UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is a global organization dedicated to protecting the rights and well-being of refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people. They provide life-saving aid, such as shelter, food, water and medical care, to those in need. They also work to ensure refugees can rebuild their lives and have access to education, health care and employment opportunities. They advocate for the rights of refugees and internally displaced people, and to help create conditions that enable them to return home voluntarily, in safety and dignity. They also work to end statelessness and help to protect the rights of all individuals seeking asylum.

In 2020, we marked our 70th anniversary. During our lifetime, we have helped well over 50 million refugees to successfully restart their lives. Want more UNHCR history?unhcr.orgUNHCR now has more than 18,879 personnel working in 137 countries. Our budget, which in its first year was US$300,000, grew to US$8.6 billion in 2019.

The following year, on July 28, 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.un.orgBy 1956 UNHCR was facing its first major emergency, the outpouring of refugees when Soviet forces crushed the Hungarian Revolution.

unhcr.orgUNHCR's first task in 1951 was to help an estimated 1 million mainly European civilians, including these refugees in a camp in Germany, still uprooted in the aftermath of World War Two.