Melissa Fleming | |
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| Alma mater | Oberlin College Boston University |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, author, communications professional |
| Employer | United Nations Department of Global Communications |
| Notable work | A Hope More Powerful than the Sea (2017 book) |
Melissa Ruth Fleming is an American journalist, author, and United Nations official. She has been head of the United Nations Department of Global Communications since 2019.
She is the author of A Hope More Powerful than the Sea.
Melissa Fleming holds a bachelor's degree in German studies from Oberlin College, Ohio and a masters degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. [1]
Fleming started her career as a communistist. Between 1989 and 1994, Fleming worked as a Public Affairs Specialist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich. [2] From September 1994 to January 2001 she was head of the Press and Public Information Team at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Vienna. In January 2001 Fleming took over as Spokesperson and Head of the Media and Outreach at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, a post she held until June 2009. [1]
From July 2009 to 2019, Fleming worked as Head of Global Communications for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva and as the Spokesperson for the High Commissioner. Her comments on the 2015 European refugee crisis gained attention across the continent. [3] [4] At UNHCR, she led campaigns, social media engagement [5] and a multimedia news service [6] covering stories designed to generate empathy and stir action for refugees. In 2017 she wrote A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea book about Syrian refugee Doaa Al Zamel's experiences leading up to and during the 2014 Malta migrant shipwreck. [7] [8] She began hosting the UNHCR podcast, Awake at Night, and carried the podcast over to the UN in 2019. [9]
From 2016 to 2017, she served as Senior Advisor and Spokesperson on the incoming United Nations Secretary General's Transition Team. On September 1, 2019, she was appointed an Under Secretary-General of the United Nations, taking over from predecessor Alison Smale as head of the UN Department of Global Communications. [10]
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with over 18,879 staff working in 138 countries.
Rudolphus Franciscus Marie "Ruud" Lubbers was a Dutch politician, diplomat and businessman who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1982 to 1994, and as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 2001 to 2005. He was a member of the Catholic People's Party (KVP), which later merged to become the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party.
An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee.
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced people. Usually, refugees seek asylum after they have escaped war in their home countries, but some camps also house environmental and economic migrants. Camps with over a hundred thousand people are common, but as of 2012, the average-sized camp housed around 11,400. They are usually built and run by a government, the United Nations, international organizations, or non-governmental organization. Unofficial refugee camps, such as Idomeni in Greece or the Calais jungle in France, are where refugees are largely left without the support of governments or international organizations.
António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres is a Portuguese politician and diplomat. Since 2017, he has served as secretary-general of the United Nations, the ninth person to hold this title.
In international law, a stateless person is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". Some stateless people are also refugees. However, not all refugees are stateless, and many people who are stateless have never crossed an international border. On November 12, 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees stated there are about 12 million stateless people in the world.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan is a UN Special Political Mission tasked with assisting the people of Afghanistan.
An under-secretary-general of the United Nations (USG) is a senior official within the United Nations System, normally appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the secretary-general for a renewable term of four years. Under-secretary-general is the third highest rank in the United Nations, after the secretary-general and the deputy secretary-general. The rank is held by the heads of different UN entities, certain high officials of the United Nations Secretariat, and high-level envoys. The United Nations regards the rank as equal to that of a cabinet minister of a member state, and under-secretaries-general have diplomatic immunity under the UN Charter.
International Humanitarian City (IHC) is a Dubai, United Arab Emirates, based global hub for humanitarian emergency preparedness and response, which positions itself as the world's largest aid hub. Founded in 2003 by the Ruler of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, it is a major logistics centre for the international distribution of humanitarian aid and relief, with over 130,000 square metres of warehousing and logistical support facilities. IHC is a UAE free zone and is near Dubai Industrial City to the southwest.
Karin Landgren is the executive director of the independent think tank Security Council Report. A former United Nations Under-Secretary-General, she has headed multiple UN peace operations. She has also worked extensively in humanitarian response, development, and protection with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, and the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF.
Sylvana Foa is a former American journalist and public affairs specialist. She was the first woman to serve as the foreign editor of a major international news organisation, the first woman to serve as a news director of an American television network and the first woman to serve as spokesperson for the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Filippo Grandi is an Italian diplomat and United Nations official, currently serving as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He previously served as Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and United Nations Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan.
Refugees of the Syrian Civil War are citizens and permanent residents of Syria who have fled the country throughout the Syrian Civil War. The pre-war population of the Syrian Arab Republic was estimated at 22 million (2017), including permanent residents. Of that number, the United Nations (UN) identified 13.5 million (2016) as displaced persons, requiring humanitarian assistance. Of these, since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011 more than six million (2016) were internally displaced, and around five million (2016) had crossed into other countries, seeking asylum or placed in Syrian refugee camps worldwide. It is often described as one of the largest refugee crises in history.
Ahmad Fawzi is an Egyptian-born media spokesperson, who, for six months in July 2017, worked as Communication Adviser and Chief Spokesperson for the High Commissioner for Refugees. In 2015–2016 he served as interim Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva.
Claudia Romo Edelman is a Mexican-Swiss diplomat, speaker and media contributor, and an activist for equity, diversity and inclusion. Claudia has more than 25 years of experience leading marketing and advocacy for global organizations including UNICEF, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations and the World Economic Forum. She has launched hundreds of successful campaigns and initiatives including the SDG Lions, Product (RED), and the Sustainable Development Goals. She is the co-host of "Global GoalsCast", a podcast distributed by CBS News Digital, which inspires and empowers listeners to make the world a better place by sharing the stories of people, companies, and organizations that are advancing and achieving a more sustainable world.
Kutupalong refugee camp is the world's largest refugee camp. It is in Ukhia, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, inhabited mostly by Rohingya refugees that fled from ethnic and religious persecution in neighboring Myanmar. It is one of two government-run refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, the other being the Nayapara refugee camp.
The United Nations response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been led by its Secretary-General and can be divided into formal resolutions at the General Assembly and at the Security Council (UNSC), and operations via its specialized agencies and chiefly the World Health Organization in the initial stages, but involving more humanitarian-oriented agencies as the humanitarian impact became clearer, and then economic organizations, like the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the International Labour Organization, and the World Bank, as the socioeconomic implications worsened.
A Hope More Powerful than the Sea is a book by Melissa Fleming about Syrian refugee Doaa Al Zamel's experiences leading up to and during the 2014 Malta migrant shipwreck.
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