Matthew Crentsil: A lone African seeks top UN refugee job

Since its founding in 1950, the UN Refugee Agency has largely been managed by Europeans. Matthew Crentsil, a Ghanaian national who runs the agency’s operation in Uganda, thinks it's time to look beyond. Centril, the only African candidate in the race to lead the United Nations’ premier refugee agency, said it may have made sense to rely on European leadership in an era when UNHCR was focused on resettling European refugees displaced by World War II. But it is now responding to the needs of nearly 40 million refugees spread across the globe, most of them beyond Europe’s borders. “It was logical then for it to be led by Europeans,” he told Devex. “But what do we see now? After 75 years, the context has completely changed. I mean, the burden is more on the global south,” he said. “So leadership should also reflect this change in dynamic, in context.” But his candidacy is seen as a long shot. The expectation among U.N. diplomats is that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister who led UNHCR for a decade, will turn to another European, most likely a national from a major donor to the refugee agency. Centril is campaigning on the basis that he is uniquely-suited for the job, having served in the refugee agency for 31 years, including stints in Geneva, Ethiopia, and Venezuela. The current high commissioner, Filippo Grandi, rose through the agency’s ranks to lead the organization. “You need a high commissioner who knows the ropes,” he said. The job, he noted, “requires somebody who has seen it, and I’ve worked in four continents.” But he faces a diverse slate of competitors, which includes the outgoing IKEA chief, the Paris mayor, a former Finnish prime minister, a Turkish diplomat, and senior ministers from Germany, Spain, and Switzerland. The contest is playing out against a backdrop of rising resentment towards refugees and shrinking financial support. U.S. foreign aid cuts forced UNHCR to lay off some 5,000 workers this year, on top of a budget that has shrunk by some $1.3 billion in 2025 over the previous year. Crentsil said UNHCR has to narrow its focus. Over the years, he said, UNHCR has evolved from an organization aimed at helping refugees transition from war in Europe to a provider of a vast array of services with operations in more than 130 countries. Faced with chronic crises, from protracted conflicts and climate change, and massive global refugee caseloads, the agency has struggled to repatriate or find permanent homes for the world’s refugees. “The emergency structure that we put in place when we are receiving refugees [is] supposed to be temporary,” he said. But they often “persist for years, decades.” “Over the years, we seem to have veered off a little bit, and for good reason,” he added, noting that refugees require an array of services, from housing, health care, and sanitation. “Refugees need some of everything, from health to protection to water and sanitation, livelihoods and all. But can we do everything for everybody all the time? We can’t.” When you go to a refugee camp and “you are informed of the millions of dollars that have been spent on that site over the past 10, 20 years, and you ask yourself, where did all that money go?” Crentsil suggests UNHCR needs to find “durable solutions” to the refugee crisis, including integration into the communities where they have sought refuge, and greater burden sharing by neighboring countries. “Regional resettlement is something that has not been probably explored very much. We have to look at that.” But Crentsil is noncommittal on the need for further cuts? He would consider it, he said, but he is not convinced UNHCR needs to get smaller. “We don't have to cut our nose to spite our face,” he said. “Already, we’ve cut staff by 5000,” added Crentsil, who oversees refugee matters in a country which currently hosts nearly 2 million refugees, a population he estimates could grow to 3 million by the end of the decade. “Do we need to go further or not?” “No one has got the magic wand to wave once and all of a sudden the 2 million refugees we wish them away,” he said. “They are here now. They need help. We need to support them.”