4,475 Appeals Clear as UNHCR Steps in After RAASA Funding Cuts

(SOUTH AFRICA) — RAASA funding cuts worsened South Africa’s asylum seeker appeals backlog in 2025, when officials finalised only 4,475 appeals, extending delays in a system that had already been carrying a large stock of pending cases.

The decline in output came after an earlier backlog-clearing effort lost momentum despite outside support. March 2024 reporting cited 113,689 appeals waiting in the system, a figure that showed how far the appeals body still had to go.

Those numbers have sharpened criticism of the appeals structure inside the Department of Home Affairs. Critics say RAASA funding cuts left the body without a sustainable plan to handle both old cases and new asylum applications.

UNHCR funding played a central role in the earlier attempt to reduce the pileup. In 2021, UNHCR funding of R147 million was provided to help clear the asylum appeal backlog, with the project originally expected to eliminate the cases within 4 years.

By 2024, that target was already out of reach. The Democratic Alliance said the backlog project had processed only 10,890 files, and many of those had not yet been finalised.

Staffing also fell away. Of the original 30 RAASA staff recruited with the funding, only 10 reportedly remained by that stage.

The lower staffing numbers and slower file movement fed directly into the worsening appeal logjam. Then came the 2025 figure: just 4,475 appeals finalised, a pace that reinforced concerns that the system’s processing capacity had weakened rather than improved.

The backlog’s scale matters because an appeal is not a minor administrative step for the people waiting on it. Prior reporting linked the delays to long periods of legal and personal uncertainty, with refugees waiting up to 10 years for a final decision.

That waiting period has become one of the clearest measures of the system’s strain. A project built around R147 million in UNHCR funding and a 4-year timeline was meant to reduce a heavy inherited caseload; instead, the figures show a body still struggling to convert processed files into final outcomes.

The gap between files handled and appeals concluded is stark. By 2024, the project had processed 10,890 files, many still unfinished, and in 2025 the system recorded only 4,475 appeals finalised, a result that underscored how thin the operational margin had become.

Political criticism has focused on structure as much as funding. RAASA, housed within the Department of Home Affairs, faces complaints that it lacks a stable model to finance backlog reduction while also absorbing new cases entering the asylum system.

That criticism reflects the arithmetic confronting the institution. A backlog of 113,689 appeals, staffing that reportedly fell from 30 to 10 on the funded project, and annual completions of 4,475 in 2025 do not point to a body catching up.

Earlier efforts to clear the caseload had been underway before the latest decline, but progress remained limited. The available figures suggest that even after special funding was injected, the appeals body did not sustain the level of staffing or finalisation needed to erase the stock of pending matters.

The term RAASA funding cuts has now become shorthand for a wider failure in case management. The problem is not simply that fewer appeals moved through in one year; it is that the reduction came after a backlog project had already consumed substantial time and money without reaching its stated goal.

UNHCR funding was intended to change that trajectory. The R147 million allocation in 2021 created a backlog-clearing project that, on paper, promised a finite end point within 4 years, but by 2024 the number of files processed and the drop in staff suggested an operation losing force before completion.

The effects reach beyond monthly administrative statistics. Long wait times shape access to final decisions, and prior reporting that some refugees spend up to 10 years in limbo places the appeals backlog at the center of South Africa’s asylum process.

Numbers from the past two years also show how difficult it has been to convert project activity into completed appeals. Processing 10,890 files by 2024 sounded like movement, yet many were not finalised, and the later total of 4,475 appeals finalised in 2025 pointed to a system still falling short at the last stage.

Staff attrition appears central to that slowdown. A project that started with 30 recruited staff and reportedly retained only 10 by 2024 would have faced obvious pressure on hearings, file review and completion rates.

Critics have tied that attrition directly to the absence of a sustainable funding plan. Their argument is that backlog work cannot depend on a temporary injection alone if the institution must also keep pace with new asylum appeals entering the system.

The 113,689 appeal backlog cited in March 2024 gives scale to that challenge. Even before the latest annual finalisation figure, RAASA was dealing with a queue large enough to make every staffing loss and funding cut more damaging.

South Africa’s asylum appeal system now faces a familiar problem in sharper form: a large inherited caseload, fewer staff on a funded project, and a finalisation rate of 4,475 appeals in 2025. For people waiting on decisions, that combination has already meant years of delay, and prior reporting shows some have waited as long as 10 years.