As Filippo Grandi prepares to step down after ten years at the helm, a high-stakes battle begins to lead the UN refugee agency through financial turmoil, growing political tensions and soaring global displacement.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, is heading for a reckoning, as it faces its deepest funding crisis yet and growing political backlash against its raison d’être – the asylum system. At the centre of it stands high commissioner Filippo Grandi, who is stepping down at the end of the year. After a turbulent decade in the role where the number of forcibly displaced people rose to 122 million, the Italian diplomat leaves behind an organisation that must now fight to stay relevant – and viable.

Like the wider UN system, the UNHCR is bracing for a 20 per cent budget cut next year. Speaking at the agency’s annual executive committee in Geneva last week, Grandi confirmed that some 5,000 posts have already been slashed, including in Geneva, as the agency struggles to cover even half of its 2025 budget.

His departure has drawn an eclectic mix of seasoned diplomats, political heavyweights and a few outsiders hoping to succeed him and shake things up. The final call rests with UN secretary general António Guterres, a former UN refugee chief himself, who is expected to recommend his pick to the General Assembly by the end of this year.

For onlookers attending the executive meeting, one thing is clear – whoever gets the job must have the skills to ensure the survival of the 75-year-old organisation amid constrained resources and an increasingly hostile political climate.

A crowded race

Europeans predictably dominate the race, with at least eight applicants coming from the region. The odds play in their favour – nearly all of the UNHCR’s 11 past leaders have been from western nations, though the sheer number of contenders also suggests a lack of coordination. Among the early frontrunners are Germany’s Niels Annen and Switzerland’s Christine Schraner Burgener, both seasoned political figures from major donor states.

Berlin was first to move in September of last year when it nominated Annen, a veteran social democrat politician and state secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, which oversees Germany’s humanitarian aid portfolio, including funding to agencies like the UNHCR. Since the Trump administration’s funding halt, Germany has become the UNHCR’s single largest donor. In today’s funding climate, that fact and the prospects of further financial support carry weight.

Soon after, Switzerland followed suit, putting forward Schraner Burgener, its former state secretary for migration, who helped steer her country’s response to the influx of Ukrainian refugees in 2022. She has also served as UN special envoy for Myanmar and as Swiss ambassador in Thailand and Germany.

If elected, she would become the third Swiss diplomat to hold the position, and the first woman. “Switzerland has a good reputation when it comes to the functioning of its asylum system. It’s considered principled but pragmatic,” said Alexander Weidmer, policy advisor for multilateral humanitarian affairs at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation – traits that might appeal to UN member states amid efforts to balance the books and reform.

While far behind Germany and other major economies, Switzerland is also among the agency’s top donors. As the host country for its headquarters, it also has a personal stake in preserving it.

Matthew Kwesi Crentsil, the UNHCR representative in Uganda since 2022, is another candidate offering a different perspective. With over three decades of experience working for the organisation, the Ghana national is a UN insider, like Grandi who had previously headed the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA.

An African refugee chief would also be historic. “It would be good that we experience a change,” said Farama J Bangura, migration focal point at Sierra Leone’s National Commission for Social Action, on the sidelines of the Geneva meeting. Bangura noted that his country and region had been hit hard by the aid cuts, both on the ground where projects had been disrupted, but also at the international level. The UNHCR had to halve its support for governments like his to be able to attend this year’s gathering, he said.

An official from an NGO working closely with the UNHCR in Africa, speaking anonymously, echoed support for a high commissioner who understood the continent that hosts some of the world’s largest displacement crises.

Other contenders include the Turkish ambassador to the UN in New York, Ahmet Yildiz, the former president of Iraq, Barham Salih, and Spain’s former foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, who has held roles at the World Trade Organization and at the UN.

Other candidates with less traditional CVs have also thrown their hats in the ring. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has been actively campaigning for months, but the Socialist politician hasn’t exactly won over the international Geneva crowd, let alone her own government. In a surprise late entry, Sweden nominated outgoing Ikea chief executive officer Jesper Brodin, arguing that the UN system needs “someone who knows how to keep hold of the purse strings and deliver efficient operations”.

Poland’s parliament speaker, Szymon Holownia, Belgium’s former state secretary for asylum and migration, Nicole de Moor, and Finland’s ex-foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, are also in the mix.

Fighting for relevance

Whoever takes the helm will inherit steep budget cuts and dwindling donor support, which is essential for an agency nearly entirely reliant on voluntary donations. In 2026, the agency will have to operate with $8.5bn – 20 per cent less than this year – alongside 4,000 fewer posts and several field offices closed.

Appetite for flexible funding has also shrunk this year despite calls to avoid further restricting the agency’s ability to allocate resources as needed. The next pledging conference in December will be a test of how much discretion the next high commissioner will actually have.

Observers say the new leader will likely have to refocus the agency on its core mission – advocating for the international refugee protection system – while leaving the field work to local NGOs and institutions. “The UNHCR should avoid providing help directly beyond emergencies, but rather play a catalytic role and support national systems,” says Wiedmer.

That shift is already underway. “The UNHCR already carries out 80 per cent of its work through its implementing partners,” says Guillaume Charron, Independent Diplomat’s Geneva director. “But there needs to be more visibility of those doing the work.”

The deeper question, according to Charron, is whether the UNHCR can stay relevant even as its influence wanes. Speaking in Geneva, Grandi warned of arrangements “not consistent with international law”, expressing worry about debates in Europe and deportation practices in the US. “My plea to you is: when you decide to explore such arrangements, consult with us. Engage us,” he urged member states.

Call for clarity

Refugee-led organisations have also taken action to make sure their voices are heard. “The UNHCR needs someone who will manage the organisation in a proper way – but also who will stand up to anti-refugee sentiment arising across the world,” says Mustafa Alio, co-managing director at Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table (R-SEAT). The refugee-led organisation hosted a panel with nominees from Germany, Switzerland, France, Turkey and Ghana on the fringes of the UN General Assembly last month in New York and is planning a second round in Geneva.

“This is the first time that such a conversation is organised,” Alio says, noting that refugee actors deserve to know each candidate’s vision for the agency, and whatever it may be, that it is at least clearly stated.

Among the solutions increasingly debated is the so-called route-based approach, promoted by the UNHCR along with the International Organization for Migration. The idea is to manage mixed migration and refugee flows along migration routes by providing information, services and protection. But sceptics worry that it risks turning transit countries into buffer zones designed to contain migration before it reaches wealthy countries in the north.

For Alio, the uncertainty itself is a problem. “We hear a lot of conversations – on challenging the asylum system, revisiting the Refugee Convention, shrinking places of resettlement, volunteer repatriation, or on solutions to the financial crisis like localisation and route-based approaches. But what does that mean in practice?” he says. “It might be distressing conversations for a lot of actors in the UNHCR space, but for refugees, this is a matter of life or death.”