Senior United Nations (UN) official Filippo Grandi from Italy has taken the charge as new UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
he has worked in refugee and political affairs in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, began his five-year term as UN High Commissioner for Refugees on January 1, succeeding António Guterres.
About Filippo Grandi
- He has worked in international affairs for over 30 years as a Italian diplomat, of which 27 years he spent with the United Nations.
- He started his career in the office of UNHCR in 1988 and had represented UN in refugee and political affairs in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
- He also had served as head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
- He had worked prior to that for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) as Deputy Special Representative.
About United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
- UNHCR works worldwide to protect, assist and find solutions for refugees, internally displaced people and stateless populations.
- It has some 9,700 staff across 126 countries, many of them working in humanitarian emergencies and in close proximity to regions of conflict.
- In June 2015 it reported that worldwide forced displacement had reached a new post-World War II high of 59.5 million people.
- Displacement levels have continued to rise since, most visibly with the situation of more than one million refugees and migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe during 2015.