Some criticism is definitely warranted. For example, the Biden administration has cut funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the United Nations aid arm for Palestine, after some of its staff were suspected of participating in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. did. The United Nations Human Rights Council is a sick joke. Its members include notorious human rights violators such as Russia, Venezuela, and China. And UN peacekeepers are notorious for mistreating the very people they are supposed to protect.
But the United Nations also does a lot of important work that is less appreciated in the United States. I recently traveled for a week to Moldova and Ukraine with a delegation of American experts convened by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and I was very impressed by the refugee crisis caused by the refugee crisis. I came away very impressed by UNHCR’s efforts to alleviate the effects of COVID-19. Russian invasion. Its efforts to help Ukraine and its neighbors weather the onslaught merit continued U.S. support.
The scale of the refugee crisis is staggering. Two years after the Russian invasion, nearly 6.5 million people have fled Ukraine, and an additional 3.7 million are internally displaced. This corresponds to about a quarter of Ukraine’s pre-war population. And in frontline communities, even many of those who remain at home are struggling to survive. In total, approximately 14.6 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance. These needs far exceed the capacity of the Ukrainian government and neighboring countries to address them on their own. Kiev can only cover half of its state budget, and the rest requires foreign aid.
A myriad of government and private relief agencies have filled the void, including organizations funded by the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development. In many cases, the United Nations takes the lead. In 2023, UNHCR provided various types of assistance to 2.63 million people in Ukraine. This includes helping displaced Ukrainians repair damaged homes, sending winter blankets and generators to frontline communities, and restoring legal documents lost in the war, President Vladimir Putin said. This includes providing psychological and social services to people who have been traumatized by the constant bombing of the United States.
UNHCR occasionally delivers relief supplies. We saw warehouses in Odessa filled with food, winter clothing, hygiene kits and kitchen sets. However, the authorities want to provide cash assistance in the form of ATM cards using existing banks in Ukraine, wherever possible. These grants were awarded to around 900,000 Ukrainians last year. The average stipend is only about $120 a month, but with that little money, displaced Ukrainians can get everything they need most, including housing, medical care, transportation, food, and clothing. I can do it. It also stimulates the local economy, rather than creating a parallel “aid economy.”
Our group visited an apartment building in Kiev two days after the Russian missile attack to see how UNHCR and its national and international partners were able to take action quickly and effectively. Four people were killed, 39 injured and hundreds forced to flee their homes. By the time we arrived, workers were already repairing the damage, and in a nearby school gymnasium UNHCR and other aid agencies were setting up shop to help affected families. The gym was less crowded because most people already had what they needed, like food, medicine, and a place to sleep. Such rapid response operations are constantly being carried out across Ukraine, helping the country survive the Russian onslaught.
UNHCR is also a vital lifeline for European countries struggling to cope with large refugee influxes. We visited Ukraine’s neighbor Moldova (population 2.5 million), which has been inundated with more than 1 million Ukrainians since the start of the war in 2022. Yet there are no tent cities for Ukrainian refugees in Moldova or anywhere else in Europe. All newcomers either emigrate or are absorbed by the local population. This is one of his hidden success stories over the past two years. This partly speaks to the generosity of European countries in dealing with the continent’s biggest refugee crisis since 1945. But it is also a reflection of the international aid efforts led by UNHCR.
UNHCR is far from perfect. It is exposed to some of the same problems as other UN agencies. The company’s Uganda operations were rocked by a corruption scandal in 2018, and in Ukraine it was initially criticized by government officials for being slow to respond to the Russian invasion.
However, I was impressed by the UNHCR staff I met in Ukraine. They are a mix of local and foreign hires who appear committed to their duties and work long hours under harsh and often dangerous conditions. UNHCR Country Director Karolina Lindholm Billings is a serious Swede who has been living in Ukraine since 2021. Combining her firm demeanor and compassion, she manages 370 staff across 10 different locations.
Lindholm Billing had to evacuate her husband and three teenage children from Kiev when the Russian army invaded, and she sees them only on occasional family visits to Stockholm. “If I didn’t believe that the work my colleagues and I do, often seven days a week, in dangerous conditions, is meaningful to the people we serve, I would not have spent the last few years working with teenagers. “I would never sacrifice that,” she told me. “We are on the ground where brutal wars affect people every day, and we see first-hand the positive impact humanitarian aid has on people’s lives.”
I witnessed this myself when I visited refugee facilities run by UNHCR for grateful Ukrainians. They are eager for not only material help, but also a sign that the world cares about their plight.
UNHCR spent nearly $1 billion in 2023 in response to Ukraine’s refugee and displaced person crisis. The U.S. government donated $200 million, making it the single largest donor, but European countries contributed even more in total, while spending large sums of money to deal with millions of refugees in their own countries. I also paid for it. This year, UNHCR is seeking similar donations from the United States to continue its lifesaving work.
But that money may not be available right away. It is part of a $95 billion foreign aid bill (including $60 billion for Ukraine) that passed the Senate but is blocked by Republican isolationists in the House. Some members of Congress who support military aid to Ukraine are also talking about eliminating humanitarian and budgetary aid to Ukraine.
That would be foolish and heartless. Humanitarian and budgetary aid will allow Ukraine to continue functioning despite continued Russian aggression and allow refugees to return to their home countries, as some 2 million Ukrainians have already done. Without such international support, Ukraine could become a failed state that can no longer defend itself, leading to millions more refugees leaving the country and destabilizing neighboring countries. .
Congress needs to provide military and budgetary aid to Ukraine because it is fighting not only for its own survival but for the security of the entire Western world. And we need to continue to support UNHCR as part of the U.S. response to refugee crises not only in Ukraine but also as far afield as Lebanon, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. The United Nations also makes mistakes, but UNHCR is an unprecedented success story.