During his final speech to the U.N. Assembly, President Barack Obama intensified his call for world leaders to accept refugees.
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With numbers of people forced to flee conflict and hunger in their countries unprecedented since World War II, the meeting is expected to approve a document that might induce the 193 United Nations member states to adopt a more coordinated approach to protect the human rights of refugees and migrants.
Billionaire businessman and philanthropist George Soros announced on Tuesday his intention to invest $500 million in startups, existing businesses and initiatives founded by migrants and refugees.
This would, according to a White House statement, provide support for more than 6.3 million refugees across over 20 countries, educational opportunities for more than 80,000 refugees, and employment opportunities for more than 220,000 refugees.
Obama called the global refugee crisis a “test of our common humanity” during an an address at a summit on refugees during the United Nations General Assembly meeting in NY.
Meeting with CEOs of some of the companies and actor George Clooney and his wife, Amal, before the summit, Obama welcomed the pledges as more than an “extraordinary gesture of compassion”. He said “in too many places, we see leaders rewriting constitutions, manipulating elections and taking other desperate steps to cling to power”. “We have to imagine what it would be like for our family, for our children if the unspeakable happened to us”.
“We hope other countries will heed the call and build on this momentum with tangible offers to resettle many more people”.
“The overall climate is not very favourable to receiving refugees in many parts of the world but on the one hand, states committed to this so we can remind them of their obligations”.
On Tuesday, the White House announced that 51 American companies have made “new, measurable, and significant” commitments to aid refugees in the United States and around the world. “The way the United Nations will handle the refugee crisis is if all of us countries within the United Nations step up and dig deep and face those political headwinds that we all face, to do more, to give more, to take on a greater share of the resettlement challenge”, said Samantha Power, the USA ambassador to the United Nations.
“Oxfam very recently released a piece of research demonstrating that the six wealthiest economies host only nine percent of the world’s refugee population”.
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While the 25-page nonbinding document does not set specific financial obligations or quotas for admitting refugees, some leaders took the floor to announce unilateral pledges in support of refugees. They have come together and agreed to negotiate a deal to share the responsibility of housing and educating refugees, but it might not happen before 2018.
