In addition to working with world leaders, Obama will also work with USA businesses in improving the lives of refugees.
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More than 65 million people in the world are displaced, the highest number on record since the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) began collecting statistics, according to the White House. There, President Obama is expected to announce United States aid initiatives, including plans to take in as many as 110,000 refugees next year, about a 30 percent increase over this year.
Billionaire investor George Soros pledged on Tuesday to invest up to US$500 million in programmes and companies benefiting migrants and refugees fleeing life-threatening situations.
“We have to do better as leaders in tamping down rather than encourage notions of identity that leads us to diminish others.The countries that succeeded are ones in which people feel they have a stake”, he said.
Emerging digital technology was highlighted as a particuarly promising opportunity by Soros, who said that advances in the sector could improve people’s access to government, legal, financial and health services.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the “New York Declaration on Migrants and Refugees” was a “breakthrough in our collective efforts to address the challenges of human mobility”.
“Recognizing this, the Obama administration recently launched a “Call to Action” asking USA companies to play a bigger role in meeting the challenges posed by forced migration”, Soros said.
“The New York Declaration marks a political commitment of unprecedented force and resonance”, said Filippo Grandi, U.N. High Commissioner for refugees.
Zeid said the United Nations member states present on Monday could change the suffering faced by refugees from conflicts, by promoting “respect, safety and dignity for all”.
But not all world leaders were so welcoming in their position on refugees; Austria΄s Chancellor Gerhard Kern called for a “Marshall Plan” for countries that are the main source of migrants, to reduce the number of refugees traveling elsewhere.
Countries could only attend Obama’s summit at the annual United Nations gathering of world leaders if they made a pledge.
“Collectively, our nations are roughly doubling the number of refugees that we admit to our countries to more than 360,000 this year”, Obama announced at the Leaders’ Summit on Refugees, held at the UN headquarters in NY. “We have to imagine what it would be like for our families for our children”.
Of those, 21.3-million are refugees, and 10-million stateless.
“As I discussed in my speech earlier today before the General Assembly, our worldwide system is facing a number of challenges, none of which can be solved by a single country”, Obama said.
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He called on all countries to achieve a more balanced, inclusive and sustainable growth of the global economy and help source countries of refugees and migrants achieve long-term peace and stability so that refugees can return home at an early date.
