Governments as partners


Present in more than 110 countries, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees works closely with host governments to protect and assist refugees and to find long term solutions to their problems. The agency also contributes funds for the refugee work of official institutions in many states.

A total of 97 government agencies in 61 countries, including 54 with specific responsibilities for refugees, are currently implementing projects within the UNHCR structure. Other actors include individual ministries, regional authorities, local governments in areas where refugees are settled, private institutes, and members of the judiciary.

In most countries governments, assisted by UNHCR, co-ordinate the activities of partners working to protect and assist refugees and are responsible for the physical security of both.

A number of these states are members of UNHCR's 70-member Executive Committee and participate in its annual meetings and in Standing Committee consultations. Other countries are represented through their permanent missions at the UN in Geneva, allowing them to maintain close contact with UNHCR Headquarters as well as ties at the country level.

Many countries who shelter refugees contribute financially to UNHCR and also provide land, natural resources, facilities, staff or expertise to refugee protection and assistance programmes.

Signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol established procedures to determine who can be considered a refugee and to provide means of subsistence, protection, and durable solutions for asylum seekers and refugees. In such cases, UNHCR assists governments and civil groups, often in an advisory capacity, to strengthen and implement these measures.

In cases where a country is not a signatory to the Convention, or where implementing legislation has not been established, UNHCR, at the invitation of the government, tries to ensure that appropriate international standards are met.

The refugee agency has also established relationships with 'implementing' partners ---those wholly or partly funded by UNHCR -- and 'operational' partners, which are funded from sources outside the UN agency.

Major implementing partners include the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Caritas, and the International Rescue Committee. Other 'bilateral' government partners include Germany's BMZ in partnership with GTZ, Danida of Denmark, Japan's JICA, and SDC of Switzerland.

A number of governments have developed their own domestic and international emergency and disaster response capabilities and UNHCR has developed standby arrangements with some of them, such as the Swiss Disaster Relief Organisation, to deploy volunteers and equipment to key areas on short notice.

Similarly, Norway's Directorate for Civil Defence and Emergency Planning (DCDEP) maintains a stand-by roster, called the Norwegian Support Team, which can deploy individuals or teams with the necessary equipment on 72 hours notice. Other such arrangements exist with the Bundesanstalt Technisches Hilfswerk (THW) of Germany, EMERCOM of Russia, and the Centres for Disease Control of the U.S. Public Health Service.

During some recent major emergencies, including the Gulf War and the conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, UNHCR worked with specific military and civil defence units, which provided the refugee agency with expertise in fields such as transportation and logistics. In Africa's Great Lakes region in the 1990s, so-called 'government service packages' -- limited, self-contained programs designed to solve specific problems--were developed.

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) maintains a military and civil defence asset register which incorporates many of the early government service package ideas plus additional services and capacities.

(See UNHCR's 'Catalogue of Emergency Response Tools' for more information on these and other standby and preparedness arrangements for refugee emergencies.)