Iraqi refugees: making the urban refugee approach context-specific

In late 2006, the humanitarian community was alerted to the growing number of Iraqi refugees seeking assistance from NGOs in countries close to Iraq. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) convened a donor conference in April 2007 to set up a humanitarian response in the countries receiving the largest numbers of refugees, namely Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. It quickly became clear that the Iraqi refugee crisis was different from previous urban refugee situations, prompting UNHCR to revise its existing urban refugee policy in 2009. Over the last two years, UNHCR and its implementing partners have made considerable progress in refining their approach to Iraqi refugees, but additional work is needed to make their responses more context-specific.