OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
The East and Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes (EHAGL) region currently hosts 5.3 million refugees and asylum seekers, as of the end of March 2024. In addition, a further 18.5 million people have been internally displaced in the region as a result conflicts and natural disasters. Some 123,000 refugees have been documented as having returned to their countries of origin in the first quarter of the year.
A year on from the start of the conflict in Sudan, the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate, with the numbers of displaced people increasing every week and spreading across the region and beyond. War-induced displacement now totals more than 8.5 million people, including 6.6 million newly displaced and at least 1.8 million refugees and returnees in neighboring countries, constituting a complex protection crisis and the largest humanitarian emergency in the world. area.
After the Horn of Africa experienced a long and devastating multi-year drought, the region is now facing the extreme effects of the El Niño phenomenon, with increased rainfall. Displaced people are still on the front lines of the climate emergency with limited resources for emergency response and recovery programs. IGAD’s Center for Climate Prediction and Implementation and World Meteorological Organization forecasts indicate above-normal conditions between October 2023 and April 2024 in most parts of the Greater Horn of Africa. This can contribute to further displacement, infrastructure damage, disease outbreaks, food insecurity and deaths. These weather conditions are expected to move inland into the Great Lakes region as well.
The region continues to face a challenging protection environment with protracted and ongoing conflicts and displacements that have led to mixed movements throughout the region and beyond. From January 2024, all new UNHCR multi-year country-level strategies will incorporate pathway-based activities in countries along the two key pathways identified for the region, including North Africa and through of the Central Mediterranean route to Europe.