UNHCR Celebrates 60th Anniversary
Baku, December 14 (AZERTAC).The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees marks the 60th anniversary of its founding on December 14th. The UNHCR was organized in the aftermath of World War II. It was set up as a temporary agency to help about a million people displaced by the conflict in Europe. The agency was supposed to have completed its work within three years and then gone out of business. But, six decades later, the UNHCR is still assisting millions of refugees and internally displaced people.
That the UNHCR lurches from one refugee crisis to another is no cause for celebration. But, the fact that the agency has helped more than 50 million refugees rebuild their lives over the past 60 years is worth applauding. The UNHCR has received two Nobel peace prizes in recognition of the work it has done on behalf of some of the most bereft people in the world. The world is far more complicated now than when the UNHCR was created 60 years ago. Wars between nations have largely given way to civil conflicts. This change is reflected in the numbers.
Sixty years ago, the UN refugee agency had 30 staff members and a budget of $300,000 to assist about one million European refugees. It now has a staff of 7,000 and a budget of more than $3 billion. It operates in 120 countries and assists over 30 million refugees, internally displaced and stateless people. Today, humanitarian workers face many dangers. Deputy High Commissioner Alexander Aleinikoff says rebel groups often do not respect the neutrality and humanitarian nature of their work. He says UNHCR aid workers have been kidnapped and even murdered in the line of duty.
"So, in that way we are becoming…more focused on the safety of our workers. But, more importantly or as important is our ability to have access to the people we want to help, to people of concern to UNHCR. As humanitarian space shrinks, our ability to do our work shrinks with it," said Aleinikoff. The principles of protection and asylum are under increasing threat today. More and more industrialized countries are putting up barriers to asylum, often turning away people in genuine need of international protection. The UNHCR says this violates its essential creed. It was created to safeguard the rights of people fleeing from persecution and abuse. But, that is becoming ever more difficult to do as new challenges appear and people flee for different reasons.
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