UNITED NATIONS - Cohesive global action is needed to support the
world’s refugees and internally displaced people, whose numbers
were rising dramatically due to an emerging “multiplication of
factors”, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said
Thursday, as he launched the agency’s 2012 report. The book also
describes practices developed by the Office of the High
Commissioner (UNCHR) and its partners in response to evolving
challenges, such as the marked increase in the number of people
displaced by such factors as climate change, natural disasters
and food scarcity. According to the report, trends in forced
displacement were testing the international system like never
before and there were an estimated 33.9 million people “of
concern” to UNHCR at the start of 2011, up from 19.2 million in
2005. As Guterres told correspondents, many of the millions of
people displaced by emerging factors did not fall under the
United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention — which had established
UNHCR — and its 1967 Pro