Angelina Jolie bows out as envoy for U.N. refugee agency

United Nations – Actress Angelina Jolie and the United Nations refugee agency are parting ways after more than two decades, they announced Friday. 

Jolie has been the U.N.’s highest profile goodwill ambassador and special envoy since 2001. She indicated Friday that she is opting to work with local organizations instead of with the world body.

“After 20 years working within the U.N. system I feel it is time for me to work differently, engaging directly with refugees and local organizations, and supporting their advocacy for solutions,” Jolie said in a joint statement with the U.N.

Filippo Grandi, high commissioner for the refugee agency, praised Jolie’s dedication to her work, which has taken her on more than five dozen trips to countries like Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Haiti, and most recently, Ukraine.

“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,” Grandi said.

U.N. Under-Secretary-General Melissa Fleming, who was the communications director at the refugee agency for many years and worked with Jolie, tweeted Friday that the actress “opened public eyes, minds and hearts.”

The move comes after Jolie has written of her frustration with the U.N.’s inability to bring peace to a growing number of countries in conflict, a view she expressed 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 said in the address. 

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she wrote in a piece for Time magazine in June: “One in every six children worldwide — 426 million — lives in a conflict zone.” And yet, she continued, “Because of the way the U.N. 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…