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05/10/22 21:10 PM IST

Nansen Award

In News 
  • Former German chancellor Angela Merkel won the United Nations refugee agency’s prestigious Nansen award for her “leadership, courage and compassion" in ensuring the protection of hundreds of thousands of desperate people at the height of the Syria crisis.
Key Details 
  • The UNHCR recognized Merkel’s determination to protect asylum seekers, helping them to survive and rebuild after facing war.
  • The Nansen Award committee also honoured four regional winners. These include a refugee support cacao cooperative in Costa Rica in the Americas, a volunteer refugee firefighting group in Mauritia in West Africa, humanitarian organization Meikse Myanmar that helps internally displaced people in Asia and the Pacific and an Iraqi gynaecologist known for providing medical and psychological aid to Yazidi girls and women in North Africa and Middle East.
  • The Nansen Awards will be bestowed to Merkel and other winners at a ceremony that will be organized in Geneva, Switzerland on October 10, 2022.
  • While Merkel will receive a cash prize of 150,000 USD, the regional winners will each receive 50,000 USD.
About Award 
  • The Nansen Award is conferred every year by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to an individual, group or organization in recognition of their contribution towards aiding refugees, stateless or displaced people.
  • It was created in 1954 in honour of the first United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Arctic explorer and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen.
  • The first to receive this award is Eleanor Roosevelt.
UNHCR 
  • The UNHCR is a UN agency involved in the protection of refugees and displaced and stateless communities.
  • It is involved in their voluntary repatriation, local integration and resettlement in a foreign country.
Source- Indian Express 

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