The United Nations has urged governments, businesses and others to “reboot" the world's response to refugees as the number of people fleeing their homeland rises along with hostility to migrants. The UN made the call during Tuesday's first ession of the Global Refugee Forum, a day ahead of International Migrants Day on Wednesday.
The first Global Refugee Forum, hosted by the UN in Geneva, is meant to draw pledges to pave the way for a fairer and more coordinated approach to hosting and integrating millions of refugees worldwide.
“Our world is in turmoil and 25 million refugees are looking to us for solutions,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told the event. He noted that the number is far higher if people displaced within their own countries are added in. “As a new decade dawns with some 71 million people uprooted from their homes globally, inside and outside their countries, it's time to reboot our responses,” Grandi said.
He called for a “broad alliance” of governments, business, development institutions, the aid community, sports organisations and others. Business executives and the head of the International Olympic Committee were among those attending the forum.
The forum has been “co-convened” by Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Germany, Pakistan and Turkey, most of them among the world's major refugee hosts.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
