Former Iraqi president Barham Salih has been named the first non-Western chief of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Salih has provided a realistic and optimistic future for the organisation by emphasising the need for a long-term solution for millions of displaced refugees.
Who is Barham Salih?
Not only UNHCR’s first non-Western commissioner, Salih is also the first former state leader to hold such a position.
He is also a former refugee himself after his family fled his homeland during the regime of Saddam Hussein, and he has reiterated his deep connection with the displaced people he has met and worked with.
He was born in Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah in 1960 at the peak of Hussein’s dictatorship.
His family first fled to Iran in 1974, then returned home five years later, only to be captured by Hussein’s authorities due to his membership in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Salih recalled that his harrowing experiences of being a refugee and of being tortured drove him towards the needy and those who seek liberation.
His family finally fled Iraq to the United Kingdom, seeking better opportunities, with Salih earning his degree in computer engineering.
His return to Iraq decades later opened his political career, and he became president of the Arab nation from 2018 to 2022.
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What is his vision?
Salih replaced the UNHCR’s former commissioner, Filippo Grandi, and was recommended by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who praised his “personal perspective of displacement” and his prowess in crisis negotiation.
Guterres and Grandi agreed that such characteristics are what the UNHCR is in dire need of, given the organisation’s financial challenges after the unprecedented cut in humanitarian aid from wealthy Western nations, most notably the United States.
Recognising the UNHCR’s new reality, Salih has called for global support for a more durable set of solutions that would help refugees rebuild their lives no matter where they have sought asylum.
One of his initial priorities was highlighting the mission of the Shirika Plan spearheaded by the Kenyan government.
This plan is intended to advocate for self-reliance and peaceful coexistence of refugees in host countries.
Refugees are also given opportunities to rebuild their legal identities, access to special work permits, banking services and universal health care under the plan.
The challenges awaiting Salih
Salih has acknowledged the current status of the organisation he is set to lead, with the need to ration depleting humanitarian funds to those nations most in need.
During his campaign for the role, Salih said his priority is to put the welfare of the refugees at the centre of UNHCR, supported by long-term solutions.
Moreover, Salih’s term as commissioner will also include the growing challenges led by the war between Russia and Ukraine, the worsening humanitarian crises in Sudan, Myanmar and Gaza and the impacts of climate change in impoverished nations.
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