Role Played by UNHCR in Managing Refugee Issues - Essay Example

ROLE PLAYED BY UNHCR IN MANAGING REFUGEE ISSUES By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Role Played By UNHCR in Managing Refugee Issues Introduction Across the globe and for a number of centuries, countries have welcomed terrified, fatigued aliens, the victims of violence and persecution. Basically, the humanitarian practise of providing refuge is currently prevalent throughout the world as large-scale persecution and war continue generating millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs) as well as refugees.1 While people continue running away from threats to their freedom as well as lives, there a number of challenges facing governments in reconciling their humanitarian obligations as well as impulses with their political realities and local needs. Currently, refugees protection means being in solidarity with people who are threatened at their home country as well as looking for ways to solve the challenges facing the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The mandate of UNHCR’s is offering protection to refugees at international level and looking or long-lasting solutions to refugees’ problems, in line with the international standards and its statute among others as stipulated in the 1951 Convention as well as 1967 Protocol associated with Status of Refugees.2 UNHCR was given a formal mandate by the United Nations General Assembly to reduce as well as prevent statelessness and was also given responsibilities relating to IDPs. Still, in a number of countries, the problem associated with the development and international migration is crucial to UNHCR with regard to effects for refuges and asylum seekers. The essay discusses the role played by the UNHCR in managing refugee issues. Without doubt, UNHCR has been successful in playing its role, but still a number of suggestions have been provided for further improvement in its role. Discussion UNHCR, a non-political and humanitarian organisation is assigned by the UN to protect as well as assist refugees in finding solutions to the problems facing them.3 Considering that displacement problem has been growing in complexity for more than five decades, it is without doubt that UNHCR has succeeded in providing solutions to this challenge. UNHCR was instituted in 1950 and has grown from a somewhat small organisation intended for a three years lifespan to an agency operating in more than 125 countries and with $7 billion US dollars annual budget. Aside from providing legal protection, the agency also offers material aid in major disasters, either by using partner agencies or offering directly. UNHCR in its first five decades has helped and protected over 50 million persons, and has consequently, been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize twice.4 Internationally, UNHCR role involves promoting agreements for refugees as well as monitoring adherence to international refugee law by the governments. UNHCR staffs are mandated to promote the refugee law amongst every person taking part in protecting refugees, and this includes journalists, guards at the borders, lawyers, not-for-profit organisations, judges and senior government officers. In the field, the role of UNHCR staff is protecting refugees by engaging in various activities such as transferring refugee camps beyond the areas in borders so as to enhance safety; responding to different forms of emergencies as stipulated by the 1951 convention; making sure that refugee women take part in social services as well as food distribution; and offering information to refugees with regard to state of affairs in their country of origin in order for them to make well-versed decisions. Other roles include detailing the resettlement needs of the refugees; going to incarceration centres as well as advising governments on the importance of drafting refugee practices, policies and laws. It is the role of UNHCR to search for lasting solutions to issues facing the refugees; for instance, they help refugees return to their country of origin, if the situations are favourable or resettle them in countries they have sought asylum.5 Movements from one country to another have been on-going persistently. Evidently, people normally take significant risks to migrate; for instance, refugees from Africa and Asia are using boats that are not seaworthy to cross the Oceans, the Mediterranean as well as the Gulf of Aden into European countries.6 Basically, mixed migration, circumstances wherein persons with diverse purposes migrate together through the same routes as well as transportation has raised a number of serious concerns, especially with regard to protection. Besides the risks faced by refugees while on the way, arrangements for a suitable reception are yet to be implemented in many countries, bad still, control measures at the boarders are not continuously protection-sensitive, heightening the refoulement risk. While migration at international level continues growing in complexity and scale, wide-ranging approaches have been promoted by UNHCR, especially to migration that consider the right of persons to seek refuge as well as to protection of human rights. According to UNHCR, the existing measures for preventing illegal migration should not stop refugees from accessing international protection. Refugees have been described by the 1951 Refugee Convention as persons outside their habitual residence or residential country fleeing because of fear of being victimised due to their nationality, religion, race or their political opinion. Even though, persons fleeing generalised violence or conflicts are regarded as refugees under the legal mechanisms; the 1951 Convention still considers them refugees. In the world, millions of individual are always on the move at any certain moment. People in masses at a time the whole town and village flee religious persecution, economic adversity or war caused by their governments. Mostly, the state of affairs is normally very dangerous to an extent that people have to cross borders to other countries so as to get refuge, and therefore to be recognised internationally as ‘refugees’ with ability to access UNHCR assistance. Normally, IDPs are erroneously acknowledged by the general public or media press as refugees, but as suggested by the name, IDPs remain in their home countries and do not cross the international borders. Even though the reasons for them fleeing could be persecution or war, at times committed by existing regimes, they are legally still under same government protection. The same government retains IDPs protection as well as rights under both international humanitarian and human rights law. In view of this, IDPs are not exactly covered by the original mandate of UNHCR, but due to the agency’s know-how on about issues displacement, it has continually offered help to scores of IDPs. This resulted in the development of the ‘cluster’ approach, whereby a lead role is taken by the agency with other humanitarian as well as government agencies in coordinating shelter, protection and managing the IDP camps.7 Presently, UNHCR is offering help in countries such as the Iraq, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, Sudan and Somalia. Natural disasters victims are sometimes categorised as IDPs, but UNHCR involve itself in such group in unique situations, like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami or earthquakes like Haiti in 2010 where the agency offers emergency aid.8 Immigrants, especially economic migrants who decide to move to other countries for to improve their livelihood instead of war or persecution are treated in a different way under the international and national laws. UNHCR key role is assisting as well as protecting refugees and displaced people. Besides that, it is mandated to provide critical humanitarian aid and protection to IDPs who have been displaced because of armed conflict. This mandate was endorsed and supported by the UN General Assembly together with UNHCR’s Executive Committee. Without a doubt, UNHCR has been exceedingly successful in exhibiting results on the ground according to its mandate. This can be evidenced by several examples provided by the UNHCR Global Report 2010 such as airlifting emergency relief provisions successfully to Uzbekistan authorities so as to help refugees fleeing war in the Southern Kyrgyzstan. Besides that, UNHCR offered over 13000 returnees with safe, long-lasting as well as warm shelters prior to the start of the winter, helped over 200000 Sri Lankan IDPs to go back home,9 aided almost 113000 refugees from Afghanistan in Iran and Pakistan to return home willingly.10 During the 2010 floods in Pakistan, the UNHCR offered the victims emergency aid and teamed up with its partners so as to offer nearly two million people non-food items and emergency shelter.11 In addition, UNHCR provided over fifty training sessions to Indonesian government officials (almost 3600) with the intention of building refugee processing capacity. UNHCR has continued to reinforce its focus on results and has lately espoused a number of initiatives for this purpose. Whereas a lot of improvements have recently been made by UNCHR in adopting results framework as well as in reinforcing reporting and monitoring, there is still much to be done. A number of limitations are prevailing; for instance, MOPAN report (2011) established that new budget structure had been implemented by UNHCR in 2010, but its 2010 financial report failed to take into account the analysis of the relationship between results achieved and expenditures.12 Even though this limitation exists, there are many progresses that have been made by the agency such as the successful introduction of the results-based management. Since 2010, UNHCR have made continuous efforts to reinforce its communication strategy by issuing more comprehensive guidance and have organised a number of regional workshops for its program managers. Still, given that economic immigrants utilise similar routes as well as transportation as refugees, it results in mixed migration patterns that bring about a setback when authorities are determining the new arrival status. For instance, in 2010, nearly 53,000 people escaping turmoil in the Horn of Africa utilised smugglers so as to move to Yemen through the cross the Gulf of Aden; in consequence, 130 people lost their lives.13 The following year, over 103,000 persons escaping the worsening situation in the Horn of Africa used similar hazardous means; for those who arrived in the shores of Yemen, they were distressed and very weak. So as to address the problems attributed to mixed migration, UNHCR begun following a “ten Point Plan of Action on Refugee Protection and Mixed Migration,” which covers the home country, means of transport as well as the destination. The challenge of mixed migration has been prevalent in the Gulf of Aden, South-east Asia, the Mediterranean basin, the Caribbean, Central America as well as Southeast Europe. A number of scholarship have been advocating foe the elimination of refugee camps, while other have tried to offer solutions on how the existing challenges attributed to long-drawn-out refugee situations can be handled. According to UNHCR Global Trends (2013) almost 50 undeveloped nations offer asylum to more than two million refugees in 2010.14 Therefore, removing refugee camps that provide humanitarian help that is much needed, or assimilating thousands of refugees into nations that are still struggling to meet the needs of its own nationals, is not an effective solution. Instead, countries must concentrate on how they can align circumstances of enduring exile with standards and norms of human rights norms, which promote a life of self-respect, irrespective of whether a long-lasting solution is achievable or not. Evidently UNHCR has been successful in role, especially while responding to emergencies. Currently, the agency can respond to any form of emergency that affects nearly half a million people and is able to rally more than 300 trained staffs in less than 72 hours. Besides that, UNHCR can instantly drum up resources so as to help respond to effectively to emergencies devoid of delaying. For instance, UNHCR collaborated with NGOs as well as Egyptian and Tunisian authorities with the purpose of supporting almost 100000 persons fleeing the war in Libya and in 2010 also assisted a lot of refugees fleeing from Kyrgyzstan’s southern areas. Still, UNHCR is committed in improving its ability and in recent times has put a number of initiatives into practice to that effect. The majority of refugees are always reluctant to go back to their home countries; rather they prefer self-sufficiency in the country offering them protection and to be assimilated locally. The process is gradual and complex eventually resulting in them being citizens of the host country, with rights as well as entitlements enjoyed by the countries’ nationals. UNHCR has persistently encouraged countries to advance their process of neutralising refugees. Regrettably, only around 700,000 refugees have been offered citizenship in the countries of asylum, almost 70% of them are in the United States. The work of UNHCR is aligned strongly with the Millennium Development Goals, and by performing its role of assisting and protecting refugees and IDPs, the agency helps the most vulnerable as well as the poorest.15 UNHCR has a firm concentration on the gender crosscutting issue and therefore established the “Age, Gender and Diversity Mainstreaming strategy” so as to expand gender equality in order that refugees can delight in rights irrespective of their gender, age or race.16 Basically, the strategy entails different initiatives such as mainstreaming of gender, age as well as performing diversity analysis during the development of guidelines, manuals, a policy as well as training. Furthermore, measures have been taken by UNHCR in enhancing disabled persons’ protection by including certain protection requirements in its planning process, specifically for them. A policy for protecting displaced physically challenged persons was approved by the UNHCR’s Executive Committee in 2010.17 Essentially, the policy offers a comprehensive framework for the agency’s work with physically challenged persons. At operational-level as well as internally, the agency has no central point on disability for itself, but instead it has included the needs of disability in every work it does akin to how it approaches gender. Presently, UNHCR is collaborating with the Women’s Refugee Commission on mainstreaming issues associated with disability into UNHCR work as well as that of its partners through introduction of training program. The MOPAN report (2011) pointed out that UNHCR has satisfactorily managed environmental issues while delivering humanitarian help.18 The agency has implemented environmental guidelines that make it commit to practices that are environmentally responsible. Besides that, UNHCR do have a policy paper on climate change that recognises the need for the agency to acclimatise its work to help persons displaced by climate change. The area of importance for UNHCR’s work is offering lasting solutions, especially for persons in long-drawn-out refugee circumstances. Whether in in camp environments or urban contexts, it is without a doubt that most refugees are living in poor countries, especially in Asia as well as Africa. These countries are always struggling to meet their own populations’ basic need, and therefore hosting refugees become more challenging. Therefore, by assisting refugees become self-reliant, UNHCR can consequently positively impact the host countries’ livelihoods resulting in economic development. This would facilitate in reducing secondary movement of refugees in quest of robust solutions. Besides that, refugee programs should be integrated into national development plans so that both local communities and refugees can benefit. In view of this, refugees may be agents of development considering that activities related to development are integral to sustainable handling of protracted refugee circumstances. Lately, UNHCR’s program have shifted emphasis on refugees’ maintenance and care to supporting displaced persons as well as the hosting communities. This was meant to promote self-reliance as well as improve livelihood opportunities of refugees, using their potential and skills to take part in the host country’s economic development.19 In this regard, partnering with United Nations agencies as well as NGOs and integrating refugees’ protection into durable host country development plans may consequently offer more support to both the local communities and refugees and facilitate realisation of sustainable solutions. Furthermore, standardised registration practices through data elements that are cautiously designed can facilitate and improve resettlement of the refugees. Without a doubt, refugees’ registration is crucially important, and therefore, any advances must be given the highest priority. Bearing in mind that, improved registration may immediately offer a payoff for purposes of assistance, and although its resettlement benefits will surface later, the process will be crucial in reducing magnet effects and fraud and enhancing initial access decisions. Governments across the globe must for this reason continue supporting the creation and improvements’ early deployment in UNHCR’s refugees’ registration practices. Imperatively, UNHCR should try to improve the security and privacy of registration records and documents by using biometric identifiers and should also try to use the mobile fingerprint technology. Undeniably, UNHCR has done a great job in building, saving and connecting millions of lives as well as offering real hope for the hopeless. Still, UNHCR should continue concentrating on developing programs that can improve refugees’ services, specifically, education, maternal health, clean water and healthcare services. UNHCR should prioritise collection of demographic information, especially for planning assistance. Even though data collections have continued evolving, UNHCR still depends on governments for demographic information. Therefore, UNHCR should espouse state-of-the-art technologies for data collection so as facilitate its planning process. The agency should also examine critically the host-country policies, which fail to offer protection to refuges as required by the principle of non-refoulement.20 Conclusion In conclusion, the essay had discussed the role played by the UNHCR in managing refugee issues. As evidenced in the essay, UNHCR has undoubtedly been successful in playing its role, but still a number of suggestions have been provided for further improvement in its role. As indicated, UNHCR role involves promoting good practice in migration as well as development. While migration across the globe continues growing in complexity and scale, UNHCR has succeed in promoting all-inclusive approaches to migration, which are in line with the right of displaced persons to look for asylum. Whereas the international community have been responding generously and swiftly to refugee calamities in the last five decades, a number of disturbing trends have emerged recently. A number of countries that previously opened their doors generously to refugees have begun shutting their doors since they are not ready to assume new responsibilities, of helping refugees or they fear to put the national security at risk. Since its establishment in 1951, UNHCR core mandate has been to protect refugees. Even though the UNHCR’s was established to help and offer permanent solutions to millions of refugees primarily in Europe, the agency has succeeded in millions of refugees across the globe by helping them return to their home country or resettle them in the country of asylum. Even though there are a number of problems that face UNHCR, the agency has been successful in helping and protecting the refugees. Bibliography Australian Government,United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Australian Multilateral Assessment, Sydney, 2012. Esnard, A.-M. & A. Sapat, 'Displaced by Disaster: Recovery and Resilience in a Globalizing World, Routledge, New York, 2014. 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