UN refugee agency meets with its ‘vital partners’ – non-government organizations

The United Nations refugee agency has begun its annual consultations with 179 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from 85 different countries – vital partners in implementing its programmes of providing food, water, shelter and education to the world’s uprooted people.

“The reality of today is that no humanitarian organization can go it alone,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) chief of operations officer Judy Cheng-Hopkins told the opening session yesterday of the three-day meeting in Geneva, attended by more than 300 delegates.

“We increasingly rely upon partnerships and collaborative mechanisms to deliver protection and solutions,” she said.

NGOs act are the UN refugee agency's right arm, implementing many of the crucial programmes for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in some of the world's most remote and difficult places. In all, about a quarter of UNHCR’s resources are channelled through its partners.

Ms. Cheng-Hopkins highlighted the ways in which NGOs can help strengthen the humanitarian response to emergencies.

“UNHCR’s emergency response capacity is largely dependent on how fast we can get the right people and the necessary relief items to the areas where they are most needed,” she said. “There is clearly a need to better utilize local networks and knowledge to enhance the effectiveness and speed of our response. NGOs can and do play an important role in facilitating such cooperation and collaboration.”

She also addressed the challenges of ensuring the security of humanitarian staff, an issue of concern to all humanitarian organizations.

For the past two decades, the annual consultations have brought together NGOs and UNHCR managers to examine all facets of their partnership on behalf of refugees. The UN refugee agency works extensively with well over 500 NGOs worldwide, many of them national or local organizations.