Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio (R) meets Iraqi President Barham Salih (L) during the mission to Baghdad, Iraq, 23 December 2021. Di Maio is on a two-day visit to Kuwait and Iraq to meet with officials and visit the Italian contingents at the Kuwait's Al Salem and Erbil's Camp Singara bases as well as the Italian soldiers of the NATO/CJTF contingent in Baghdad. EPA/ANGELO CARCONI
The letter, signed by U.N. Chief Antonio Guterres and dated December 11, says Salih has been appointed for a five-year term beginning January 1.
He replaces Italy's Filippo Grandi, a veteran U.N. official, who has held the position since 2016. The appointment is provisional and needs to be approved by UNHCR's Executive Committee, the document showed.
Salih, a British-educated engineer from Iraq's Kurdish region, faces major challenges with global displacement at record highs and about double the levels it was when Grandi first began.
In parallel, funding has fallen this year as key donors like the United States have cut back and other Western donors have shifted funds to defence.
About a dozen candidates were competing for the role, including several politicians as well as an IKEA executive, an ER doctor and a TV personality. More than half of them were from Europe, in keeping with a tradition of the Geneva-based agency's chief coming from top donor states.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; additional reporting by Muayad Hameed in Baghdad; editing by Friederike Heine and Thomas Seythal)