'Time for me to work differently': Angelina Jolie steps down as UN refugee agency special envoy after 20 years
NEW YORK, NEW YORK: Angelina Jolie has ended her ties with the United Nations refugee agency UNHRC after more than two decades. In a joint statement on Friday, December 16, 2022, the actress revealed that she has decided to continue her humanitarian works but would like to directly engage with the refugees. The 47-year-old actress, who served as a Goodwill Ambassador and Special Envoy of UNHRC since 2001, said, "After 20 years working within the UN system I feel it is time for me to work differently, engaging directly with refugees and local organizations, and supporting their advocacy for solutions."
Taking the moment to thank Jolie for her contribution through the years, Filippo Grandi, high commissioner for United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), said, "Angelina Jolie has been an important humanitarian partner of UNHCR for very long. We are grateful for her decades of service, her commitment, and the difference she has made for refugees and people forced to flee." The ‘Salt’ actress in her capacity made over five dozen trips to several parts of the world, including Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Yemen, Haiti, and her last one, Ukraine.
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Very grateful to Angelia Jolie for her 20 years of service and advocacy on behalf of the world's displaced people and in support of @Refugees.
— Melissa Fleming 🇺🇳 (@MelissaFleming) December 16, 2022
She opened public eyes, minds and hearts.https://t.co/4dgbuJGRwB via @refugees
Melissa Fleming, UN Under-Secretary-General, who for several years closely worked with Jolie as a communications director at the refugee agency, also congratulated and thanked the actress on Twitter. She wrote, "Very grateful to Angelia Jolie for her 20 years of service and advocacy on behalf of the world's displaced people and in support of @Refugees. She opened public eyes, minds and hearts."
Many anticipated this move from Jolie after she openly expressed her frustration at the General Assembly in 2019. "We live at a time of blatant disregard for the laws of war that forbid attacks on civilians ... We seem incapable of upholding minimum standards of humanity in many parts of the world," she emphasized in her address, according to CBS News.
Most recently in her article for Time magazine in June, she wrote, "One in every six children worldwide — 426 million — lives in a conflict zone." Jolie continued, "Because of the way the UN was set up, it is tipped towards the interests and voice of powerful nations at the expense of those people suffering the most from conflict and persecution whose rights and lives are not treated equally."
Richard Gowan, UN director for the International Crisis Group, lauded Jolie’s patience with the UN body, and told CBS News, "She has been one of its most effective celebrity advocates. But we are in an era when political and economic forces are going to make the UN's humanitarian work ever more difficult.”
“I suspect that celebrities are going to be looking for alternative platforms to do good works, like international NGOs, rather than the UN in the future, as multilateral diplomacy becomes ever more complicated," he added.
In her refugee camp visit to Burkina Faso on World Refugee Day, Jolie had addressed officials and refugees, "I have never been as worried about the state of displacement globally as I am today."