The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. UNHCR’s primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. In its efforts to achieve this objective, the Office strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another country, and to return home voluntary. By assisting refugees to return to their own country or to settle permanently in another country, UNHCR also seeks lasting solutions to their plight. UNHCR’s areas of responsibility have gradually expanded to include assistance to statelessness and internally displaced people.

UNHCR seeks to reduce situations of forced displacement by encouraging States and other institutions to create conditions which are conducive to the protection of human rights and the peaceful resolution of disputes. In all of its activities, it pays particular attention to the needs of children and seeks to promote the equal rights of women and girls.

In more than six decades, the Agency has helped tens of millions of people restart their lives.

UNHCR has been working in Central African Republic (CAR) since 1986. Following the December 2013 crisis that forced more than a million people to flee, UNHCR activities focused on the protection of displaced populations and the promotion of social cohesion; emergency response to population movements (shelter and emergency relief items); reconstruction, and promotion of the rights of displaced persons to housing, land and property (HLP).


Despite the many crises that have generated significant waves of displacement, CAR is also a host country for thousands of refugees seeking peace and security. Today, almost 13,000 refugees and asylum seekers from 22 countries live in CAR. The most represented nationalities amongst these are Congolese, Sudanese, Chadians and South Sudanese refugees. UNHCR provides them with multisectoral assistance including: registration and documentation; camp management and water supply; sanitation and health services; education; vocational training, and support for income generating activities that allow refugees to develop their self-sufficiency.