United Nations High Commission

on RefugeesDirector: Sophie Kidd

Letter from the Under-Secretary General

Hello WMHSMUN delegates,

I am Isabella Pizarro and I am the Undersecretary General for the General Assemblies. I have been responsible for the creation all the General Assembly and Novice committees for WMHSMUN 31. I am a senior at the College of William & Mary and am from McLean, Virginia. However, I also spent portions of my childhood in Nigeria and Venezuela! Outside of William & Mary’s International Relations Club I am involved in a social sorority on campus. In addition to this, I am a big fan of history and photography!

I am so excited to welcome all of you to Williamsburg for a weekend of great debate and fun. All of the General Assembly and Novice Committees have been worked on by me and your amazing directors over these past few months. I really cannot give enough credit to the directors for all the hard work they have done. This background guide that your director wrote will be essential to preparing for WMHSMUN weekend and will give you an idea of where to direct your research.

You will be submitting position papers online. To do this just email your director with the subject line in format of, “Name of Delegate, Position, School”. If you want feedback, then you must indicate this in your subject line by adding, “Feedback needed”. The position paper should discuss the problems at hand, your delegation’s position on the topic, and potential ideas for how to handle the issues your delegation is facing. Make sure to format your position paper following these guidelines: • a cover page (with position name, school name and your name) • 11 pt. font, single spaced, 1 in. margins, one page per topic• If you have a non-country position, then include a brief summary of who you are representing• A works cited in MLA formatIf you are in a two delegate committee then keep it to one position paper per delegation!

WMHSMUN strictly does not tolerate plagiarism or pre-writing of resolutions. There is also a no technology policy, meaning no cell phones or other electronics are to be used in committee. We expect all of you to follow these policies.

My first experience with MUN was at this conference at it’s 24th iteration when I was a delegate in the Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian Committee (SOCHUM). The biggest thing I took away was the spirit of this conference – and that is its’ emphasis on inclusivity and diplomacy. I cannot wait to see you guys carry this out at WMHSMUN XXXI.

Best,Isabella PizarroUndersecretary-General of the General AssembliesWMHSMUN XXXIUSG-GA@wmhsmun.org

Letter from the Director

Delegates,

My name is Sophie Kidd, and I am so excited to be your director for the United Nations High Commission on Refugees! I’m from Norfolk, Virginia (about 45 minutes away) and a sophomore at the college. I absolutely love William and Mary, and am majoring in International Relations. Also, I’m a member of our International Relations club and have enjoyed taking part in staffing the conferences we hold here! Last year, I staffed on the UN Women committee at WMHSMUN and directed the World Health Organization Committee for WMIDMUN, our middle school conference. Directing at WMHSMUN this year is especially important to me because I was lucky enough to come to William and Mary as a delegate four times for WMHSMUN! I’ll never forget the first time I came into the Sadler Center as a delegate, getting my nametag, and heading to my first committee. Other than the IR club, I am a member of Alpha Phi Omega, our service fraternity here at the college, and volunteer in our admissions office as a Tribe Ambassador (if you have any questions for me or our dais at any time about William and Mary - please don’t hesitate to ask!).

I’ll go into a bit more detail about the UN High Commission on Refugees on the following page, but our committee specifically is a General Assembly with double delegate pairings. That means that there will be a lot more of you than all of us, so I encourage you all to come prepared to work together to create the best solutions possible! I’d suggest that you and your partner meet up before the conference begins to make sure you are both on the same page about how you can make both our committee and this WMHSMUN the best one yet! Our committee is happening in present day, so be sure to keep up to date with your country’s stance on the issues at hand, and what’s happening in the world as a whole in reference to the current refugee crisis.

Of course, if you have any questions before the conference don’t hesitate to email me at sckidd@email.wm.edu! Don’t forget that position papers are mandatory, and a helpful guide can be found on the WMHSMUN website. I am looking forward to WMHSMUN this fall, and what innovative solutions will come from our sessions.

Sincerely, Sophie KiddWilliam and Mary ‘20Director High Commission on Refugees

An Introduction to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees, better known as the UN Refugee Agency, was created in 1950 and, “work[s] to ensure that everybody has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge, having fled violence, persecution, war or disaster at home”1. The UNHCR was created after the second World War, to help those affected. UNHCR’s work expanded following the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951 and its subsequent Protocol established in 1967 set many global guidelines when it came to refugees.

For example, the convention established the first working definition for what a refugee was and stated that, “refugees deserve, as a minimum, the same standards of treatment enjoyed by other foreign nationals in a given country and, in many cases, the same treatment as nationals [and] recognizes the international scope of the refugee problem and the importance of international solidarity and cooperation in trying to resolve them”2.

Over the past 67 years, the UNHCR has helped over 50 million refugees in 130 countries. The organization works on a plethora of refugee issues, including but not limited to seeking asylum, advocating for refugee rights on a local, national, and global level, education, shelter, and refugee protection3. Since its inception, the UNHCR has worked in countless international refugee crises. For example the UNHCR played a vital role in aiding refugees in the Hungarian revolution, de-colonization of Africa, and many other crises across the globe4. The UNHCR can relay a response to a crisis in as few as 72 hours, and is currently actively involved in four refugee “emergencies” across the globe in Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.5

An important definition to clear up before diving into our topics is what exactly is a refugee? According to the UNHCR a refugee is, “someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence6.” Although that may seem like a very simple definition, it’s good to keep in mind. There are many other terms which are thrown around when it comes to refugee status; for example, an internally displaced person (someone who is forced to leave their home but still stays in their own country), a stateless person (someone who, quite literally, has no “state” and doesn’t have citizenship anywhere), and 1 UNHCR “About Us” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/about-us.html2 UNHCR “The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Its 1967 Protocol” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/about-us/background/4ec262df9/1951-convention-relating-status-refugees-its-1967-protocol.html3 UNHCR “What We Do” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/what-we-do.html4 UNHCR “History” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/history-of-unhcr.html5 UNHCR “Emergencies” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/emergencies.html6 USA for UNHCR “What is a Refugee?” http://www.unrefugees.org/what-is-a-refugee/

An Introduction to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Continued

an asylum seeker (someone who leaves their home country and wants to gain asylum in a different country)7.

A shocking statistic from the UNHCR reveals that, today, there are 65.6 million forcibly displaced peoples, 22.5 million refugees, and in 2016 only 189,300 of those refugees were successfully resettled. The world is facing the largest refugee crisis since World War Two, and the UNHCR’s work is more important now than ever before.

7 Ibid.

A quote from activist Malala Yousafzai perfectly illustrates the utter need for education for refugees, “I urge our leaders to put those most affected- girls and boys- at the heart of substantive commitments. Refugee children have the potential to help rebuild safe, peaceful, and prosperous countries, but they can’t do this without education”1. Obtaining quality education for refugees is absolutely fundamental. Staggering statistics from the UNHCR indicate that only 50% of refugee children attend primary school, 22% attend secondary school, and only 1% go to college or university2. The situation gets even more grim for young women and girls, who are often denied secondary education just because of their gender, and can be forced to marry or into human trafficking3. Education has the power to reduce those forced marriages, human trafficking, and child labor.

Figure 1: Primary School Graphic. Digital image. UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 8 July 2017.

Refugee children desperately need a safe place to learn, but are faced with hurdle after hurdle stopping them from getting in the classroom. Unfortunately, some do not recognize the importance education holds in a refugee’s life. Compared to other essentials such as food, 1 UNHCR “A Call to Action” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/conclusion.html2 UNHCR “Education” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/education.html3 Huffington Post “Education For Refugee Girls Will Help Prevent Child Marriage” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/malala-education-for-refugee-girls-will-help-prevent-child-marriage_us_57d97695e4b0fbd4b7bcb9824 UNHCR “Education: Introduction” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/introduction.html5 Educate a Child “Barriers to Education: Refugees” http://educateachild.org/explore/barriers-to-education/refugees6 UNHCR “Education: Starting Out” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/starting-out.html7 Ibid.

water, and shelter some believe that education is just a “luxury” for refugees and needs to be placed on the back burner. This manifests itself in a lack of education funding, and an inability to truly facilitate long-term planning when it comes to refugee education4.

The difficulties associated with refugee education do not stop there. Once a refugee child is in school, it can be exceedingly challenging to keep them in school for a sustainable period of time. Refugee classrooms can be incredibly overcrowded, with student to teacher ratios as high as 1 to 705. Students can have radically different levels of knowledge, many may have missed long stretches of school, some may be wrestling with various forms of emotional and mental trauma, which makes a very demanding set of students for one teacher to face. More formal training for teachers is an urgent need when considering the refugee education crisis. Another difficulty refugee students face is inclusion in their new host country, which is a perfect opportunity for education to play a key role. It is essential for host countries to work with organizations like the UNHCR to accommodate refugee students and insure that they are successfully integrated into their educational systems. In some countries refugees are restricted from attending school with students from their host country, limiting their access to the quality of education they will receive at their school6. A viable solution for catching refugees up to speed with their host country’s educational system is accelerated education, especially for those students who have missed long stretches of school. According to the UNHCR accelerated education allows, “older students the opportunity to cover the same ground as standard-age learners, but at a faster and more intensive pace with a condensed curriculum”7.

Topic One:Refugee Education

Figure 2: Baldwin, S. Syrian Refugees Attending School in Lebanon. Digital image. UNHCR.

UNHCR, n.d. Web. 8 July 2017.

Accelerated education may be one of the answers to the growing problem of ensuring secondary school and higher education for refugees. Delegates should consider the fact that the UNHCR only has one third of the budget to help refugees get into secondary school than they do for primary school8. In fact, secondary school is more expensive for refugees and yet another burden that refugee families have to bear resulting in fewer students in the classroom. The problem is only exacerbated when it comes to higher education, such as university or vocational training. However, efforts are being made to ensure higher refugee education through harnessing the power of technology and scholarship programs. What’s known as “e-learning” allows students to access lectures, notes, and other necessary items and is a great source of “flexible learning” for refugee students9. Of course, delegates must consider that e-learning is not a perfect substitute for learning in the classroom and other difficulties which can be associated with educating online. Another way refugees gain access to higher education is through scholarships from organizations like the Institute of International Education. The institute has a Syria Consortium for Higher Education in Crisis which has a network of colleges providing various scholarships to Syrian refugees10. 8 UNHCR “Moving Ahead” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/moving-ahead.html9 UNHCR “Education: Reaching Higher” http://www.unhcr.org/57bfe7d8410 IIE “IIE Syria Consortium for Higher Education in Crisis” https://www.iie.org/Programs/Syria-Scholarships

The UNHCR along with other organizations have done tremendous work in fostering refugee education, but there is still much work still to be done to ensure that every refugee is able to have the education they deserve.

Questions to Consider1. In what ways can the UNHCR and its member

states work to give refugee girls and young women more access to education?

2. How important does your country believe refugee education is? Does your country see it as an essential? A luxury?

3. How can the UNHCR work with host countries to ensure refugee inclusion at school?

4. How much of a role should technology play in refugee education?

Creating a sense of home for refugees is one of the most powerful tools the UNHCR has. The ability to have a new, stable place to live helps to foster a powerful sense of dignity for refugees, refugee families and entire refugee communities. However, turning this sense of home into a reality is much easier said than done. Creating camps is often seen as the first solution to finding suitable shelters for refugees, and while they can be incredibly successful these camps can sometimes be rife with problems. In some cases camps are first established in an emergency situation, but can turn into long-term living spaces which they are not built for and subsequently not equipped to handle. Camps can be filled with violence, gangs can cause fear within refugee communities. Unfortunately, many violent incidents can occur daily. Or, camps are incredibly overcrowded, cramming far too many into far too small spaces. Along with the overcrowding many camps have problems with securing adequate sanitation and subsequent issues with disease. According to the UNHCR,

Topic Two:Creating Sustainable and Successful Settlements

“Over 2.6 million refugees currently live in camps worldwide and have been displaced for over five years, some for over a generation”11. Determining where camps are built, how they are built, and what they are built with are some of the first things to consider when attempting to build the best possible refugee settlements.

Figure 3: Hockstein, E. Refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. Digital image. UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 8 July 2017. UNHCR “Missing Out” http://www.

unhcr.org/en-us/missing-out-state-of-education-for-the-worlds-refugees.html

A crucial question when faced with building a settlement is where it should be built. For example, many camps are created out of necessity, popping up in areas where there is enough space to shelter many refugees. However, these camps can play a big part in isolating refugee communities from their new host country or creating tension between a host country and the refugees who seek asylum there. Finding a way to adequately house refugees while still keeping the host country satisfied is an incredibly difficult quagmire for organizations like the UNHCR to try and wrestle for solutions. Countries like Lebanon and Jordan which surround war-torn Syria are faced with a growing crisis of their own; how many more refugees can they take?12 11 UNHCR “Shelter” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/shelter.html12 UNHCR “The Future of Syria: Isolated and Insecure” http://unhcr.org/FutureOfSyria/isolated-and-insecure.html13 UNHCR “Ikea Foundation” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/ikea-foundation.html?query=ikea14 The Better Shelter “Product” http://www.bettershelter.org/product/15 Curbed “Ikea’s Refugee Shelters Will Be Redesigned After Flaws Surface” https://www.curbed.com/2017/4/28/15467622/better-shelter-ikea-design-refugee-camp16 UNHCR “Bottled Sand Builds Better Homes for Sahrawi Refugees” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/latest/2017/1/5874c2dd4/bottled-sand-builds-better-homes-sahrawi-refugees.html17 UNHCR “Missing Out” http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/missing-out-state-of-education-for-the-worlds-refugees.html

Discovering new materials to build refugee camps with is the way for makeshift camps to become ultimately more sustainable and environmentally friendly. The Ikea Foundation is one of the leaders in creating new and innovative homes for refugees, and is the UNHCR’s largest private sector partner13. Through this partnership, Ikea has created a refugee shelter, known as the ‘Better Shelter’. The Better Shelter packs flat and can be easily assembled in as little as 4 hours and is made up of a steel foundation, a roof with solar panels, and walls and windows14. This groundbreaking design is a good first step in creating the best homes possible for refugees, but it is not without its flaws. The shelter is currently being re-designed to troubleshoot various flaws like improving its lighting and making the walls more wind-resistant15. This raises an important question: who should be designing refugee shelters? Involving refugees in the shelter-design process is not only practical, but also an incredible source of empowerment. Refugees will be able to give the best feedback and input about what will and will not be successful when it comes to their own shelters. For example, Tateh Lehbib, a refugee in Algeria decided to build a shelter using water bottles filled with sand to cope with the region’s fierce climate16. It is essential to remember the incredible impact refugees can make. A quote by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi perfectly illustrates that , “Refugees have skills, ideas, hopes and dreams… They are also tough, resilient and creative, with the energy and drive to shape their own destinies, given the chance.”17

Refugees must be given the chance to live in safe, comfortable, and happy environments so they can thrive.

Figure 4

Figure 5: Fraser, Russell. Refugee builds shelter out of bottled sand. Digital image. UNHCR.

UNHCR, n.d. Web. 8 July 2017.

Questions to Consider1. What role can the UNHCR and your country

play in helping to ease the burden of countries directly taking in massive amounts of refugees?

2. How does your country feel about allowing in refugees? Positively? Negatively?

3. Does your country have any refugee settlements or camps in it? How big are they? Do they work well? How could they be more successful?

4. How can the UNHCR work to not isolate refugees in their new host countries?

5. Are there more ways to include refugees in settlement design processes?

Works CitedIntroduction

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “About Us.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 6 July 2017.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Its 1967 Protocol.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 6 July 2017.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “What We Do.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 6 July 2017.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Emergencies.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web.6 July 2017.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “History of UNHCR.” UNHCR, UNHCR.

“What Is a Refugee? Definition and Meaning.” USA for UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 10 July 2017.

Topic #1: Refugee Education

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Call to Action.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 6 July 2017.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Education.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 6 July 2017.

Gardner, Tom. “Malala: Education For Refugee Girls Will Help Prevent Child Marriage.” The Huffington Post. Reuters, 15 Sept. 2016. Web. 10 July 2017.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Introduction.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 6 July 2017.

“Refugees.” Educate a Child. Education Above All, n.d. Web. 6 July 2017.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Starting Out.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 6 July 2017.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Moving Ahead.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 6 July 2017.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Aiming Higher.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 6 July 2017.

“IIE Syria Consortium for Higher Education in Crisis.” IIE: The Power of International Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 July 2017.

Works Cited ContinuedTopic #2: Creating Sustainable and Successful Settlements

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Shelter.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 8 July 2017.

“Refugee Children in Crisis.” The Future of Syria. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 8 July 2017.

“The Future of Syria: Refugee Children in Crisis.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 8 July 2017.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “IKEA Foundation.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 8 July 2017.

“Designed with and for Refugees.” Better Shelter. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 July 2017.

Eldredge, Barbara. “Flaws in Ikea’s Refugee Shelters Prompt Redesign.” Curbed. Curbed, 28 Apr. 2017. Web. 8 July 2017.

Fraser, Russell. “Bottled Sand Builds Better Homes for Sahrawi Refugees.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 8 July 2017.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Missing Out: Refugee Education in Crisis.” UNHCR. UNHCR, n.d. Web. 8 July 2017.