U.S. Government Plenary Statement: UNHCR Executive Committee

Mr. Chairman,

Thank you for your leadership of this Executive Committee over the past year. We welcome Benin, Luxembourg, Macedonia, and Montenegro as new members of EXCOM and look forward to their contributions in helping to provide durable solutions to refugees in need.

And thank you, Mr. High Commissioner, for laying out your strategic vision for 2008. This morning, I’d like to address our collective responsibilities to build a UNHCR that does an even better job of meeting the needs of refugees and other persons of concern.

Your office, Mr. High Commissioner - the Office of the UN High Commissioner - was established over fifty years ago. The members of this Executive Committee, by our election, must demonstrate interest in and a devotion to the solution of refugee problems. So, at the start, we Member States were given a mandate – a responsibility - for activism.

There have been positive developments in this regard over the last year. In Africa, long-standing conflicts have been resolved or alleviated in Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, and southern Sudan. Over the past two years, approximately one million African refugees have returned home, thanks to collective activism, democratic action and financial assistance. I am proud of our collective efforts to resolve the protracted situation of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal, and urge all parties to address the recent violence in the camps so that UNHCR’s work can move forward.

My Government stands ready to work with interested governments and UNHCR to resolve other protracted refugee situations, such as the ethnic Burmese surviving as refugees in nearby countries. As part of my Government’s responsibility to these populations, we have issued a number of material support exemptions, including exemptions that allow individuals who were innocent victims compelled under duress to provide support to terrorist organizations. As a result, over 2,500 refugees who would have been forced to remain in refugee camps have been approved to enter the United States and begin their lives anew. As we look to 2008, we anticipate resettling at least 70,000 refugees worldwide.

Governments’ responsibilities to one another are also important. The situation of displaced Iraqis is precarious. Governments have a collective responsibility to help host governments in the region provide education and health care to this population. It is for this reason that we urged UNHCR and UNICEF to issue an appeal to respond to the education needs of displaced Iraqi children. The United States has responded generously to this appeal, with $39 million to date – and we have made more than $200 million available in 2007 to assist displaced Iraqis. We urge other governments, including the Government of Iraq, to respond as well. We will also respond generously to the recently issued multi-UN agency health appeal. As for resettlement, we have a goal of resettling 12,000 Iraqi refugees in 2008 for whom that durable solution is most appropriate.

As governments, what is our responsibility to UNHCR? Obviously, we are determined to ensure the safety of UNHCR staff and those of its implementing partners. As donors, we must also do a better job coordinating aid programs and avoiding duplication, while ensuring maximum flexibility in our funding to UNHCR so that it can carry out its mandate. In this regard, I am pleased to announce that the total U.S. contribution to UNHCR this year has reached $363 million, of which 53 percent was provided as funding earmarked solely at the regional level, thereby providing a great deal of flexibility in how that money is spent.

The principle underlying the work of UNHCR is the collective responsibility of governments to protect people forced to flee across borders. It is also from this founding principle that UNHCR has expanded its scope of work – to include stateless populations, the internally displaced, and migrants.

This expansion of UNHCR’s scope of work also calls for greater responsibility by UNHCR. First, UNHCR’s responsibility to its beneficiaries. By this I mean identifying, assessing, and addressing the needs of people in the circumstances in which they find themselves. In cases where refugees are provided the full range of rights under the Convention, they should be able to work and attend school.

While the U.S. continues to seek comprehensive approaches to resolve protracted refugee situations through support for durable solutions, we also seek innovative approaches to develop livelihoods strategies and to maximize opportunities for refugees’ self-reliance and empowerment. UNHCR’s programs should, in all cases, take the individual refugee situation into account, alongside consideration to the roles that age, gender and issues of diversity play in defining the appropriate international response. That is why my government is so supportive of UNHCR’s livelihood programs, and in particular, commends the Gender, Age, and Diversity Mainstreaming initiative, as it ensures the participation in their own assistance to groups and individuals who have too long been excluded. This approach should without question apply to other groups assisted by UNHCR.

Second, what is UNHCR’s responsibility to governments? How does the organization help us carry out our responsibilities towards refugees as defined in the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol? One way is for UNHCR to have budget structures and reporting mechanisms that allow and encourage donor governments to contribute generously. To the extent that this management burden can be reduced by agreeing on standardized reporting formats, we would be interested in engaging in a discussion of that.

Third, UNHCR has a responsibility to its implementing partners to maintain an open dialogue on policy issues and concerns that enables UNHCR to gain from the perspective of others that work directly with the beneficiaries in the field.

Finally, UNHCR’s responsibility to its sister UN agencies – and vice-versa. We have seen over the years the strength of the very successful UNHCR-World Food Program partnership. We also recently saw the power of UN agency cooperation in the recent UNHCR-UNICEF education appeal for displaced Iraqis in Jordan and Syria. We must stay focused on UNHCR’s expanded IDP responsibilities in the context of the role that other UN agencies must play if the cluster approach to addressing the needs of IDPs is to succeed. UNHCR is not “The IDP Agency,” as some have called on it to be. The situations surrounding the creation of IDPs are too complex and their needs too great for any one agency to tackle. That is, in truth, one of the prime reasons we have for so long struggled to determine IDP responsibilities within the UN. The real-time evaluations of UNHCR’s IDP efforts in Liberia, the DRC, Uganda, and Somalia show the seriousness and commitment by which UNHCR is taking on its new cluster lead responsibilities. We urge other agencies to examine with similar rigor their responsibilities so critical to the success of the cluster approach.

In conclusion, the United States remains a committed partner with UNHCR as well as with fellow Member States. We are fully invested in your policy, your programs and your performance. And we stand fully behind UNHCR’s own reform efforts. As we all devote ourselves to finding durable solutions for as many refugees as possible, the United States will continue to work cooperatively and generously with other member states, with UNHCR and our own NGO implementing partners.

Thank you.