High Commissioner’s statement at the ECOSOC Special Meeting on Forced Displacement and Refugee Protection

Thank you very much Ambassador Bob Rae, Mr. President, for these kind words. I am very touched. It's not everyday that you meet diplomats who are as sensitive and aware to our issues as Ambassador Bob Rae so I will return his kind words in all sincerity.

Ambassador Rae has already spoken about many important things, but I want to add a few points on my side before we open the floor to these important panels.

First, I am very grateful to the ECOSOC, to its President, and to Canada for having convened this meeting that is very, very important.

I can tell you many reasons why it is important, but let me mention four.

The first - we have witnessed - and I have been in this job ten years - in these ten years, and maybe a little longer, over 12 years, that the number of refugees and displaced people has doubled from about 60 million to about 120 million. It is probably more now. This is a consequence, clearly, of the growth in the number of conflicts, primarily. It is also inversely proportional to the ability that we have displayed to resolve conflict, which is receding. Tell me which conflict has recently been resolved? Very, very few.

I am asked so many times by the media - why does this number go up every year? It is also due to the nature of wars. The wars conducted increasingly in total impunity in respect of international humanitarian law means that civilians are targeted or impacted, at least, and so they flee. They have no other choice but to flee.

Another factor is, of course, that violence which impacts civilians is taking on more and more variations. Think of gangs in many Latin American countries. They are the number one factor of displacement. There are very few or almost no conflict in this hemisphere. But that violence - forced recruitment, rape and the litany of things that we know - impacts civilians.

Of course, we are also in a world - I am sure you hear this from my colleague the High Commissioner for Human Rights - in which human rights standards are declining very quickly and more and more people, and groups of people, are targeted by abuse and they become refugees.

That is the very sorry state of the world. That is why it is so important to talk about refugees and displaced people.

The second factor is linked to the first. The second factor is that these population movements are becoming much more complex than I remember from 10-12 years ago. The intersection between refugee flows due to conflict and climate change and the impact of climate disasters on populations, as well as hunger and poverty - not all of them technically are causes for someone to be recognized as a refugee - but they contribute to population movements that are more difficult to handle than before.

Third, whilst displacement, refugees, the cause of their movements are very political (because often, more often than not, they are conflicts), in the past responses to these crises were essentially humanitarian. Those responses have become increasingly political as well. And that makes it more complicated. The focus, especially in the Global North, has become increasingly - and at best - on "controls", more than at addressing the root causes - and often at the expense of the rights of people on the move.

The fourth factor that I think is very important and very topical is that responding to displacement, which is the theme today, needs resources. And aid resources, as you all know, are declining quite dramatically. I hope you all realize even here in New York (certainly in Geneva this is a very important and central topic), that humanitarian aid today, all of it, be it channelled through the UN, the Red Cross or NGOs, is on a drip.

I have been dealing with humanitarian crises for more than 40 years. I have never, ever seen such a challenge due to the lack of resources, cuts, freezes, and uncertainty. That is where we are at. It's impossible to discuss what we want to discuss today without taking into real account this very difficult situation. My organization is cutting its activities by one third and we are one of the biggest UN agencies. WFP, IOM, and other agencies are all in the same situation.

Ambassador Rae gave the example of Bangladesh - where one million Rohingya are still there - depending a lot, unfortunately, on humanitarian assistance. I frankly don't know what we will be able to do to keep these people alive. I am not being dramatic here. I was there (in Bangladesh) just a couple of months ago and it's a real concern.

The focus has been - especially in rich countries, when they think about refugees - the focus is on controls: how can you control the borders, so that we limit the number of people that are coming? I think that, of course, looking at borders is very important - it is the duty, the task of all governments. My question is not with that, but it is if it is only that. Because if it is only that, we miss out lifting a bit our outlook and looking at the phenomenon in its complexities and trying to address the causes.

And remember, seventy percent of those 120 million displaced people are not in the rich countries, they are in middle-income and especially, in low-income countries. This is something that is often forgotten.

So, of course, we need action. We need conflict resolution - I will not talk about that. I am briefing the Security Council on Monday so I will talk about that in the appropriate place. Here, there is one thing I would like to say: sometimes solutions are at our disposal. Syrians want to return to Syria today. Many Burundians, not all, want to return to Burundi, to talk about a less known situation. But there are no resources. Very little risk is being taken in investing in countries that are very fragile - like Syria and Burundi - and yet where - if we invested in the return of refugees for example - we would contribute to the stability of that country and region. There are also several situations of internal displacement where solutions may be possible. A lot of work has been done in this respect by the Special Advisor of the Secretary-General on Solutions on Internally Displacement, Robert Piper - I am sure he has spoken to you about that - and we, together with IOM, UNDP and others are fully involved in trying to support the follow-up of that important initiative.

Political solutions anyway take time and that's why displacement is so protracted these days. That's where I think the core of this discussion today should be.

Responses need to move from the traditional, humanitarian, short term approach, which is still needed to save lives (so that needs to continue), but we need to shift more quickly to what we call sustainable responses. This is based not only on controls, sorry to go back to that point, but on opportunities that are given to people on the move and to the communities hosting them. The key to this approach is a word that is sometimes difficult to discuss, which is inclusion. Many countries hosting large numbers of refugees do not like to talk about inclusion, because they think it's another way to say we will leave refugees there forever. Politically, socially, economically it is difficult for them. So, I want to separate inclusion from integration, but I want to say that inclusion - meaning giving refugees freedom of movement, access to services like schools and health, access to jobs, to documentation - is a better policy than the restrictive humanitarian policies that prevailed before, and everybody benefits from that. That is actually the key element and foundation of the Global Compact on Refugees that the General Assembly affirmed in 2018. It is a win-win for everybody, including for refugees, for host communities, for social cohesion, and for stability. It allows a positive shift to local actors. It strengthens host governments. And it is easier to deal with from the donor perspective.

Let's make no mistakes here - often we say this should be the approach, so let's try to implement it. But we are implementing that approach in many countries. We will hear from two of them today - Colombia and Mauritania - that have done amazing work in this area. I can also mention Kenya and the Shirika Plan, which is very much in this direction. Or Ethiopia has a plan called Makatet Plan that is very much based on inclusion. In Mexico, we have worked with the government, with IOM, with the private sector, and we created tens of thousands of job opportunities for refugees from Central America that were candidates for onward journeys, and we were able to help them stabilize. What European countries have done for Ukrainians, is another example. And what Canada has done for decades in its own policy of refugee resettlement is very much all in this direction. So, there are plenty of good examples of this approach. What is very important is that it needs to be applied quicker. I was in Chad with the World Bank precisely for this reason. To pull the World Bank and its ability to invest in public services, sustainable energy, education, etc., earlier than the usual slow motion of this intervention. I was in Chad again a month ago and I could see that, while it's still very, very slow, it's beginning to make a difference. Relationships with the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), in particular with the World Bank, are very important in this respect.

I just want to remind you, as a practical point, that the World Bank has established a refugee window under the IDA program that has mobilized - just that refugee window for refugee hosting countries! - $5 billion since 2017. Depending on how you look at, it's a huge figure, or a small figure, but its an important one. I can give you many other examples, but there is no time, other than to mention very strongly, that it is not just for the IFIs, we are of course working very much with sister agencies in the UN system and I think the current efforts, UN80 and the Humanitarian Reset, will hopefully, under the duress of less resources, permit or encourage us to work more closely together across the UN system as well as with NGOs and with the private sector. Big shoutout, big thanks, again to the World Bank's International Finance Corporation, with which we now have a joint unit working on how to create investment in countries hosting many refugees and in regions that are often poor but could benefit from more investment. We are also making quite some good progress with the private sector.

So, to conclude, this is a very timely and important discussion, especially during this very difficult time. I look forward to listening to the two panels.

Thank you again Ambassador Rae, Canada and thanks all for being here.