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Archive of Past Nansen Winners
Past Winners of the Nansen Award
More than 60 individuals, groups or organizations have won the Nansen Refugee Award since it was inaugurated in 1954. The first winner was Eleanor Roosevelt, the first chairperson of the UN Human Rights Commission and wife of legendary US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
She has been followed by an illustrious group of individuals, including French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Tanzania's President Julius Nyerere, King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Graça Machel and late Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti.
A number of humanitarian organizations, and partners of UNHCR, have won the award, which has included a cash prize since 1979. Among them are the League of Red Cross Societies. Médecins sans Frontières, Handicap International and the UN Volunteers. In 1986, the Nansen went to the people of Canada - the only country to have received the award as a nation.
Legendary humanitarian Eleanor Roosevelt won the first Nansen Award for her long fight for universal freedom of speech and religion, freedom from fear and want. She chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The award was also to honour her late husband, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who in 1938 promoted the setting up of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees.