education<\/a>, and physical safety\u2014must be met. Here, the challenge for host states is to guarantee adequate provision of essential services.<\/p>\nA third component of any comprehensive approach to refugees involves allocating economic resources to help deal with the burden. The United States and Europe (both European Union member governments and the EU itself) are the largest contributors to the UN High Commission on Refugees, but many other governments are unwilling to commit their fair share. They ought to be named and shamed.<\/p>\n
The final aspect of any refugee program involves finding places for them to go. The political reality, though, is that most governments are unwilling to commit to take in any specific number or percentage of the world\u2019s refugees. Again, those who do their fair share (or more) should be singled out for praise\u2014and those who do not for criticism.<\/p>\n
All of which brings us back to New York City. Sadly, there is little reason to be optimistic. The 22-page draft \u2018outcome document\u2019 to be voted on at the September 19 High Level meeting\u2014long on generalities and principles and short on specifics and policy\u2014would do little, if anything, to improve refugees\u2019 lot. A meeting scheduled for the next day, to be hosted by US President Barack Obama, may accomplish something on the funding side, but little else.<\/p>\n
The refugee issue provides yet another glaring example of the gap between what needs to be done to meet a global challenge and what the world is prepared to do. Alas, the same holds true for most such challenges, from terrorism and climate change to weapons proliferation and public health.<\/p>\n
We can expect to hear a lot of talk in New York next month about the international community\u2019s responsibility to do more to help existing refugees and address the conditions driving them to flee their homelands. But the cold truth is that there is little \u2018community\u2019 at the international level. So long as that remains the case, millions of men, women, and children will face a dangerous present and a future of little prospect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every September, many of the world\u2019s presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers descend on New York City for a few days. They come to mark the start of the annual session of the United Nations …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":382,"featured_media":28198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[467,1454,274,92],"class_list":["post-28197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-multilateralism","tag-refugee-crisis","tag-syria","tag-united-nations"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
The refugee problem in New York | The Strategist<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n