Page:Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community Unclassified 2016.pdf/19

 UN. Emerging diseases against which humans have no preexisting immunity or effective therapies pose significant risks of becoming pandemics.

Atrocities and Instability
Risks of atrocities, large-scale violence, and regime-threatening instability will remain elevated in 2016. A vicious cycle of conflict resulting from weak governance, the rise of violent non-state actors, insufficient international capacity to respond to these complex challenges, and an increase in global migration all contribute to global security risks. Weak global growth, particularly resulting from the cascading effect of slower Chinese growth that will hurt commodity exporters, will also exacerbate risk.


 * Regional spillover will probably spread. For example, the long-term impact of civil war in Syria is reinforcing sectarian differences in Iraq, and the flight of Syrians to Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon, and then onward to Europe is sowing regional tensions and straining national governments.
 * As of 2015, the central governments of seven states are unable to project authority and provide goods and services throughout at least 50 percent of their respective territory; this number is the largest at any point in the past 60 years.
 * The risk of waning support for universal human rights norms is increasing as authoritarian regimes push back against human rights in practice and in principle.

Global Displacement
Europe will almost certainly continue to face record levels of arriving refugees and other migrants in 2016 unless the drivers causing this historic movement toward the continent change significantly in 2016, which we judge is unlikely. Migration and displacement will also probably be an issue within Asia and Africa as well as the Americas. In total, about 60 million people are displaced worldwide, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). These 60 million consist of approximately 20 million refugees, 38 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), and approximately 2 million stateless persons, also according to UNHCR statistics.


 * Wars, weak border controls, and relatively easy and affordable access to routes and information are driving this historic increase in mobility and displacement.

The growing scope and scale of human displacement will probably continue to strain the response capacity of the international community and drive a record level of humanitarian requests. At the same time, host and transit countries will struggle to develop effective responses and, in some cases, manage domestic fears of terrorists exploiting migrant flows after the Paris attacks in November 2015.


 * In 2015, the UN received less than half of its requested funding for global assistance, suggesting that the UN’s 2016 request is also likely to be underfunded.