A Conversation with Ms. Ruven Menikdiwela, Director of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s Office in New York

1. How would you describe the work you and your office does?

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is mandated by the United Nations’ General Assembly to protect refugees, internally displaced people, and stateless people. We strive to ensure that everyone has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to eventually return home, integrate in their first country of asylum or resettle in a third country.

We support governments in ensuring that refugees have access to physical safety, food, shelter, medical care – and in longer-term refugee situations – to education and livelihoods. In emergency situations, we also provide refugees, who often flee with just the clothes on their backs, with clean water, blankets, healthcare, sanitation, and other critical assistance.

Over 80 percent of refugees are hosted in low and middle income countries, so we’re working more closely than ever with all segments of society, from development actors, civil society groups, faith-based organizations, the private sector and others to include sustainable and win-win interventions for both the refugees and the communities that host them.

In February of 2020, I took on my current role as Director of UNHCR’s Office in New York which represents the interests of global refugee and UNHCR concerns, in United Nations Headquarter-based processes. This includes interacting with Member States, other UN Agencies and the principal organs of the UN, such as the UN General Assembly and its Committees, the UN Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and from within the UN Secretariat including the Executive Office of the Secretary General. Prior to taking on my current role as Director for UNHCR’s New York Office, I was UNHCR’s Representative in Pakistan, which has marked its 40^th year of hosting refugees from Afghanistan earlier this year. Although millions have returned home over the years, the country continues to host over 1.4 million today and they continue to need our support.

2. How does this work overlap with religion or religious actors? How and why do you partner with faith based civil society actors?

UNHCR has been working with faith-based organizations (FBOs) for a long time, both as partners who would implement our programmes in the field, and as partners in advocacy for refugees and the forcibly displaced.

Across our operations, we have seen firsthand how faith-based actors have the unique capacity to bring people together around the common values of solidarity and compassion. They can influence values and attitudes by creating more tolerance toward refugees, internally displaced persons and stateless persons, even in the most politically and socially charged environments.

Faith actors often have generations-old trust and links with the communities with which they live and work, which have enabled them to play a key role in providing protection and assistance to refugees and to facilitate their relations with their host communities.

They also play an instrumental role in advocating for the protection of the displaced – alongside UNHCR – with local authorities and local actors, and show great flexibility in adapting their responses to the specific needs of displaced communities with whom they work, and finding innovative ways of providing essential services.

3. Have you seen a specific value in partnering with faith-based actors in times of COVID-19?

I took on my role as Director for UNHCR’s Office in New York as COVID-19 was engulfing the world. As we grapple with the pandemic, it has become more apparent than ever how interconnected and interdependent we all are, and how each one of us has a role to play and can make a difference. Around the world, we have seen incredible acts of kindness and solidarity, including from faith-based leaders. But we have also seen rampant misinformation and a regrettable rise in the stigmatization of refugees and displaced communities.

More than ever, we depend on faith-based actors to share trustworthy information about communities of concern to UNHCR and debunk myths about refugees and the forcibly displaced. Faith actors continue to play an instrumental role in preventing and responding to COVID-19, and in helping us ensure refugees are included in national healthcare responses – one of UNHCR’s key priorities right now.

The High Commissioner and the senior leadership of UNHCR met with FBOs last month and identified key areas where the latter can assist in the COVID-19 response. This includes engaging in the response to gender-based violence – a phenomenon exacerbated by lockdowns and confinement – and raising awareness on safe religious practices and the promotion of evidence-based health advice.

We have also identified four specific areas of focus in engagements with FBOs in our weekly consultations with NGOs late month: localization, interfaith campaigns or initiatives, advocacy and protection, and the revitalization of a 2012 dialogue on faith and protection. UNHCR is working with FBOs on the preparation of such an interfaith initiative to strengthen joint advocacy and mutually reinforcing messaging on the protection of, and care for, refugees and forced displaced populations in the COVID-19 pandemic.

4. What do you find most inspiring (or most frustrating) about your work in and with religious actors?

The most inspiring and enriching aspect of engaging with faith-based actors is our ability to learn from the sense of profound trust and a deep sense of community that they have, with the communities with which they live, pray and work. Engaging faith-based actors can have a ripple effect with enormous gains for the forcibly displaced and their hosts, from reaching marginalized and remote communities, to dispelling myths about them, and turning a narrative of vulnerability into one of empowerment and resilience.

5. Have you seen a specific value in partnering with faith-based actors in times of COVID-19?

In the COVID-19 response, UNHCR and FBOs are working together and responding to the crisis from a common approach that every person is entitled to dignity and respect. These shared values are reflected in the “Welcome the Stranger” Affirmation and the underlying principles of the Global Compact on Refugees. We would like to sustain the momentum of renewed engagement with FBOs in the COVID-19 response and bridge it with longer-term collaboration for better protection and solutions for refugees and other persons of concern.

To that end, UNHCR is making efforts to improve its own “faith literacy”: Through recognizing the diversity of FBOs, through faith-sensitive training and the establishment of a dedicated work force to ensure a more balanced and inclusive engagement with FBOs during and beyond the COVID-19 response.