President Barack Obama arrives at United Nations HQ to speak at the Sustainable Development Summit, September 2015.Andrew Harnik/Press Association. All rights reserved.Next week, world leaders will take part in not one but two back-to-back summits on migrants and refugees in New York – one hosted by the United Nations and another by President Barack Obama. Never before has there been such a high-level or high profile global focus on these issues. Then again, never before has human mobility caused so much distress - for those who flee war, persecution and poverty, and for those societies that receive them.
These summits are a momentous opportunity to create a more humane, coordinated and durable system for responding to one of the greatest global challenges of our time. So why do I feel nervous?
Last year, it was estimated that there were 20 million refugees and 244 million migrants around the world. But beyond the numbers lies a more fundamental challenge. Political instability, economic inequality, uneven demography and globalisation are driving ever-greater human mobility. Yet, despite freeing up trade and capital flows, most countries of the world are seeking to restrict migration and struggling to deal with its consequences. Europe is witnessing the construction of more walls than at the height of the Cold War. Low and middle-income countries struggle to find the resources to host the vast majority (86 percent) of the world’s refugees, while many of our wealthiest states refuse to do more than the bare minimum.
