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World Leaders at UN Approve Plan for Refugee Crisis
World leaders on Monday approved a declaration aimed at providing a more coordinated and humane response to the refugee crisis that has strained resources and sparked divisions from Africa to Europe.
The issue of what to do about the world’s 65.3 million displaced people took center stage at the U.N. General Assembly with leaders from the 193 member states taking part in the first-ever summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants.
Advocacy groups worried that the New York Declaration on Migrants and Refugees — an outcome document which contains no concrete commitments and is not legally binding — falls short of what is needed, while U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, himself a refugee during the Korean War, hailed it as historic.
“Today’s summit represents a breakthrough in our collective efforts to address the challenges of human mobility,” Ban said.
Around the world, there are currently about 21.3 million refugees, 3.2 million asylum seekers, and 40.8 million migrants, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency. The agency defines refugees as people forced to flee due to armed conflict or persecution, while migrants choose to move in search of a better life.
Afghanistan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani during his speech has declared different factors for persecution of Afghans to leave their country, poverty, insecurity and unemployment.
The declaration seeks to standardize responses to refugee situations and provide better education prospects for the children who make up over half of the world’s refugees.
It also looks to improve working opportunities for refugees who are now spending nearly 20 years in exile on average.
There are also plans for a campaign to combat xenophobia.
All of this may prove an uphill struggle at a time when refugees and migrants have become a divisive issue in Europe and the United States.
“The overall climate is not very favorable to receiving refugees in many parts of the world but on the one hand, states committed to this so we can remind them of their obligations. On the other hand, states, just like us, need a more predictable way of responding to the refugee crisis that’s what this New York declaration proposes,” Fillipo Grandi, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told The Associated Press.
Grandi said he disagreed with criticism that the declaration lacked concrete commitments. He said it expands the concept of refugee response beyond humanitarian aid — like food, medicine and tents — to include things like education and jobs.
Still, advocates for refugees expressed disappointment that the U.N.’s need for consensus meant that the stronger provisions in the declaration had been watered down.
Several countries shot down an earlier draft of the declaration that called on nations to resettle 10 percent of the refugee population each year, something that has led several human rights groups to criticize the document as a missed opportunity. The U.S. and a number of other countries also objected to language in the original draft that said children should never be detained, so the agreement now says children should seldom, if ever, be detained.
More concrete progress is expected at a follow-up summit on Tuesday called by President Barack Obama, where at least 45 countries are expected to make pledges that are in line with U.S. goals of increasing humanitarian aid by $3 billion, doubling resettlement and increasing access to education for 1 million youngsters and access to employment for another million of the displaced.
“Both summits are crucial to raising awareness of refugee and migration concerns, and both events are designed to harness the political will of member states to address the global refugee and migration crises we are all facing,” said U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby, speaking in Washington.
Published by nytimes.com
A tripartite meeting between the delegations of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan was held in Kabul with the aim of connecting North Asia to South Asia and reducing transit and transportation costs among these three countries, the Ministry of Trade and Commerce said in a statement.
In this meeting, an agreement was reached on the creation of a joint technical committee to continue the talks.
This tripartite meeting was held under the leadership of Nooruddin Azizi, the Acting Minister of Industry and Commerce, Vice President of Turkmenistan and Srik Zhumangarin, the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan.
Earlier, a bilateral meeting was held between the delegation of the Islamic Emirate and Turkmenistan. The ministry of commerce said the participants of the meeting discussed the construction of a large joint logistics center in Torghondi, the trilateral transit agreement between the IEA, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, the expansion of Afghanistan’s railway, solving issues related to Afghan transit and export goods, and a number of other commercial issues.
Acting Minister of National Defense Mohammad Yaqub Mujahid has said that no destructive groups including Daesh have physical presence in Afghanistan, adding the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) will not allow anyone to pose threat to any country in the region from the Afghan soil.
Mujahid made the remarks in a meeting with a delegation from Malaysia in Kabul on Thursday.
According to a statement released by the Ministry of Defense, Mujahid highlighted Malaysia’s “good treatment” of Afghan refugees and its long-standing relations with Afghanistan, and said that Malaysia is a powerful Islamic country and visits should increase.
He added that with the establishment of the Islamic Emirate, occupation and war ended in Afghanistan, and the country is fully secure.
Based on the statement, the Malaysian delegation called Afghanistan a friendly country and while emphasizing on comprehensive cooperation, it assured that what they have seen in Afghanistan will be shared with the authorities of their country.
The European Union signed an agreement worth 17 million euros with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to improve access to basic services, increased economic opportunities and protection for Afghans on the move and their host communities in Afghanistan.
The needs of women and girls are a particular focus of the programme, EU said in a statement released on Thursday.
The statement noted that from January 2023 until April 2024, over 1.5 million Afghans returned from Pakistan and Iran.
“I am deeply moved by the hardship returnees face when being deported to Afghanistan. In a country suffering from poverty and climate change, and in a city that just saw devastating earthquakes, this truly is a crisis within a crisis.”, said Peteris Ustubs, Director for the Middle East, Asia and Pacific of the European Commission’s Department for International Partnerships during the signing ceremony at the IOM transit centre in Herat.
Raffaella Iodice, EU Chargée d’Affaires a.i. to Afghanistan, added “The solidarity of the Afghan people towards their brothers and sisters is an inspiration. We must assure that communities hosting and helping new arrivals are supported. The partnership with IOM ensures access to essential services and provides protection for Afghan returnees and their host communities. As women and girls can be particularly affected, we make sure that all members of society can benefit”.
“IOM’s continued partnership with the EU has been critical in enabling our teams to reach hundreds of thousands of Afghan returnees and other vulnerable communities in the country”, said IOM Afghanistan Chief of Mission, Maria Moita. “Thanks to this renewed commitment, we will be able to focus on addressing the immense challenges in the areas of return and contribute to reintegration, social cohesion, and longer-term solutions for those communities.”
This additional contribution is part of a 5-year programme that is being implemented across Afghanistan and in four countries in the region. It builds on the EU’s previous support to IOM to improve the wellbeing of Afghans forced to return to the country, EU said.
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