Canadian initiative seeks to reform ‘dysfunctional’ refugee system

Canadians have launched the World Refugee Council, a body of global leaders and thinkers that will look for new ways to manage the world’s refugee crisis. The chair of the council is a former Canadian foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy.

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He says the United Nations is so busy dealing with the practicalities of helping refugees that it does not have the time to think about how to reform what has become a “dysfunctional” refugee system.

Untenable situations demand reform, says chair

“There’s a very big issue about the sharing of burdens and the sharing of responsibilities,” says Axworthy. “You’ve got a horribly inequitable situation where a small country like Jordan on the border with Syria has 1.6 million refugees and some countries…make no contribution.”

He notes that some countries have closed the door to refugees and political parties have exploited anxieties about them for political gain. There needs to be reform to address this and other issues like the fact that some refugee children are missing school for four and five years, women’s health care has deteriorated and there are silos of hundreds of thousands of refugees waiting years to have their applications processes.

A need to prepare for ‘another major surge’

And while there is much research on solutions, Axworthy says there is a need to use it to devise policies that can be presented in face-to-face meetings with world decision-makers. There is also a need to examine advances in data technology which can vastly improve the management of refugees.

“There’s a lot of ways that we can, I think, look at what’s out there and draw it together in a series of real prescriptions to help cope with and further manage what will be, as the experts call it, another major surge over the horizon,” he says.

“This is something that has to be a global and collaboration and a partnership because no one country can be expected to manage this growing issue alone.”

The World Refugee Council was created with funding and support from the Canadian government, the Centre for International Governance Innovation and various foundations.