Countries participating in the summit are expected to announce individual pledges that are in line with a U.S. goal of increasing humanitarian aid by $3 billion, doubling resettlement and providing access to jobs and education, said Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
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In particular, seven countries – Romania, Portugal, Spain, Czech Republic, Italy, France, Luxembourg – committed to resettle or admit at least 10 times more refugees than in 2015, according to USA officials.
In addition the USA leader took aim at Russian Federation for its interference in Ukraine and at North Korea for its defiance of the global community on the nuclear front.
“We are facing a crisis of epic proportion”, Mr Obama said.
Ahead of his eighth and final address at the U.N. General Assembly, aides looked back to Obama’s first speech there in 2009, when he laid out a plan to fix the “skepticism and distrust” he believed had built up under President George W. Bush, fueling “reflexive anti-Americanism” that served as an excuse for collective inaction.
Now in its sixth year, the war in Syria has killed more than 300,000 people and forced millions from their homes. They don’t have to be defined in opposition to others but rather by a belief in liberty and equality and justice and fairness.
“Today, a nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself”, Obama said.
He also took what appeared to be a jab at Donald Trump, saying: “The world is too small for us to simply be able to build a wall” and prevent extremism from affecting societies.
“Just when we think it can not get any worse, the bar of depravity sinks lower”, Ban said in his last speech as leader of the organisation after a decade in the job, much of it preoccupied with Syria.
David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee and a former British Foreign Secretary, said he’s hopeful but waiting to see whether any agreements are backed up with action.
Trump has controversially proposed building a wall on the USA border with Mexico to keep out undocumented migrants.
Speaking at a US-led refugee summit at the United Nations, Obama praised Germany and Canada among other countries for opening up their doors to those fleeing the war in Syria and other conflicts. Several of those countries have been struggling under the burden of hosting refugees.
“There will be no repeat of the year 2015 with more than one and a half million irregular migrants”, he added.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II, whose country has seen 2.5 million Syrian refugees pass through since 2011 and is now hosting 1.5 million, stressed the need to work on a macro level in order to make progress on a micro level. “If not us, who can do it?” “Jordan’s burden is skyrocketing”.
Obama also went on to say that the world must learn from the global “failure” of countries in the past who refused to take in Jewish refugees escaping Nazi Germany. Sweden has already offered $625 million in humanitarian aid this year, he said.
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Obama noted that those living in extreme poverty around the world has dropped from 40 percent to under 10 percent, a statistic he shared “not to whitewash the challenges we face, or to suggest complacency”, but to urge leaders and followers to continue the journey forward.
