Want to help refugees in Europe? Look to the cities.
At the United Nations General Assembly last month, global leaders gathered to determine the state of the international humanitarian system and the lessons emerging from the mass migration of refugees.
In parallel, Brookings convened a session on the urban dimensions of refugee integration that featured, among others:
Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken (including a cameo from Sesame Street's Grover):
President of the International Refugee Committee David Miliband:
and former Prime Minister of Portugal and former UN High Commissioner on Refugees, António Guterres
The Brookings forum probed the reality that refugees don’t just come to nations, they come to specific communities, and disproportionately to cities.
All panelists agreed that the special role played by cities in emergency response and long-term integration requires better financial and policy support from national governments and international organizations. Cities are responsible for designing and delivering (and often financing) services that are critical to the integration process: housing, education, workforce development, health care, language courses, public safety, and extracurricular activities like sports, arts, and cultural events.
Take the distribution of responsibilities in Germany, for example:
Against hard challenges like labor market integration, providing services such as language and job training to new arrivals benefits not only refugees themselves, but also the communities they now call home. As panel moderator and journalist Lara Setrakian put it, refugees soon become residents.
The message of the forum was clear: The European refugee project depends as much on the success or failure of dozens of cities and the actions of tens of thousands of public, private, and civic leaders and ordinary citizens as on the deliberations of national leaders.
While the focus of European decision- and opinion-makers has largely been on the immigration policies and perspectives of host countries, as priorities shift to longer-term economic and social integration, there is an equal, pressing need to focus on the role and actions of host cities.
Watch the forum in full here:
Management & Consulting
8 年Everyone matters and everyone can make a difference.
Change starts with a single story. I partner with impact-driven leaders to turn missions into powerful visuals. Together, we amplify purpose, spark conversations, and drive meaningful community transformation. ??????
8 年I just recently returned from Europe too and am now back home in the USA. I also believe we should learn from Europe, Germany in specific. They are doing as good of a job as any country can hope to handle a crisis of this magnitude. There is no "invasion" in Europe as put by the the previous commenter. I'm afraid the media (and believe me, I've worked with the media for the past 10+ years) has helped put strange fears of the unknown into people's minds which is being regurgitated by those who are not able to be on the front lines of what's happening every day. Not just on the bad days, but daily. Speaking of Syrians alone, 1/2 of Syrian refugees brought to the US so far have been children. Only 2% are males of military-age. Roughly 50/50 men and women– not a lot more men. That's just what we've allowed in the US due to fear-based thinking. As for why so many young men are refugees in total? Having spoken to and heard from several different people from various countries working on the front lines of the refugee crisis situation, it is because young men are believed to have the best chance to "make it" through the hard journey of starting from scratch in a new country and then help their families come once they've found a safe place where they are stable. Kids are too young and elders are too old in comparison to young men with the strength and energy to take on this burden. I hope that helps in understanding the situation a bit better.
Partou
8 年In the first three months of the year 2016 there are 43% more "refugees" arrived in Italy than in the same period of 2015. The government in Rome takes into account 180,000 newcomers this year. That excludes warn the 800,000 which the French. Italy does not get further support this is really a big problem..
Senior Mechanical Engineer
8 年No.
Published Freelance Writer, Owner of Hastings Business Service
8 年I believe in helping true refugees. But we here in the USA should take warning from the European situation. A friend recently returned from Europe and described what's going on there as "invasion." Why is that so many of these so-called refugees are military-age males?