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The primary mandate of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is to provide international protection to refugees and seek durable solutions to their problems. Protection involves preventing the forcible return of refugees to a country where they may have a well-founded fear persecution in accordance with the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees.
New Zealand contributes to global burden-sharing in a number of ways: we are a signatory to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, and accept an annual quota of 750 refugees from UNHCR for resettlement in our country; we provide emergency disaster relief for countries affected by natural disasters, particularly in the Pacific; and we support key principles of humanitarian and human rights laws which promote the rights of people affected by armed conflicts (such as the Geneva Conventions). New Zealand doubled its core contribution to UNHCR from NZ$1,800,000 in 2004/05 to NZ$3,600,000 in 2005/06.
