President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio approach the United Nations with skepticism for a reason. In Washington, at least, the U.N. has a reputation for waste. Many senior American policymakers today got their start as revelations emerged about the U.N.’s multibillion-dollar Oil for Food Program, the appearance of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Anna’s son Kojo in the Panama Papers, and U.N. General Assembly President John Ashe’s alleged acceptance of bribes. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency and the U.N. Human Rights Council are minuscule compared to total U.N. operations, but manage to soil the entire institution’s reputation.
But whatever its flaws and staff cuts at the top, the U.N. remains an organization that can fulfill services individual states cannot. The General Assembly enables quiet conversations even among states that do not have diplomatic relations. Being in the same room can open unexpected opportunities. U.N. Peacekeeping can sometimes do more, more cheaply than the United States can. Yet, for every successful mission in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast, there are decadeslong failures in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Western Sahara. The U.N. is notoriously bad at separating wheat from chaff.
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The U.N. high commissioner for refugees is the wheat. It has a history of successfully wrapping up missions. On June 30, 2022, for example, UNHCR ended Ivorian refugee status after successfully returning more than 300,000 refugees who had fled to Liberia. Ninety-six percent of Ivorian refugees returned home, an achievement that also helped Liberia, which had recently emerged from its own civil war, thrive. UNHCR’s work in gaining documentation to allow refugee children to attend school while outside the Ivory Coast helped mitigate the problem of a lost generation.
UNHCR was also at the vanguard of the refugee crisis surrounding the dissolution of Yugoslavia, an event that sparked what was then Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II. UNHCR helped a million refugees return to Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo before its programs concluded in November 2023. Today, countries like Croatia and Bosnia are healthier, wealthier, and contributing to European security rather than undermining it. The 1999 78-day NATO bombing of Yugoslavia cost members of the alliance almost $5 billion, most paid for by the U.S.; UNHCR’s programs for Bosnia between 1991 and 1995 cost just one-fifth that.
In 1989 and 1990, UNHCR coordinated one of the most successful voluntary repatriation programs in Namibia, paving the way for 40,000 Namibian exiles to return from Angola, Zambia, and other countries. The quick and comprehensive reintegration allowed post-independence Namibia to thrive.
The U.N.’s most vocal supporters often base their support on humanitarianism, human rights, and international law. These considerations are often subjective; their loudest adherents often prioritize political agendas over objective assessment. For the U.S., however, the importance of UNHCR’s work done right is security.
UNHCR’s successes bring lasting security at pennies on the dollar. Nonprofit organization Freedom House ranks Namibia today as among the world’s freest countries, alongside Israel and above Brazil and Colombia in its rankings. Croatia ranks even higher. And, while Bosnia and Kosovo lag, their status alongside partially free countries such as Kenya and Mexico puts them outside the danger zone. The Ivory Coast’s current president appears willing to sacrifice his country’s stability and democracy for personal power, but Ivorian civil society may now be strong enough to resist his efforts.
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The same countries — Namibia, the former Yugoslavian states, and the Ivory Coast — are also increasingly wealthy, as they were able to leapfrog over development barriers because of the rapid resolution of refugee crises. The Ivory Coast, Croatia, and Namibia also rank above the world average in transparency. Each of these countries has a standard of living superior to that of its neighbors, with poorly integrated refugees.
Washington has slashed contributions to UNHCR, but it misplaces animosity toward the broader U.N. by penalizing an agency that provides long-term return on investment. With the secretary-general poised to select the new high commissioner for refugees, perhaps a better approach would be to choose a reformist from a refugee-riven country rather than making the new leader a vanity project for yet another European politician.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is the director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
