“We are at a watershed, where success in managing forced displacement globally requires a new and far more comprehensive approach so that countries and communities aren’t left dealing with this alone.” Filippo Grandi United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Chapter 1 Introduction Multiple ongoing displacement crises and several new ones characterized 2017. As a result, the global population of forcibly displaced people increased to 68.5 million, compared with 65.6 million in 2016. Significant new displacement, affecting millions of people, was seen in particular from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Myanmar as well as continuing displacement due to the Syrian crisis. The past decade has seen substantial growth in the global population of forcibly displaced people. In 2007, this population numbered 42.7 million; over the last 10 years, this figure has increased by over 50 per cent [Figure 1].4 Today 1 out of every 110 people in the world is displaced, compared with 1 in 157 a decade ago, with much of this increase having occurred over the last five years. 5 While the Syrian conflict contributed significantly to this increase, there have been other major displacements throughout the world over the last five years, notably in and from Burundi, Central African Republic, the DRC, Iraq, Myanmar, South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine, and Yemen. 4 These included 25.4 million refugees: 19.9 million under UNHCR’s mandate and 5.4 million Palestinian refugees registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The global figure also included 40.0 million internally displaced persons (source: IDMC) and 3.1 million individuals whose asylum applications had not yet been adjudicated by the end of the reporting period. 5 The annual rate of change of the population of forcibly displaced in the first five years of the last decade was -0.09 per cent, while for the last five years it was 9.5 per cent per year on average. 4 unhcr > Global trends 2017