The President’s interest in calling attention to the tens of millions of displaced people around the world, and pushing back against the anti-refugee tenor, was underscored by his decision to convene a Leaders’ Summit on Refugees at the United Nations Tuesday.
Advertisement
Emphasizing the importance of the New York Declaration, Grandi said that it marked an unprecedented political commitment and that “it fills what has been a perennial gap in the global refugee protection system – that of truly sharing responsibility for refugees, in the spirit of the UN Charter”. This despite statistics indicating that 86 percent of the world’s 22 million forced migrants and refugees are hosted in 10 developing countries. Last week, a study by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and Accenture found that mobile phones and Internet access are now as critical to refugees’ safety and security as food, shelter and water.
China pledged $100 million in humanitarian aid for refugees on Monday, saying a $1 billion fund it has set up with the United Nations could be used to help address the crisis. “These meetings in NY have reinforced the need for leaders to act quickly, to fully understand the causes of the crises and to work together on a sustainable response”. The Summit is an all day event on Monday 19 September 2016 at the UNHQ in NY.
US President Barack Obama called Tuesday on countries, particularly those blessed with wealth and closer in geography, to do more to help refugees in different parts of the world.
“Against this background, we are pleased at the convening of this important meeting that allows us to explore a collective blueprint for dealing with large movements of refugees and migrants”. Among the companies listed are Citigroup, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, MasterCard, Microsoft, and Twitter.
The refugee issue is one that’s captured the world’s attention more in the past two years than at perhaps any time since World War II, seared into the public’s consciousness by photos like that of a 3-year-old Syrian boy who drowned in the Mediterranean and the flood of migrants into Europe. And only around 100,000 refugees are actually resettled annually, the human rights group said. The declaration adopted yesterday is not legally binding but calls on the member countries to protect refugees’ human rights, boost humanitarian aid and work on their resettlement. “We have to imagine what it would be like for our families, for our children, if the unspeakable happened to us”.
The president also revealed earlier this month his plan of admitting 110,000 refugees from all over the world, including a significant number from Syria, during the next fiscal year.
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. We were pleased to see the USA government announce almost $37 million in funding for UNHCR to support refugee education programs in 16 countries, as well as to hear commitments from other countries to make changes that will allow more refugee children to access education.
Advertisement
As called for in the declaration, United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon also launched a new campaign called “Together – Respect, Safety and Dignity for All” to respond to rising xenophobia.
