Assistance to Refugees, Returnees and Displaced Persons in Africa

A/RES/71/173View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 60 Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, questions relating to refugees, returnees and displaced persons and humanitarian questions, published in 2017.

What other versions does this mandate have?

34 versions · 1992–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/80/188

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2025	A/RES/80/188	Assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa	4,883	100%Compare
2023	A/RES/78/185	Assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa	4,883	100%Compare
2023	A/RES/77/199	Assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa	4,883	100%Compare
2022	A/RES/76/144	Assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa	4,883	92%Compare
2020	A/RES/75/164	Assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa	4,498	100%Compare

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

23 reports · 2002–2026

Year	Symbol	Title	Mandate resolution
2026	A/81/347	Assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/80/188
2024	A/79/326	Assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/78/185
2023	A/78/183	Assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/77/199
2022	A/77/313	Assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/76/144
2021	A/76/290	Assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/75/164

What subjects does this mandate have?

8 subjects

Africa African Refugees Asylum Seekers Children Displaced Persons Humanitarian Assistance Refugee Assistance Refugee Protection

What’s in this document?

32 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the reports of the Secretary-General⁷ and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees;⁸

⁷A/71/354.

⁸Official Records of the General Assembly, Seventy-first Session, Supplement No. 12 (A/71/12).

Calls upon African States that have not yet signed or ratified the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa to consider doing so as early as possible in order to ensure its wider implementation;

Notes the need for African States to resolutely address the root causes of all forms of forced displacement in Africa and to foster peace, stability and prosperity throughout the African continent so as to forestall flows of refugees;

Notes with great concern that, despite all the efforts made so far by the United Nations, the African Union and others, the situation of refugees and displaced persons in Africa remains precarious and the number of refugees and internally displaced persons has dramatically increased, and calls upon States and other parties to armed conflict to observe scrupulously the letter and spirit of international humanitarian law, bearing in mind that armed conflict is one of the principal causes of forced displacement in Africa;

Welcomes decisions EX.CL/Dec.854 (XXVI) and EX.CL/Dec.877 (XXVII) adopted by the Executive Council of the African Union at its twenty-sixth ordinary session, held in Addis Ababa from 23 to 27 January 2015, and at its twenty-seventh ordinary session, held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 7 to 12 June 2015, on the humanitarian situation in Africa, insofar as they relate to persons of concern to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees;

Expresses its appreciation for the leadership shown by the Office of the High Commissioner, and commends the Office for its ongoing efforts, with the support of the international community, to assist African States hosting large numbers of refugees, including by providing support to vulnerable local host communities, and to respond to the protection and assistance needs of refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa;

Notes with appreciation the initiatives taken by the African Union, the Subcommittee on Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons of its Permanent Representatives Committee and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in particular the role of its Special Rapporteur on Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, to ensure the protection of and assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa;

Acknowledges the important contribution of age, gender and diversity mainstreaming in identifying, through a participatory approach, the protection risks faced by the different members of the refugee communities, in particular the non-discriminatory treatment and protection of women, children, persons with disabilities and the elderly;

Affirms that children, because of their age, social status and physical and mental development, are often more vulnerable than adults in situations of forced displacement, recognizes that forced displacement, return to post-conflict situations, integration into new societies, protracted situations of displacement and statelessness can increase child protection risks, taking into account the particular vulnerability of displaced children to forcible exposure to the risks of physical and psychological injury, exploitation and death in connection with armed conflict, as well as the recruitment and use of children by parties to armed conflict in violation of applicable international law, and acknowledges that wider environmental factors and individual risk factors, particularly when combined, may generate different protection needs;

Recognizes that no solution to displacement can be durable unless it is sustainable, and therefore encourages the Office of the High Commissioner to support the sustainability of voluntary return, reintegration and resettlement;

Reaffirms the conclusion on civil registration adopted by the Executive Committee of the Programme of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees at its sixty-fourth session, held in Geneva from 30 September to 4 October 2013,⁹ and recognizes the importance of early registration and effective registration systems and censuses as a tool of protection and as a means to the quantification and assessment of needs for the provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance and to implement appropriate durable solutions;

⁹Ibid., Sixty-eighth Session, Supplement No. 12A (A/68/12/Add.1), chap. III, sect. A.

Also reaffirms the conclusion on registration of refugees and asylum seekers adopted by the Executive Committee of the Programme of the High Commissioner at its fifty-second session,¹⁰ notes the many forms of harassment faced by refugees and asylum seekers who remain without any form of documentation attesting to their status, recalls the responsibility of States to register refugees on their territories and, as appropriate, the responsibility of the Office of the High Commissioner or mandated international bodies to do so, reiterates in this context the central role that early and effective registration and documentation can play, guided by protection considerations, in enhancing protection and supporting efforts to find durable solutions, and calls upon the Office, as appropriate, to help States to conduct this procedure should they be unable to register refugees on their territory;

¹⁰Ibid., Fifty-sixth Session, Supplement No. 12A (A/56/12/Add.1), chap. III, sect. B.

Calls upon the international community, including States and the Office of the High Commissioner and other relevant United Nations organizations, within their respective mandates, to take concrete action to meet the protection and assistance needs of refugees, returnees and displaced persons and to contribute generously to projects and programmes aimed at alleviating their plight, facilitating durable solutions and supporting vulnerable local host communities;

Reaffirms the importance of timely and adequate assistance and protection for refugees, returnees and displaced persons, also reaffirms that assistance and protection are mutually reinforcing and that inadequate material assistance and food shortages undermine protection, notes the importance of a rights- and community-based approach in engaging constructively with individual refugees, returnees and displaced persons and their communities so as to achieve fair and equitable access to food and other forms of material assistance, and expresses concern with regard to situations in which minimum standards of assistance are not met, including those in which adequate needs assessments have yet to be undertaken;

Also reaffirms that respect by States for their protection responsibilities towards refugees is strengthened by international solidarity involving all members of the international community and that the refugee protection regime is enhanced through committed international cooperation in a spirit of solidarity and burden- and responsibility-sharing among all States;

Further reaffirms that host States have the primary responsibility to ensure the civilian and humanitarian character of asylum, calls upon States, in cooperation with international organizations, within their mandates, to take all measures necessary to ensure respect for the principles of refugee protection and, in particular, to ensure that the civilian and humanitarian nature of refugee camps is not compromised by the presence or the activities of armed elements or used for purposes that are incompatible with their civilian character, and encourages the High Commissioner to continue efforts, in consultation with States and other relevant actors, to ensure the civilian and humanitarian character of camps;

Condemns all acts that pose a threat to the personal security and well-being of refugees and asylum seekers, such as refoulement, unlawful expulsion and physical attacks, calls upon States of refuge, in cooperation with international organizations, where appropriate, to take all measures necessary to ensure respect for the principles of refugee protection, including the humane treatment of asylum seekers, notes with interest that the High Commissioner has continued to take steps to encourage the development of measures to better ensure the civilian and humanitarian character of asylum, and encourages the High Commissioner to continue those efforts, in consultation with States and other relevant actors;

Deplores the continuing violence and insecurity, which constitute an ongoing threat to the safety and security of staff members of the Office of the High Commissioner and other humanitarian organizations and an obstacle to the effective fulfilment of the mandate of the Office and the ability of its implementing partners and other humanitarian personnel to discharge their respective humanitarian functions, urges States, parties to conflict and all other relevant actors to take all measures necessary to protect activities related to humanitarian assistance, prevent attacks on and kidnapping of national and international humanitarian workers and ensure the safety and security of the personnel and property of the Office and that of all humanitarian organizations discharging functions mandated by the Office, and calls upon States to investigate fully any crime committed against humanitarian personnel and bring to justice the persons responsible for such crimes;

Calls upon the Office of the High Commissioner, the African Union, subregional organizations and all African States, in conjunction with agencies of the United Nations system, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and the international community, to strengthen and revitalize existing partnerships and forge new ones in support of the protection system for refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons, and encourages African States that have not yet done so to consider ratifying and enforcing the Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel;¹¹

¹¹United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 2051, No. 35457.

Calls upon the Office of the High Commissioner, the international community, donors and other entities concerned to continue and, where appropriate, to intensify their support to African Governments through appropriate capacity-building activities, including training of relevant officers, disseminating information about refugee instruments and principles, providing financial, technical, legal and advisory services to accelerate the enactment or amendment and implementation of legislation relating to refugees, strengthening emergency response and enhancing capacities for the coordination of humanitarian activities, in particular to those Governments that have received large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers;

Reaffirms the right of return and the principle of voluntary repatriation, appeals to countries of origin and countries of asylum to create conditions that are conducive to voluntary repatriation, and recognizes that, while voluntary repatriation remains the pre-eminent solution, local integration and third-country resettlement, where appropriate and feasible, are also viable options for dealing with the situation of African refugees who, owing to prevailing circumstances in their respective countries of origin, are unable to return home;

Also reaffirms that voluntary repatriation should not necessarily be conditioned on the accomplishment of political solutions in the country of origin in order not to impede the exercise of the refugees’ right to return, recognizes that the voluntary repatriation and reintegration process is normally guided by the conditions in the country of origin, in particular that voluntary repatriation can be accomplished in conditions of safety and dignity, and urges the High Commissioner to promote sustainable return through the development of durable and lasting solutions, particularly in protracted refugee situations;

Calls upon the international donor community to provide financial and material assistance that allows for the implementation of community-based development programmes that benefit both refugees and host communities, as appropriate, in agreement with host countries and consistent with humanitarian objectives;

Appeals to the international community to respond positively, in the spirit of solidarity and burden- and responsibility-sharing, to the third-country resettlement needs of African refugees, notes in this regard the importance of using resettlement strategically, as part of situation-specific comprehensive responses to refugee situations, and to this end encourages States, the Office of the High Commissioner and other relevant partners to make full use of the Multilateral Framework of Understandings on Resettlement, where appropriate and feasible;

Expresses serious concern about the expected reduction of the budget allocated to provide humanitarian assistance to refugees and internally displaced persons in Africa in 2016 and 2017;

Calls upon the international donor community to provide material and financial assistance for the implementation of programmes intended for the rehabilitation of the environment and infrastructure affected by refugees in countries of asylum as well as internally displaced persons, where appropriate;

Urges the international community, in the spirit of international solidarity and burden-sharing, to continue to fund generously the refugee programmes of the Office of the High Commissioner and, taking into account the substantially increased needs of programmes in Africa, inter alia, as a result of repatriation possibilities, to ensure that Africa receives a fair and equitable share of the resources designated for refugees;

Encourages the Office of the High Commissioner and interested States to identify protracted refugee situations which might lend themselves to resolution through the development of specific, multilateral, comprehensive and practical approaches to resolving such refugee situations, including the improvement of international burden- and responsibility-sharing and the realization of durable solutions, within a multilateral context, and recalls that those solutions include voluntary repatriation and, where appropriate and feasible, local integration and resettlement in a third country, while reaffirming that voluntary repatriation, supported, as necessary, by rehabilitation and development assistance to facilitate sustainable reintegration, remains the preferred solution;

Expresses grave concern about the plight of internally displaced persons in Africa, welcomes the efforts of African States in strengthening the regional mechanisms for the protection of and assistance to internally displaced persons, calls upon States to take concrete action to pre-empt internal displacement and to meet the protection and assistance needs of internally displaced persons, recalls in that regard the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement,¹² notes the current activities of the Office of the High Commissioner related to the protection of and assistance to internally displaced persons, including in the context of inter-agency arrangements in this field, emphasizes that such activities should be consistent with relevant General Assembly resolutions and should not undermine the refugee mandate of the Office and the institution of asylum, and encourages the High Commissioner to continue his dialogue with States on the role of his Office in this regard;

¹²E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2, annex.

Encourages African States, together with development and humanitarian actors, to work closely on multi-year strategies for refugees and internally displaced persons;

Invites the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the human rights of internally displaced persons to continue his ongoing dialogue with Member States and the intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations concerned, in accordance with his mandate, and to include information thereon in his reports to the Council and the General Assembly;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit a comprehensive report on assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa to the General Assembly at its seventy-second session, taking fully into account, inter alia, the efforts expended by countries of asylum and those aimed at bridging funding gaps, under the item entitled “Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, questions relating to refugees, returnees and displaced persons and humanitarian questions”.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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