 81,800, against an estimated 2.9 million people in need.
• Sub-Saharan Africa holds nearly 40 per cent of the world's internally displaced people, and Sudan remains the largest internal displacement crisis.
• Inclusion models such as Kenya's Shirika Plan show how host countries can turn humanitarian caseloads into development planning.

Data table (Figure 1, millions, end of year)

Notes: The series follows UNHCR's current revised chart values, so some earlier years differ slightly from the headlines first published (for example, 117.3 million was reported for end-2023). “Refugees (UNHCR)” includes people in refugee-like situations. Internally displaced figures come from IDMC; Gaza IDPs who are also UNRWA-registered refugees are counted once, under UNRWA, which is why this column is lower than IDMC's published conflict-IDP total (68.7 million in 2025). 2014–2015 values are from Global Trends 2014 and 2015; “others in need of international protection” was not reported as a separate category before 2018.

Sources

• UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2025 (11 June 2026) – unhcr.org/global-trends
• UNHCR press release, “With 7 in 10 refugees living in long-term displacement, UNHCR chief calls for renewed push for solutions” (11 June 2026)
• UNHCR, Figures at a Glance (updated 11 June 2026) and Refugee Data Finder – unhcr.org/refugee-statistics
• UNHCR, Global Trends 2024; Global Trends 2015; Global Trends 2014
• UNHCR, Mid-Year Trends 2025 (4 November 2025)
• UNHCR briefing note, “As funding cuts bite, some 11m people are losing aid” (18 July 2025)
• Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), Global Report on Internal Displacement 2026 (12 May 2026)
• Government of Kenya, Department of Refugee Services, “Government Launches Shirika Plan” (28 March 2025) and President William Ruto's launch speech
• UNHCR press release, “UNHCR's Grandi hails launch of Kenya's landmark refugee inclusion plan” (28 March 2025)

Acknowledgement: this piece was prepared and reviewed by the Quantec Insight team.