The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) emerged in the wake of World War II to help millions of Europeans displaced by the conflict. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on 14 December 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly with a three-year mandate to complete its work and then disband. The following year, on 28 July the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees – the legal foundation of helping refugees and the basic statute guiding UNHCR’s work – was adopted.
In 1954, UNHCR won the Nobel Peace Prize for its groundbreaking work in Europe. But it was not long before we faced our next major emergency.
In 1956, during the Hungarian Revolution, 200,000 fled to neighbouring Austria. Recognizing the Hungarians as ‘prima facie‘ refugees, UNHCR led efforts to resettle them. This uprising and its aftermath shaped the way humanitarian organizations would deal with refugee crises in the future.
During the 1960s, the decolonization of Africa produced the first of that continent’s numerous refugee crises. We also helped uprooted people in Asia and Latin America over the following two decades. In 1981, we received a second Nobel Peace Prize for what had become worldwide assistance to refugees.
The start of the 21st century has seen UNHCR help with major refugee crises in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. We have also been asked to use our expertise to help many internally displaced by conflict and expanded our role in helping stateless people. In some parts of the world, such as Africa and Latin America, the 1951 Refugee Convention has been strengthened by additional regional legal instruments.
UNHCR now has more than 17,324 personnel. We work in a total of 135 countries and our budget, which in its first year was US$300,000, grew to US$8.6 billion in 2019.
In 2020, we marked our 70th anniversary. During our lifetime, we have helped well over 50 million refugees to successfully restart their lives.