The UN Secretary-General is now in Bangladesh for a high profile visit that will also act as an endorsement of the job the interim government is doing towards steadying the ship in Bangladesh, since the job fell to it in the aftermath of the Uprising last year It is also hoped that the trip can help refocus global attention on the Rohingya crisis, which has been falling off the radar on the international community's list of priorities in the last 2-3 years.

The 2024 Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya refugee response was in the end just 56 percent funded as of December 31, 2024, with USD 475.6 million received against the overall appeal of USD 852.4 million. Since the onset of the crisis in August 2017, donors have contributed nearly USD 4.7 billion to successive JRPs, amounting to 68 percent of the total financial requirements for that period. The 2025 JRP seeks USD 900.9 million. This funding aims to assist nearly 1.1 million Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar and Bhasan Char, along with around 392,000 vulnerable members of the host community in Cox's Bazar.

Alongside that, there needs to be added impetus on the question of repatriating them, and this is still the ultimate solution we need to get to. The worsening security and protection environment, combined with an increasing refugee population and limited access to livelihoods, places a significant strain on the host community while keeping the refugees themselves in limbo. The government wants nothing more than an early resolution of the Rohingya crisis so that they can return to their place of origin in Myanmar's Rakhine State with safety and dignity. It is a top priority of the interim government, the chief adviser's press secretary said this week.

The UN chief will have a bilateral meeting with Dr Yunus before they together travel to Cox's Bazar to visit the Rohingya camp. Without urgent new funding, monthly rations must be halved to USD 6 per person, down from USD 12.50 per person - just as refugees prepare to observe Eid, said the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) recently.

The World Food Programme warned of a critical funding shortfall for its emergency response operations in Bangladesh recently, jeopardising food assistance for over one million Rohingya refugees. All Rohingyas receive vouchers that are redeemed for their choice of food at designated retailers in the camps. To sustain full rations, WFP urgently requires USD 15 million for April.

The interim government is hopeful that the visit will also be helpful for mobilising global support ahead of a UN-sponsored international conference on the Rohingya crisis - to be held in September. Finland and Malaysia have joined as co-sponsors of the event. With calls for the interim government to announce a date for the next election ratcheting up on the home front, it is unlikely that it can oversee the resolution of the crisis, which may still take years. Yet Dr Yunus would no doubt like to leave the issue in a better state than he inherited it, and the visit of Guterres presents his best chance of doing that.