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UNHCR and the IOC reaffirm cooperation; discuss projects

News Stories, 13 June 2007

High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres (left) meets International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge in Lausanne.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, June 13 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency and the International Olympic Committee on Wednesday reaffirmed their long-standing cooperation and discussed current and future joint projects aimed at helping refugees through sports.

"Sport has a high social and educational value. In refugee camps, our aim is that sport adds value to the excellent work carried out by UNHCR," IOC President Jacques Rogge said during a meeting at his Lausanne headquarters with High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres.

Rogge pledged to work with UNHCR on programmes designed to empower women and girls in refugee camps through sport-based activities. Preventive education on HIV/AIDS will also be undertaken. The two sides also agreed to boost their cooperation with the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa.

In a further sign of cooperation, the two organizations will on July 6 in Guatemala City launch the second edition of their "Giving is Winning" campaign to coincide with next year's Beijing Olympic Games. This will collect sports and casual clothing for donation to people – especially youth – in camps around the world.

On the occasion of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, the IOC gathered more than 27,000 items of sports clothing from athletes and sports officials and distributed them to refugees, internally displaced persons and locals in Afghanistan, Eritrea, Azerbaijan and Kosovo.

At Wednesday's meeting, Guterres emphasized the importance of sport as a tool to bring together multicultural and multi-religious communities and praised the role sport plays in the promotion of tolerance.

"Many young refugees spend years languishing in bleak camps around the world. For them, the gift of sportswear associated with famous athletes from across the Olympic spectrum is a tremendous morale booster and a sign that the outside world still does care," he said.

Since 1994, IOC has worked with UNHCR in refugee camps and resettlement areas around the world. Projects include those that offer structured sport and recreational activities for refugee children whose social bearings have been destroyed by war and conflict.

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UNHCR/Partners Bring Aid to North Kivu

As a massive food distribution gets underway in six UNHCR-run camps for tens of thousands of internally displaced Congolese in North Kivu, the UN refugee agency continues to hand out desperately needed shelter and household items.

A four-truck UNHCR convoy carrying 33 tonnes of various aid items, including plastic sheeting, blankets, kitchen sets and jerry cans crossed Wednesday from Rwanda into Goma, the capital of the conflict-hit province in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The aid, from regional emergency stockpiles in Tanzania, was scheduled for immediate distribution. The supplies arrived in Goma as the World Food Programme (WFP), with assistance from UNHCR, began distributing food to some 135,000 displaced people in the six camps run by the refugee agency near Goma.

More than 250,000 people have been displaced since the fighting resumed in August in North Kivu. Estimates are that there are now more than 1.3 million displaced people in this province alone.

Posted on 6 November 2008

UNHCR/Partners Bring Aid to North Kivu

Since 2006, renewed conflict and general insecurity in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo's North Kivu province has forced some 400,000 people to flee their homes – the country's worst displacement crisis since the formal end of the civil war in 2003. In total, there are now some 800,000 people displaced in the province, including those uprooted by previous conflicts.

Hope for the future was raised in January 2008 when the DRC government and rival armed factions signed a peace accord. But the situation remains tense in North Kivu and tens of thousands of people still need help. UNHCR has opened sites for internally displaced people (IDPs) and distributed assistance such as blankets, plastic sheets, soap, jerry cans, firewood and other items to the four camps in the region. Relief items have also been delivered to some of the makeshift sites that have sprung up.

UNHCR staff have been engaged in protection monitoring to identify human rights abuses and other problems faced by IDPs and other populations at risk across North Kivu.

UNHCR's ninemillion campaign aims to provide a healthy and safe learning environment for nine million refugee children by 2010.

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UNHCR/Partners Bring Aid to North Kivu

Crisis in Iraq: Displacement

UNHCR and its partners estimate that out of a total population of 26 million, some 1.9 million Iraqis are currently displaced internally and more than 2 million others have fled to nearby countries. While many people were displaced before 2003, increasing numbers of Iraqis are now fleeing escalating sectarian, ethnic and general violence. Since January 2006, UNHCR estimates that more than 800,000 Iraqis have been uprooted and that 40,000 to 50,000 continue to flee their homes every month. UNHCR anticipates there will be approximately 2.3 million internally displaced people within Iraq by the end of 2007. The refugee agency and its partners have provided emergency assistance, shelter and legal aid to displaced Iraqis where security has allowed.

In January 2007, UNHCR launched an initial appeal for US$60 million to fund its Iraq programme. Despite security issues for humanitarian workers inside the country, UNHCR and partners hope to continue helping up to 250,000 of the most vulnerable internally displaced Iraqis and their host communities

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