The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with over 18,879 staff working in 138 countries as of 2020.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is the principal United Nations Related Organization working in the field of migration. The organization implements operational assistance programmes for migrants, including internally displaced persons, refugees, and migrant workers.
A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a person who has lost the protection of their country of origin and who cannot or is unwilling to return there due to well-founded fear of persecution. Such a person may be called an asylum seeker until granted refugee status by the contracting state or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) if they formally make a claim for asylum.
The United Nations itself has six principal organs established by the Charter of the United Nations.
An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee.
The Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, formerly known as the European Community Humanitarian Aid Office, is the European Commission's department for overseas humanitarian aid and for civil protection. It aims to save and preserve life, prevent and alleviate human suffering and safeguard the integrity and dignity of populations affected by natural disasters and man-made crises. Since September 2019, Janez Lenarčič is serving as Commissioner for Crisis Management in the Von der Leyen Commission, and since 1 March 2023, Maciej Popowski leads the organisation as the Director-General.
The United Nations Office at Geneva in Geneva, Switzerland, is one of the four major offices of the United Nations where numerous different UN agencies have a joint presence. The main UNOG administrative offices are located inside the Palais des Nations complex, which was originally constructed for the League of Nations between 1929 and 1938.
The Norwegian Refugee Council is a humanitarian, non-governmental organisation that protects the rights of people affected by displacement. This includes refugees and internally displaced persons who are forced to flee their homes as a result of conflict, human rights violations and acute violence, as well as climate change and natural disasters.
The International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) is an international organization that serves and protects uprooted people, including migrants, refugees, and internally displaced people, regardless of faith, race, ethnicity or nationality. With staff and programs in over 40 countries, ICMC advocates for sustainable solutions and rights-based policies directly and through a worldwide network of 132 member organizations.
Sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian response first came to public attention with the release of a report in February 2002 of a joint assessment mission examining the issue. The joint mission reported that "refugee children in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation, reportedly by employees of national and international NGOs, UNHCR and other UN bodies..." Humanitarian agencies responded almost immediately with measures designed to prevent further abuse, setting up an inter-agency task force with the objective of "strengthening and enhancing the protection and care of women and children in situations of humanitarian crisis and conflict..." In 2008 there were signs that sexual exploitation and abuse of beneficiaries not only continued, but was under-reported. In January 2010, the ECHA/ECPS task force developed a website devoted to protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) by personnel of the United Nations (UN), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other international organizations.
ACT Alliance is a global alliance of more than 145 churches and related organisations from over 120 countries created to provide humanitarian aid for poor and marginalized people. 76% of its member organisations are rooted on the global south, 22% in the global north and 2% have a global presence.
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) is an inter-agency forum of United Nations and non-UN humanitarian partners founded in 1991 to strengthen humanitarian assistance. The overall objective of the IASC is to improve the delivery of humanitarian assistance to affected populations. The Committee was established following UN General Assembly Resolution 46/182 and resolution 48/57 confirmed that it should be the primary method for inter-agency coordination. The committee is chaired by the Emergency Relief Coordinator.
Walter Kälin is a Swiss humanitarian, constitutional lawyer, international human rights lawyer, activist, and advocate. He is also known as a legal scholar and a renowned professor. He has been a leader in changing Swiss laws and international laws for humanitarian purposes and he has been published extensively on issues of human rights law, the law of internally displaced persons, refugee law, and Swiss constitutional law.
Elizabeth G. Ferris is a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and serves as the co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement. In addition to her positions within the Brookings Institution, Ferris is an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She is also commissioner of the Women's Refugee Commission, a distinguished author and a lifelong humanitarian.
INTERSOS is an international humanitarian organization, based in Italy, which intervenes in emergencies and crises to bring immediate aid to people whose lives are threatened by conflict, violence, extreme poverty, and natural or artificial disasters.
The Grand Bargain: Agenda for Humanity, usually called the Grand Bargain, is an agreement to reform the delivery of humanitarian aid, that was struck at the World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016. The agreement contains 51 specific commitments, grouped into ten focus areas, with activity targets to be completed by January 1, 2020.
COBURWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa, commonly known as CIYOTA is a Ugandan not-for-profit refugee-education organisation. It was formed in 2005 by refugee youth and was the Africa finalists for the Nansen Refugee Award in 2013.
Charles Harold Jordan was an American Jewish humanitarian who worked as the executive vice president for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee until his death.
Pierre Jacobsen was a Denmark-born French soldier and civil servant known for his work to support refugees. Jacobsen fought for France in World War II and became the youngest French general since the Napoleonic Era. Afterwards he was the Deputy Director of the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration. He died in 1957, when a train struck his vehicle at a level crossing. He was posthumously awarded the Nansen Refugee Award in 1958.
