UN Refugee Agencies

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organisation, meaning it was established by a legally binding written agreement between multiple states and has its own legal personality. One of its subsidiary agencies is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and this ‘works to ensure that everybody has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge, having fled violence, persecution or war at home’. It was established in 1950, and the headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland, though its thousands of staff work in 138 countries.

UNHCR provides support to all refugees, excluding Palestinian refugees. This group is defined as ‘persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict’. This time period begins with the British Foreign Secretary rejecting the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry’s recommendation for up to 100,000 European Jews to permanently resettle in Palestine following the upheaval of the Holocaust. It ends with the Israeli Declaration of Independence which created the Jewish State of Israel. The 1948 Palestine war was the first of the protracted conflicts between the Israelis and Arab Palestinians over the control of the region of Palestine, during which paramilitary groups carried out violent attacks that put civilians at risk. It is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) that provides support to those who meet the above definition, and to their descendants. It was established in 1949, and the headquarters are in Amman, Jordan and the Arab Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip.

In terms of how UNHCR and UNRWA actually provide support to refugees (including internally displaced people), a significant amount of this concerns their creation, regulation and management of refugee camps. Governments and non-governmental organisations also do similar work, so the combined total number of refugee camps worldwide is estimated to be around 700. These camps are intended to provide temporary accommodation (usually tents and plastic sheeting), food, education, and medical aid to refugees in rural areas. They are designed to ensure safety through factors such as fire prevention and sanitation, though protracted use and additional development can reduce the effectiveness of this. The UN, governments, and non-governmental organisations also provide similar support in urban areas (where approximately 78% of refugees are located), though the accommodation used is more likely to be pre-existing structures. The situation in urban areas is preferable as it can allow for a more normal life than camps, as the latter can cause issues such as aid dependency and isolation, so the creation of camps tends to be seen as a last resort.

After providing the short-term emergency support detailed above, long-term solutions are sought. This can include voluntary repatriation (returning home to the country of origin), resettlement (becoming a citizen in a different country), and integration (becoming a citizen in the host country). However, although UNHCR has a mandate to support refugees with achieving those long-term solutions, UNRWA does not.

We hope this article has provided an insight into how the UN supports refugees, and the importance of the organisation’s work.

https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/refugees

https://www.unhcr.org/what-we-do/respond-emergencies/shelter

https://www.unrwa.org/what-we-do/infrastructure-camp-improvement