The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with its headquarters in Geneva, was established by virtue of Resolution 428 (V) of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and began its operations on the 10th January 1951, It is a humanitarian body, strictly non-political, dedicated to the protection of and assistance for refugees all over the world. As stipulated by the Office's statutes, the UNHCR performs two main functions: to provide "international protection" for refugees and to obtain "permanent solutions" to their problems. The High Commission is elected every five years by the General Assembly of the United Nations upon proposal by the Secretary General. Currently, the High Commissioner is Sadako Ogata, under whom two thousand people are employed in eighty countries.
The UNHCR has had various predecessors. To mention but a few, in 1921 the Council of the League of Nations appointed Dr. Fridtjof Nansen as "League High Commissioner in charge of the problem of Russian refugees in Europe". In 1931, the League created the High Commission for Refugees from Germany. In 1943, the Aid and Rehabilitation Administration of the United Nations was established and, in 1947, the United Nations established the International Refugee Organisation.
The UNHCR deals with, firstly, all those to whom the definition of a refugee in the Office's statues, as drawn up in 1950, may be applied: any person who "due to well-founded fear of persecution on grounds of race, religion, nationality or political opinion, is outside the bounds of the country of his nationality and who cannot, due to the said fears or to reasons which are not those of mere personal convenience, does not wish to come under the protection of that country..." But, since the statute has been drawn up, the many new, large-scale, humanitarian problems which have arisen all over the world have prompted governments to expand the categories of person who may be considered within the UNHCR remit.
The protection function of the UNHCR proceed from the Statute of the High Commission's Office. Nonetheless, there exist international legal instruments which are also of fundamental importance for the effective protection of refugees. The most important of these is the 1951 United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees, complemented by the Protocol on Refugee Status of 1967.
The said instruments provide a definition of the term "refugee" and lay down minimum standards for dealing with refugees. There are currently 104 countries which participate in one or both of these instruments. There are other international legal instruments which deal, directly or indirectly, with refugees. On of the most important is the Convention which governs the specific aspects of the African refugee problem, adopted by the African Unity Organisation in 1969.
The UNHCR may initiate programmes of material aid only when the host government so requests. In many cases, the first petition is for emergency aid of such vital things as food, water, shelter and medical care. But once the emergency phase of an operation has passed, the UNHCR exerts itself to help refugees, whenever possible, to support themselves. To this end, education and professional training programmes are established and income-generating activities are encouraged.
As soon as the refugees' immediate aid needs have been met, the search for lasting solutions begins. There are three possible solutions in the long term: voluntary repatriation, local integration in the host country, or resettlement elsewhere. Voluntary repatriation is seen as the preferred solution to the problem, but it is not always possible because, generally, it requires a fundamental change in the country of origin. The UNHCR helps refugees to integrate in the country where they originally sought asylum. The aim of local integration is to help the refugees to support themselves in their country of residence, and to encourage the host governments to give them the same facilities as those open to that country's nationals.
The work of the UNHCR is funded entirely by voluntary contributions from governments, non-governmental organisations and private individuals. Only a small sum, which is used solely to help cover administrative costs, is received each year from the United Nations ordinary budget.