Research, ideas, and leadership for a more secure, peaceful world
In 1991, when Sadako Ogata accepted the position of U. N. High Commissioner for Refugees, she was the first woman ever to hold that position as well as the first Japanese citizen.
In 1991, when Sadako Ogata accepted the position of U. N. High Commissioner for Refugees, she was the first woman ever to hold that position as well as the first Japanese citizen. In her fourth week on the job, she confronted three emergencies in three different countries: Iraq, Ethiopia, and Albania. In the ten years that followed, years that witnessed some of history’s greatest refugee crises, the rise of regional conflicts around the world, and an increase in terrorism, Ogata learned firsthand how to manage devastating situations on a daily basis.
Now, in her book THE TURBULENT DECADE: Confronting the Refugee Crises of the 1990s, Ogata tells the on-the-ground story of four crises in which she directed relief: Iraq, the Balkans, the African Great Lakes Region, and Afghanistan and challenges the world community to realize the limits of humanitarian action and work toward real political solutions when conflicts arise. Her famous statement that "there are no humanitarian solutions to humanitarian problems" seems just as relevant today as it did during her tenure. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a refugee crisis in Chechnya, and genocide in Sudan, present the international community with new challenges — a community itself fractured by the debate over the conflict in Iraq.
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