Chapter 4
Figure 16 | Asylum applications registered by region
2.5
(in millions)
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2016
2017
East and Horn of Africa
Southern Africa
West and Central Africa
Asia and Pacific
Europe (incl. Turkey)
Middle East/North Africa
Given the vast numbers of individuals fleeing
violence and persecution who seek international
protection, the process of determining whether
a person receives protective status is crucial.
Under the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR),
an Asylum Capacity Support Group (ACSG)
mechanism is to be established to provide support
to the concerned national authorities to strengthen
their asylum systems with a view of increasing
their efficiency, fairness, adaptability and integrity.
This special initiative introduced in the GCR will
bring more coherence and consistency to asylum
capacity support by matching support offers with
needs. This mechanism will help States adapt their
asylum systems to major changes in the world,
from climate change to COVID-19.
More than 16.2 million asylum applications were
registered in the last decade. However, they do
not represent the totality of persons who fled their
country, neither were they equally distributed across
38
2015
2018
2019
Americas
the seven major regions, as seen in Figure 16.
Europe registered 9.2 million asylum claims, the
Americas 3.4 million and the three regions in subSaharan Africa a combined two million. Asia and
Pacific recorded almost one million claims and
the Middle East and North Africa region about
633,000 individual asylum applications.
AFRICA
From 2008 until 2012, South Africa received
the largest number of new asylum applications
worldwide, registering 800,000 new asylum
claims, mostly from Zimbabweans. The three
regions in sub-Saharan Africa registered a total
of two million individual asylum claims during
the past decade – representing only a fraction
of the overall number of refugees who sought
international protection across the continent as
many more were granted refugee status on a
prima facie basis.
UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2019