About Us

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is a global organization dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights and building a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people. UNHCR works to ensure that everybody has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge, having fled violence, persecution, war or disaster at home.

Since 1950, UNHCR has faced multiple crises on multiple continents, and provided vital assistance to refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced and stateless people, many of whom have nobody left to turn to. Seeking and providing durable solutions to the problems of refugees is central to UNHCR’s mandate to provide international protection to refugees and other persons of concern and seek durable solutions to their problems.

As one of three durable solutions available to refugees, resettlement is an essential element of the international protection regime. UNHCR leads the development of global resettlement policy and partners with resettlement States to coordinate and deliver resettlement programmes that offer protection and solutions to the most vulnerable refugees.

UNHCR also works with States, civil society, private sector, academia, governmental organizations and refugees to identify, establish and expand complementary pathways for admission to third countries that will meet the continuous international protection needs of refugees.

Moving people out of harm’s way to start a new life is a fundamental purpose of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and remains its longest ongoing activity. The safe and dignified movement of refugees requires a comprehensive, humane approach, one which recognizes travel, health and integration as integral components of the resettlement process. IOM holds this as true regardless of the type of scheme, the destination country or the profile of refugees being assisted.

For nearly 70 years, IOM has played a central role in resettlement around the world. IOM was founded in 1951 and is mandated by Article 1 a/b/c of the Constitution to:

1. Make arrangements for the organized transfer of migrants, for whom existing facilities are inadequate or who would not otherwise be able to move without special assistance, to countries offering opportunities for orderly migration;
2. Concern itself with the organized transfer of refugees, displaced persons and other individuals in need of international migration services for whom arrangements may be made between the Organization and the States concerned, including those States undertaking to receive them.
3. Provide, at the request of and in agreement with the States concerned, migration services such as recruitment, selection, processing, language training, orientation activities, medical examination, placement, activities facilitating reception and integration, advisory services on migration questions.