Sadruddin Aga Khan

Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan (17 January 1933 – 12 May 2003) was a statesman and activist who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1966 to 1977, during which he reoriented the agency's focus beyond Europe and prepared it for an explosion of complex refugee issues.

He was also a proponent of greater collaboration between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN agencies.

Although he was raised in Europe by his French mother, his father, who was the 48th hereditary Imam of the Nizari Ismaili Muslims, had a strong influence on him.

He recalled that his father "insisted that I learnt the Koran and encouraged me to understand the basic traditions and beliefs of Islam but without imposing any particular views. He was an overwhelming personality but open-minded and liberal."

Together with his father Prince Sadruddin traveled widely in Muslim countries, coming into contact with his Islamic roots from a young age.

He described Iran as the cradle of his family, though he never lived there.

When he was a child, his paternal grandmother used to recite to him the great epic poems of Persian history.

He held British, French, Iranian, and Swiss citizenship, and was fluent in French, English, German and Italian, while also speaking some Persian and Arabic.

During the 1950s, between 200,000 and 300,000 refugees of European origin required assistance.

He received his early education in Lausanne, Switzerland, before graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1954 from Harvard College.

At Harvard, he lived in Eliot House with Paul Matisse, grandson of French artist Henri Matisse, with future Paris Review founders George Plimpton and John Train, and with Stephen Joyce, grandson of Irish writer James Joyce.

Along with Plimpton, he was an editor for the Harvard Lampoon.

After three years of post-graduate research at the Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Prince Sadruddin began a lifelong career of international service.

Prince Sadruddin joined the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1958, and became the Executive Secretary to its International Action Committee for the Preservation of Nubia in 1961.

This initiative brought together archaeologists from Eastern Europe and the West at the height of the Cold War.

The construction of the Aswan Dam threatened ancient Egyptian treasures including Abu Simbel, the temples of Philae and Kalabsha, and the Christian churches of Nubia.

He would later describe it as "one of UNESCO's great achievements" because of the challenging historical context in which it took place—in particular the ongoing tensions in the Middle East and the Cold War.

Prince Sadruddin began as a Special Envoy to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1959 with a focus on World Refugee Year (1959–1960).

The initiative became known for its Stamp Plan, a philatelic programme that raised funds through United Nations member countries, as well as the support of the Universal Postal Union.

At the time, the UNHCR's resources were primarily focused on supporting refugees crossing from Eastern Europe.

In January 1966, Prince Sadruddin was appointed United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees after serving for three years as Deputy High Commissioner.

At the age of 33 he became the youngest person ever to lead the UNHCR.

The Prince's interest in ecological issues led him to establish the Bellerive Foundation in the late 1970s, and he was a knowledgeable and respected collector of Islamic art.

Born in Paris, France, he was the son of Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan and Princess Andrée Aga Khan.

He married twice, but had no children of his own.

Prince Sadruddin died of cancer at the age of 70, and was buried in Switzerland.

Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, he was the only child of Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan III and his French-born third wife, the former Andrée Joséphine Carron.

By the 1970s the European refugee problems were mostly solved, but had been replaced by millions of displaced persons in the Third World.

He had widened the UNHCR mandate well beyond its original focus on Eastern Europe, extending the organisation's reach to refugees from Palestine, Vietnam, Angola and Algeria.

As the scale and complexity of refugee issues continued to increase, the UNHCR and the international community at large was better positioned to adapt.

For the next twelve years he directed the UN refugee agency through one of its most difficult periods, coordinating the international response to the 1971 Bangladesh crisis that uprooted 10 million people, the 1972 exodus of hundreds of thousands of Hutus from Burundi to Tanzania, and the Vietnamese boat people tragedy of the mid-1970s.

In 1972, Prince Sadruddin played a key role in finding new homes for tens of thousands of South Asians expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin.

Prince Sadruddin's determination not to discriminate between European and Third World refugees helped prepare the UNHCR for a change in the landscape of internationally displaced persons.

By the end of 1977 when he chose to step down from the position, he had become the longest-serving UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

He continued to serve in various capacities dealing with humanitarian situations on behalf of the UN.

Prince Sadruddin had, since 1978, been variously: Special Consultant and Chargé de Mission to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Commission and Convenor and co-chairman of the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues and of the Independent Working Group on the UN Financial Emergency.

He was later Coordinator for United Nations Humanitarian and Economic Assistance Programmes Relating to the People of Afghanistan and Executive Delegate of the Secretary-General for a United Nations Inter-Agency Humanitarian Programme, which dealt with problems of Iraq's border areas.

His appointment in September 1990 as Personal Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Humanitarian Assistance Relating to the Crisis between Iraq and Kuwait required diplomatic finesse.

Iraq's President Saddam Hussein was deeply suspicious of the UN, and was loath to do anything that would benefit the country's Shia Muslims.

Despite this, Prince Sadruddin was able to successfully negotiate with Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz for the establishment of a UN relief program for tens of thousands of Shia Muslims trapped in worsening conditions in the marshlands of southern Iraq.