Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), will be giving this conference on the unsustainable situation of refugees from Palestine in the Middle East. The conference will be presented by Yolanda Álvarez, a journalist for RTVE, who will also be moderating the debate. The event will be opened by the General Director of Casa Árabe, Pedro Villena.

“Transcendental events in the region are having a profound impact on the lives of UNRWA’s beneficiaries, who are facing one of the most serious crises of protection in their history.” 
Pierre Krähenbühl

Named by the Secretary General in November of 2013, Pierre Krähenbühl became the Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) on March 30, 2014. As the Commissioner General, he serves at the level of Under-Secretary General. A Swiss national born in 1966, Mr. Krähenbühl has 25 years of experience in humanitarian work, human rights and development. Before joining the UNRWA, he was the Director of Operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross from July 2002 to January 2014, holding responsibility over the management and supervision of 12,000 workers in 80 countries. While in this position, he directly oversaw the response by the organization to the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Colombia and Libya, as well as others. He headed top-level negotiations with different governments, armed forces and other groups to ensure access to the populations affected by those conflicts.  Mr. Krähenbühl’s experience has also taken him to different destinations and positions in places undergoing profound social changes and armed conflicts, such as El Salvador, Peru and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He has a Master’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Geneva.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was created in 1949 under the mandate of the United Nations General Assembly in order to provide emergency support and start up social assistance programs for the Palestinian refugee population. The Agency began its operations on May 1, 1950. After more than 60 years, the UNRWA’s mission consists of providing assistance and protection to more than 5 million refugees from Palestine, who account for one-third of all refugees in the world. They currently live at refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In Spain, the National UNRWA Committee has been working since 2005 to achieve two fundamental objectives: increasing awareness among the Spanish population about the situation which these refugees are experiencing and spreading news about the humanitarian work that the UNRWA carries out with them.

UNRWA website