United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has 20,305 staff working in 136 countries as of December 2023.
Background
The League of Nations, founded in January 1920, was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. The following year it established the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, appointing Norwegian scientist Fridtjof Nansen as the first to hold the post.After Nansen’s death in 1930, the Nansen International Office for Refugees continued his work. This Office was replaced in 1938 by the appointment of a High Commissioner for Refugees. As refugees fled Nazi Germany, the League of Nations appointed James McDonald as High Commissioner for Refugees Coming from Germany. Facing strict global immigration limits, he helped resettle more than 80,000 refugees, mainly to Palestine. In 1935, McDonald resigned in protest at the League’s failure to act against the persecution of Jews under the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped them of citizenship and basic rights. His office was replaced in 1938 by a new High Commissioner for Refugees. Its role was very limited and ended in 1946.
History
After the second world war: Europe
After the dissolution of the League of Nations and the creation of the United Nations, the international community faced an acute refugee crisis in the aftermath of World War II. To address this, the Allies established the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in 1944, tasked with supporting millions of displaced people across Europe. In 1946, this work was expanded through the creation of the International Refugee Organization, the first international agency to comprehensively address all aspects of refugees' lives.In the late 1940s, the IRO fell out of favour, but the UN agreed that a body was required to oversee global refugee issues. After a series of extensive debates in the United Nations General Assembly, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established in December 1949 by Resolution 319 as a subsidiary organ of the Assembly. However, the organisation was only intended to operate for 3 years from January 1951, due to the disagreement of many UN member states over the implications of a permanent body.
UNHCR's mandate was originally set out in its statute, annexed to resolution 428 of the General Assembly of 1950. According to UNHCR, its mandate is to provide, on a non-political and humanitarian basis, international protection to refugees and to seek permanent solutions for them. This mandate has been subsequently broadened by numerous resolutions of the General Assembly and its Economic and Social Council. People who were already receiving assistance from other organs of the United Nations, such as UNKRA and UNRWA, were excluded from UNHCR’s mandate.
In addition to establishing UNHCR, governments also adopted the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, that defines who is a refugee and standards for the treatment for those fulfilling this definition. To this day, the Convention remains the foundation of international refugee law and established the legal framework and scope of UNHCR’s work, which initially focused on Europeans displaced by the war.
Global
Soon after the signing of the convention, it became clear that refugee crises were continuing and were not solely restricted to Europe. In 1956, UNHCR was involved in coordinating the response to the uprising in Hungary. Just a year later, UNHCR was tasked with dealing with Chinese refugees in Hong Kong, while also responding to Algerian refugees who had fled to Morocco and Tunisia in the wake of Algeria's war for independence. The responses marked the beginning of a wider, global mandate in refugee protection and humanitarian assistance.Decolonisation in the 1960s triggered large refugee movements in Africa, creating a massive challenge that would transform UNHCR; unlike the refugee crises in Europe, there were no durable solutions in Africa, and many refugees who fled one country only found instability in their new country of refuge. By the end of the decade, two-thirds of UNHCR's budget was focused on operations in Africa, and in just one decade, the organization's focus had shifted from an almost exclusive focus on Europe.
In 1967, the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees was adopted, removing the geographical and temporal restrictions of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which had limited UNHCR’s mandate to Europeans displaced after World War II. The Protocol expanded the scope of international refugee protection to new crises around the world, leading UNHCR to operate globally, with much of its work concentrated in developing countries.
In the 1970s, UNHCR refugee operations continued to spread around the globe, with the mass exodus of East Pakistanis to India shortly before the birth of Bangladesh. Adding to the woes in Asia was the Vietnam War, with millions fleeing Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
The 1980s saw new challenges for UNHCR, with many member states unwilling to resettle refugees due to the sharp rise in refugee numbers over the 1970s. Often, these refugees were not fleeing wars between states, but inter-ethnic conflict in newly independent states. The targeting of civilians as military strategy added to the displacement in many nations, so even "minor" conflicts could result in a large number of displaced persons. Whether in Asia, Central America or Africa, these conflicts, fueled by superpower rivalry and aggravated by socio-economic problems within the concerned countries, durable solutions continued to prove a massive challenge for the UNHCR. As a result, the UNHCR became more heavily involved with assistance programs within refugee camps, often located in hostile environments.
The end of the Cold War marked continued inter-ethnic conflict and contributed heavily to refugee flight. In addition, humanitarian intervention by multinational forces became more frequent, and the media began to play a big role, particularly in the lead up to the 1999 NATO mission in FR Yugoslavia, while by contrast, the 1994 Rwandan Genocide had little attention. The genocide in Rwanda caused a massive refugee crisis, again highlighting the difficulties for UNHCR to uphold its mandate, and the UNHCR continued to battle against restrictive refugee policies in so-called "rich" nations.
By its 65th anniversary in 2015, the agency had assisted more than 50 million refugees worldwide.
As of June 2020, UNHCR has over 20 million refugees under its mandate. Consequently, its annual budget has grown from US$300,000 in 1951 to US$8.6 billion in 2019, making it one of the largest UN agencies by expenditure. The vast majority of UNHCR's budget comes from voluntary contributions, mostly from member states; the largest donors are the United States, the European Union, and Germany. The agency's work includes providing protection, shelter, healthcare and emergency relief, assisting in resettlement and repatriation, and advocating for national and multilateral policies on behalf of refugees.
According to a 2021 study, the UNHCR has fulfilled its mandate to serve refugees independent of their location consistently over time. The organization has shown limited bias towards donors in the geographical distribution of its funds.
2025 funding crisis
In June 2025, UNHCR announced that approximately 3,500 staff positions would be discontinued and overall staffing costs reduced by around 30% following a significant decline in humanitarian funding. The agency said the restructuring included closing or downsizing offices and nearly a 50% reduction in senior posts at its Geneva headquarters and regional bureaux, with effects on programmes including cash assistance, health, education, and water and sanitation. Earlier, internal memos reported by Reuters outlined plans to cut overall costs by 30%, halve senior positions and consolidate some country offices. According to Reuters, UNHCR received over US$2 billion from the United States in 2024—about 40% of its total donations—but major donor reductions in 2025 sharply constrained the agency’s budget. In July 2025, UNHCR warned that up to 11.6 million forcibly displaced people could lose access to direct assistance due to the funding shortfall, noting that only 23% of its US$10.6 billion appeal had been met by mid-year.Function
UNHCR was established on 14 December 1950 and succeeded the earlier United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another state, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country.UNHCR's mandate has gradually been expanded to include protecting and providing humanitarian assistance to whom it describes as other persons "of concern", including internally displaced persons who would fit the legal definition of a refugee under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and 1967 Protocol, the 1969 Organization for African Unity Convention, or some other treaty if they left their country, but who presently remain in their country of origin. UNHCR presently has major missions in Lebanon, South Sudan, Chad/Darfur, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kenya to assist and provide services to IDPs and refugees in camps and in urban settings.
UNHCR maintains a database of refugee information, ProGres, which was created during the Kosovo War in the 1990s. The database today contains data on over 11 million refugees, or about 11% of all displaced persons globally. The database contains biometric data, including fingerprints and iris scans and is used to determine aid distribution for recipients. The results of using biometric verification have been successful. When introduced in Kenyan refugee camps of Kakuma and Dadaab in the year 2013, the UN World Food Programme was able to eliminate $1.4M in waste and fraud.
To achieve its mandate, the UNHCR engages in activities both in the countries of interest and in countries with donors. This includes hosting "expert roundtables" to discuss issues of concern to the international refugee community.