Chad Humanitarian Update September 2023

UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, visits Chad

From 5 to 8 September the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, visited Chad accompanied by the World Bank’s Managing Director Anna Bjerde. The same week Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations in New York, also visited the country. The visit of Mr. Grandi provided the opportunity for him to see the extent of the impact of the Sudanese crisis on Chad with the massive influx of Sudanese refugees. Since the outbreak of the crisis on 15 April, more than 420,000 refugees and 67,000 Chadian returnees have arrived in the provinces of Ouaddaï, Wadi-Fira and Sila in eastern Chad. Over 176,000 refugees who arrived in Adré (a Chadian town located on the border with Sudan) have now been relocated although over 240 000 remain in the town and need moving to new and existing refugee camps further from the border.

The Chadian government and UNHCR estimate that 600,000 refugees and returnees could arrive by the end of the year. With around 580,000 former refugees already in the country, Chad now hosts more than one million refugees on its soil, as of 30 September 2023. With the new arrivals from Sudan, the number of refugees has almost doubled with about one in 17 people in Chad now being a refugee.

The High Commissioner came to thank Chad for its hospitality and identify actions to help scale up the response to meet the growing needs of these refugees.

During the mission, he met with the President and other members of the government as well as the humanitarian community and the affected people in Chad. "The solidarity of the Chadian people with the refugees is extraordinary and the authorities have spared no effort to welcome the refugees, despite the very limited resources and many other challenges facing Chad. The international community, including development actors, must redouble its efforts to help them," said Grandi, in a UNHCR’s press release.

The fact that the High Commissioner’s visit was conducted with the Managing Director of the World Bank underlined that, while continuing to ensure a multi-sectoral humanitarian response to the needs of refugees, returnees and host populations remains the priority, it is also important to address the socioeconomic development of affected communities. The crisis response approach in eastern Chad includes humanitarian and development actors working together to ensure the resilience of all affected populations is strengthened. Indeed, as part of its mission, the World Bank announced a series of grants amounting to $340 million for Chad including emergency cash transfers that provide economic support to refugee households as well as host populations. The World Bank support will also facilitate access to education and health services through the PARCA project (Refugee and Host Communities Support Project) to help 70,000 families.

Over 5.2 million people targeted in the revised Humanitarian Response Plan for 2023

In September, humanitarian partners in Chad published the revised 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP).
The original HRP that was launched in April included 6.9 million people in need and targeted 4.4 million of the most vulnerable for assistance, for a total of $674.9 million. In view of the increased needs in eastern Chad since April because of the Sudan crisis and the displacement of 25,000 people in the south of Chad after inter-communal violence in April and May, it was necessary to revise the original HRP.

The revised 2023 HRP increases the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Chad to 7.6 million, of which 5.2 million people are now targeted for assistance. Humanitarian organizations now require $920.6 million to respond to the identified needs of targeted people, an increase of $245.7 million. However, by the end of September, only 26% of the financial requirements had been met. According to an up-date report released by OCHA, in the first six months of the year, humanitarian partners have been able to assist 1.1 million people out of the 4.4 million targeted (or 25%). Underfunding has prevented aid from reaching millions of already vulnerable people.

In the remaining months of the year humanitarian partners will focus on mobilizing resources to augment assistance and increase the prioritization of aid so that the most vulnerable populations receive assistance. In October, a joint Humanitarian Country Team and Government of Chad donor mission is planned to Geneva to mobilise more resources for the humanitarian response in Chad.

Looking ahead, in September, the 2024 Humanitarian Programming Cycle (HPC) process was also begun, with provincial needs assessment workshops scheduled for October 2023. The HPC is an important data collection step that will lead to the development of the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) as the basis for the 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP).