Applications to UNHCR RSD systems declined in 2008



UNHCR reported receiving 70,727 individual refugee status determination applications in 2008, the third straight year of decline but still more than UNHCR received five years ago.

In 2008, UNHCR was the second largest decision-maker in RSD worldwide, with South Africa receiving 207,206 applications, or 25 percent of all individual asylum claims worldwide. With more than half of its asylum claims coming from Zimbabwe, South Africa dwarfed all other RSD systems.

UNHCR’s RSD operations represented 8.5 percent of all RSD applications worldwide, or 11.4 percent of applications filed outside South Africa.

The Big 15

UNHCR reported RSD statistics for 54 of its field offices for 2008, but its RSD operations are concentrated in a relatively small number of offices in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The fifteen largest UNHCR RSD offices accounted for 92 percent of all of the agency’s RSD applications in 2008, and only 11 received more than 1000 applications.

UNHCR’s office in Malaysia received 17,039 applications, more than the asylum system of Switzerland, while UNHCR’s office in Burundi received just one application.

UNHCR’s Largest RSD Operations

(by number of applications, 2008)