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NGOs said to be crucial in refugee aid at opening of UN Geneva meeting

NGOs said to be crucial in refugee aid at opening of UN Geneva meeting

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – providing everything from food and water to legal assistance and health care – are a crucial element in dealing with the magnitude of the protracted refugee crisis worldwide, representatives of those organizations were told today as they gathered in Geneva to meet with the United Nations refugee agency.

More than 300 representatives of some 190 NGOs working with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) around the world began two days of annual consultations on Tuesday at the UN's European headquarters in Geneva.

Welcoming the representatives, Deputy High Commissioner Wendy Chamberlin said UNHCR “places a very high priority on our partnership with NGOs – we can't do it without you.”

Gil Loescher, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Notre Dame and senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, gave the opening address on the protracted refugee crisis.

He said there were 38 situations around the world in which 25,000 or more people were housed in camps or settlements for five years or longer. He said the situations, some of them lasting for decades without a solution, were “one of the most difficult problems in the world today.”