Speaker 1: Buskin, I'm may have Higgins and this is solvable interviews
Speaker 1: with the world's most innovative thinkers who are working to
Speaker 1: solve the world's biggest problems. Now, I'm really glad to
Speaker 1: bring you this interview with the journalist Jacob Weisberg in
Speaker 1: conversation with David Miliband. David is the president of the
Speaker 1: International Rescue Committee the IRC, and the two of them
Speaker 1: have a timely discussion on how best to serve the
Speaker 1: world's growing population of displaced people. My solvable is that
Speaker 1: refugees and displaced people should have poverty rates, inequality rates,
Speaker 1: lack of opportunity no greater than the rest of the
Speaker 1: population around the world. There are more displaced people than
Speaker 1: at any time in our history. There are nearly seventy
Speaker 1: million forcibly displaced people worldwide, and almost thirty million of
Speaker 1: them have been forced to leave their countries. This global
Speaker 1: refugee crisis has been on the shoulders of the world's
Speaker 1: poorest countries, with eighty four percent of refugees staying in
Speaker 1: developing regions. In a global list of countries that have
Speaker 1: taken in the most refugees, the only European country to
Speaker 1: make it into the top ten is Germany. Last year
Speaker 1: here in the US there was a forty year low
Speaker 1: in numbers, with fewer than twenty three thousand refugees admitted
Speaker 1: to the country. Actually, as you listen to this conversation,
Speaker 1: perhaps think about the parallels with what was happening back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties with what's happening now here in
Speaker 1: the US. Syrians and refugees from several other predominantly Muslim
Speaker 1: countries are banned, and back then Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi
Speaker 1: persecution were rejected. In nineteen thirty three, as fascism descended
Speaker 1: on Europe, the Rockefeller Foundation began funding a program to
Speaker 1: resettle scholars that were fleeing that fascism, and ultimately rescued
Speaker 1: hundreds of scholars in their families. In his work with
Speaker 1: the IRC, David Milliband oversees the agency's humanitarian relief operations
Speaker 1: in more than forty war affected countries, as well as
Speaker 1: its refugee resettlement programs in cities across the US. David
Speaker 1: is actually the son of refugees himself, and you'll hear
Speaker 1: that this really informs his work. Okay, that's enough for me.
Speaker 1: Let's listen to Jacob and David and I'll chat you after.
Speaker 1: The problem is that refugees and displaced people are being
Speaker 1: failed by a humanitarian aid system that is out of
Speaker 1: date and needs significant reform. David, we're here at the
Speaker 1: offices of the Rockefeller Foundation. I did a little research
Speaker 1: and discover that Rockeller has a lot of history with
Speaker 1: the IRC. In fact, it was one of the original
Speaker 1: funders of the work of the Emergency Rescue Committee, the
Speaker 1: ancestral organization to the IRC, which helped get Jews and
Speaker 1: other refugees out of Nazi occupied Europe beginning in the
Speaker 1: late nineteen thirties. You're right, and I always talk about
Speaker 1: International Rescue Committee because i ASC is one of those
Speaker 1: acronyms that gets lost. The International Rescue Committee is a
Speaker 1: great New York institution in the same way that the
Speaker 1: Rockefeller Foundation is a great New York institution. I think
Speaker 1: that we can claim at the International Rescue Committee that
Speaker 1: if I had to choose between being founded by Einstein
Speaker 1: and founded by Rockefeller, I'd go for Einstein. I'd take
Speaker 1: Einstein over Rockefeller. Founded by Einstein, funded by Rockefeller, that
Speaker 1: double benefit. And Einstein in was here as a refugee
Speaker 1: in the thirties. He was in Princeton when Hitler came
Speaker 1: to power. He never went back to Germany, and he
Speaker 1: was consumed by the fate of his other intellectuals, of family,
Speaker 1: members of the Jewish community across Germany and then across
Speaker 1: occupied Europe. And he wrote these incredibly moving letters, eventually
Speaker 1: to Eleanor Roosevelt, set pleading with her to persuade her husband,
Speaker 1: the President, to allow Jews to come from Europe. Of course,
Speaker 1: American public opinion two thirds in forty opposed allowing Jewish
Speaker 1: refugees into America, and so Einstein in out of with
Speaker 1: this enormous sense of impotence, he brought together some colleagues
Speaker 1: of his to found the Emergency Rescue Committee, became the
Speaker 1: International Rescue Committee, and the first thing they did was
Speaker 1: send a man called Varion Fry, a New York Times
Speaker 1: journalists to occupied France, where he established a safe house
Speaker 1: and forged two thousand fake passports and helped two thousand
Speaker 1: people escape from occupied France. It's an amazing history. I
Speaker 1: thought I might just show you this list they found
Speaker 1: in the Rockefeller Archive of scholars and intellectuals writers who
Speaker 1: Rockefeller helped to place at American institutions, most heavily at
Speaker 1: the New School in New York. And you look down
Speaker 1: that list and it's a who's who of physics in
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, but it includes Thomas Munn and Claude
Speaker 1: Levi Strauss. And it's just it's just interesting that the
Speaker 1: story is so powerful. It's a resonant story today. And
Speaker 1: you're right, Mark Shagal as well. And it's worth saying
Speaker 1: for your listeners. The New School when it was found,
Speaker 1: it was called the University in Exile, the New School
Speaker 1: for Social Research, and you it was called the University Excellent.
Speaker 1: It was for exiled German intellectuals. Um it's extraordinary history.
Speaker 1: And just to make it personal a little bit, your
Speaker 1: your parents, your your father was it was a refugee scholar,
Speaker 1: was he not? Well, he wasn't quite a scot Carl Polonia.
Speaker 1: I've just seen him amazing not he was what he
Speaker 1: was sixteen when he was a refugee my dad. So
Speaker 1: he wasn't quite a scholar by then, although he did.
Speaker 1: He and his father left Belgium, fled Belgium when the
Speaker 1: Nazis invaded in nineteen forty and he was sixteen years old.
Speaker 1: He became a scholar if you like, at Acton Technical
Speaker 1: College in West London, where it's pretty amazing. Actually he
Speaker 1: learned English and in a year a year later did
Speaker 1: his matriculation and got into the LSE, the London School
Speaker 1: of Economics, and so he was and then he the
Speaker 1: LC at that point was in Cambridge, and so he
Speaker 1: spent a r own Cambridge, then joined the Royal Navy.
Speaker 1: My mum was spent the war in Poland and came
Speaker 1: to the UK as a refugee in nineteen forty was
Speaker 1: allowed to come to the UK nineteen forty six as
Speaker 1: a refugee on her own as a twelve year old.
Speaker 1: Did you grow up with the consciousness of being the
Speaker 1: son of refugees? Not really, no, And I think that
Speaker 1: I knew that my parents were foreign. I knew that
Speaker 1: the Holocaust had taken large numbers of the family. One
Speaker 1: of my grandfathers was killed in a ration camp in
Speaker 1: southwestern Germany in nineteen four y nineteen forty five. But
Speaker 1: so there was a consciousness of that history. And of
Speaker 1: course I was born only twenty years after the end
Speaker 1: of the Holocaust, so that was there. But I think
Speaker 1: like many refugees. My parents wanted to give me my
Speaker 1: brother the security that they never had. And you know,
Speaker 1: my dad had grown up knowing communism, fascism, mother knowing Nazism,
Speaker 1: living under it, and they wanted to give us a
Speaker 1: more protected livelihood. But I knew that there was this
Speaker 1: sort of background music to my childhood was what we
Speaker 1: had lost and what others had lost. How have the
Speaker 1: dimensions of the refugee problem globally changed from what the
Speaker 1: world dealt with in the aftermath of the Second World
Speaker 1: War and the Holocaust. I mean, I think there are
Speaker 1: three massive changes that people, well four massive changes. Actually,
Speaker 1: people need to understand why this is not just a
Speaker 1: European issue. In the wake of the Second World War,
Speaker 1: it was obviously a European issue, refugee flight. It's now
Speaker 1: a global issue. Secondly, and equally significantly, the notion of
Speaker 1: a refugee was born of the idea that when states fought,
Speaker 1: civilians suffered and they fled, so it's intrinsically a political life.
Speaker 1: It was, yes, it was political, but it was also interstate.
Speaker 1: And the point I want to make is today's refugees
Speaker 1: are not the product of wars between states they're the
Speaker 1: product of wars within states. So Syria being an obvious example, Afghanistan, Somalia,
Speaker 1: those are not Those countries are not fighting their neighbors,
Speaker 1: they are consumed by the civil wars. So that's the
Speaker 1: second big change. The third big change that I would
Speaker 1: point to is the duration of displacement has grown exponentially.
Speaker 1: In other words, if you think about the Second World War,
Speaker 1: Germany had a huge refugee population coming back after nineteen
Speaker 1: forty five, but they were out of their own country
Speaker 1: for I don't want to say only six years, but
Speaker 1: a limited period of time. Today, the figures are hard
Speaker 1: to pin down, but for camp based refugee populations, the
Speaker 1: average duration of a displacement is around seventeen years, so
Speaker 1: you've got much longer displacement. But the fourth difference is
Speaker 1: that in the Second World War period, post Second World
Speaker 1: War period, refugees generally were housed in camps. Today, the
Speaker 1: phenomenon of urbanization that you've talked about, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're going to cover in this series, that phenomenon applies
Speaker 1: to refugees as well. So sixty percent of the world's
Speaker 1: refugees today are in urban areas, not in refugee camps.
Speaker 1: What about climate refugee Surely there are beginning to be
Speaker 1: significant numbers of refugees who are affected by climate change,
Speaker 1: and the expectation has to be that THIRSD numbers they're
Speaker 1: going to grow tremendously. Well, it's interesting. I want to
Speaker 1: push back against the first part of what you said,
Speaker 1: not the second, the first part, which is are their
Speaker 1: climate refugees today? Obviously climate change is happening. In the
Speaker 1: International Rescue Committee, we see that every day in our
Speaker 1: work in the Sahel. You could argue that some of
Speaker 1: the challenges problems war in Syria has some of its
Speaker 1: origins in the drought in the northwest of the country
Speaker 1: that led to a large part of the population being
Speaker 1: driven to the cities in twenty eight, nine and ten.
Speaker 1: But there's the clue. Most people who are directly affected
Speaker 1: by climate change remain within their own country. So they're
Speaker 1: not refugees in that sense. They're not people who have
Speaker 1: left their own country and gone to a neighboring country.
Speaker 1: They are what we would call, I suppose climate IDPs,
Speaker 1: climate internally displaced people. And so if you think about Banglad,
Speaker 1: there should low lying country in the south it's likely
Speaker 1: that at the moment, the direct impact of climate change
Speaker 1: is for people to move within their own country. There's
Speaker 1: a wrinkle to this though, which is important, which is
Speaker 1: there's no question that climate stress prompted by climate change.
Speaker 1: Resource stress prompted by climate change is a multiple player
Speaker 1: for conflict. It drives conflict, and so indirectly climate change
Speaker 1: may be contributing to refugee flow. Just to give you
Speaker 1: an example, if you think about what's happening in the
Speaker 1: Lake Chad, based in northeastern Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger, there's
Speaker 1: a range of factors that explain the large flows of people.
Speaker 1: They're both within countries in between them Bakaharam but included.
Speaker 1: But there there's a massive climate induced problem of resource stress.
Speaker 1: So that's a slightly long arm. Apologize for the longer answer,
Speaker 1: but beware just saying there are climate refugees today, but
Speaker 1: you're warning that climate change is going to be a
Speaker 1: driver of people movement in the future is undoubtedly right.
Speaker 1: It's an underlying condition. David. I know you have a
Speaker 1: sense of optimism about this problem, and I wonder what
Speaker 1: you're solvable is around refugees. My solvable is that refugees
Speaker 1: and displaced people should have poverty rates, inequality rates, lack
Speaker 1: of opportunity no greater than the rest of the population
Speaker 1: at the moment. If you're a refugee, if you're an
Speaker 1: internally displaced person, it's the fastest route to extreme poverty.
Speaker 1: If you look at all the statistics, whether of Syrian
Speaker 1: refugees who are relatively middle class in Syria, who are
Speaker 1: now in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, even who those would come
Speaker 1: to Germany. If you look at much poorer refugees, for
Speaker 1: example Rhinga Muslims who've been driven out of Burma, Me
Speaker 1: and Mah now in Bangladesh, poverty rates are much higher
Speaker 1: than international averages, levels of abuse of women and girls
Speaker 1: much higher, early marriage much higher. And to what I
Speaker 1: would like to argue is that it's well within our
Speaker 1: power to ensure that the poverty, inequality rates, the oppression
Speaker 1: that people feel as refugees and displace people should be
Speaker 1: no higher than our performance for the rest of the population.
Speaker 1: How long do you think it would take us to
Speaker 1: get there, and what do you think it would take
Speaker 1: for us to get there? Well, let me start with
Speaker 1: what it would take, because the first part of your
Speaker 1: question how long it will take is about the politics,
Speaker 1: because the truth is the policy problem is not the
Speaker 1: biggest one as in Einstein's day, the problem is a
Speaker 1: political one more than it is a policy problem. Really,
Speaker 1: there are four parts of this part one, what's the
Speaker 1: first thing that a refugee or a displaced person needs
Speaker 1: when they've left their own country or left their own home.
Speaker 1: They need cash. They need that. They're likely to be
Speaker 1: in an urban environment rather than a rather than a
Speaker 1: camp environment, and so they need cash support either not
Speaker 1: necessarily literally dollars in their hand, but they need cash support.
Speaker 1: We know from our own research how much impact this
Speaker 1: has on their life chances, on the ability of their
Speaker 1: kids to go to school rather than be out at work,
Speaker 1: actually including reductions in levels of violence within the home.
Speaker 1: So the first thing they need is cash, and we
Speaker 1: know how to deliver it. We know how to deliver
Speaker 1: it in electronic form, and we know how to deliver
Speaker 1: it in cash form. Cash transfer an increasingly influential idea
Speaker 1: in international aide. Generally, they were more influential Jacob, because
Speaker 1: there's only my figures are something like only six or
Speaker 1: eight percent of the global humanitarian budget goes in cash
Speaker 1: at the moment at the Internatal Rescue Committee were high.
Speaker 1: We're probably three times that, but it's not yet enough.
Speaker 1: The default option we say in every you know, we've
Speaker 1: got thirteen thousand staff members and fifteen thousand volunteers in
Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety field sides in forty countries. The
Speaker 1: first thing we ask before we do any program is
Speaker 1: why not cash before food, before anything else? Why not
Speaker 1: cash because actually it's got the evidence base to show
Speaker 1: it has the biggest impact. People know their own needs
Speaker 1: better than anyone from the outside, especially if you give
Speaker 1: it to women, heads of women in the household. Second
Speaker 1: thing is employment for refugee adults. We know from Uganda
Speaker 1: interesting test case which has the most progressive policy towards
Speaker 1: empowering and encouraging refugees into work, that if you allow
Speaker 1: refugees to work, they set up businesses, they become employees.
Speaker 1: In a study in Kamparla in twenty fourteen, ninety plus
Speaker 1: percent of the refugees in the country were off international
Speaker 1: aid because they were able to work, support themselves contribute
Speaker 1: to the local economy. Both cash and employment reduce the
Speaker 1: tension between refugees and the host population, so there's a
Speaker 1: secondary benefit. Now it's important to say. You can't just
Speaker 1: say we want refugees to have a right to work,
Speaker 1: that's the end of the story. Because the countries that
Speaker 1: refugees are in are generally poor or lower middle income countries.
Speaker 1: They are Ethiopia, Uganda, Bangladesh, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, these countries
Speaker 1: with their own problems. These are countries that have got
Speaker 1: unemployment in Jordan twenty six I think unemployment rate among
Speaker 1: its own population. And so the only way to make
Speaker 1: the employment question solvable for the refuge population if you say, look,
Speaker 1: there's a big macroeconomic bargain to be done with refugee
Speaker 1: hosting states. You're delivering a global public good. The International
Speaker 1: Community is a World bank which has rewritten its mandate
Speaker 1: to allow this. The IMF, We're going to really support
Speaker 1: the macroeconomy of countries that are delivering on this global
Speaker 1: public good to make it possible for those governments to
Speaker 1: say to their own people, look, we're not just taking
Speaker 1: care of the refugees, we're taking care of you as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so give refugees money, allow them to work. Yeah, what's next.
Speaker 1: Third half of refuges and displays people are children, Yet
Speaker 1: two percent of the global humanitarian budget goes on education,
Speaker 1: which is obviously strategically geostrategically stupid as well as morally reprehensible.
Speaker 1: We're talking about education for kids who are not in
Speaker 1: the middle of war zones. If it's a funding and
Speaker 1: organization challenge to get the right balance of expanding the
Speaker 1: mainstream schooling system so that kids can go to school,
Speaker 1: and expanding community based education where there are facilities, And
Speaker 1: just so you get a sense of the problem, fifty
Speaker 1: percent of refugee kids at primary school age have no
Speaker 1: education at all. Seventy five percent of refugee kids of
Speaker 1: secondary school age have no education at all. And that
Speaker 1: is not an unsolvable problem. We know how to deliver education,
Speaker 1: but we also know, and I think this is important,
Speaker 1: it's not just a matter of quantity shoving kids into
Speaker 1: doubling the size of classes. We know that kids who've
Speaker 1: been through trauma need special help to access education. We've
Speaker 1: we call it healing classrooms. You've got to make sure
Speaker 1: that you're attending to the right quality of education, the
Speaker 1: right support, sometimes the right language training and support. So
Speaker 1: the third element of the solvable puzzle, if you like,
Speaker 1: is to just take education seriously and not pretend, not
Speaker 1: succumb to the fiction that we don't need to do
Speaker 1: education because these refugees are going back home soon. They're
Speaker 1: not less than three percent of the world's refugees went
Speaker 1: home last year. The fourth element is not the most
Speaker 1: important in numerical terms, but it is important, and it's
Speaker 1: difficult politically, and that is that countries that are not
Speaker 1: in the front line of the refugee crisis, countries like
Speaker 1: the United States where we're meeting Western European countries, but
Speaker 1: also advanced countries elsewhere in the world, and the Gulf,
Speaker 1: in China, Japan, you, you name it, they've got to
Speaker 1: be willing to take refugees as resettled refugees, and the
Speaker 1: UN identifies resettlement in other words, the planned transfer of
Speaker 1: refugee from their own region to somewhere else in the
Speaker 1: world that can support them as being right for the
Speaker 1: most vulnerable, those who are for special medical needs, who
Speaker 1: are victims of torture. Historically, the US has led on this.
Speaker 1: We haven't used many numbers interesting enough so far in
Speaker 1: this conversation, but just so people get a sense of it,
Speaker 1: there are twenty eight and a half million refugees and
Speaker 1: asylum seekers in the world today, and there are forty
Speaker 1: million internally displaced people. The UN says between five and
Speaker 1: eight percent should qualify as the most vulnerable should be resettled,
Speaker 1: and that is an area where the America historically has taken.
Speaker 1: The average has been ninety thousand a year. Interesting. If
Speaker 1: I ask you which president admitted the most refugees, you
Speaker 1: probably know, do you know in ever in American? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a smile on my face because it's not the obvious,
Speaker 1: it's not the obvious most liberal one. Oh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: going to be Herbert Hoover. No. No, Reagan are admitted
Speaker 1: more two hundred thousand plus refugees in eighteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: More refugees are admitted by role right. So there's no
Speaker 1: reason this has to be a quote unquote left wing thing.
Speaker 1: But he had a very clear view that people who
Speaker 1: are fleeing persecution, or in the case of Vietnamese refugees,
Speaker 1: people to whom America owed a debt it should be
Speaker 1: allowed to come to America. I would argue it's an
Speaker 1: essential part of the policy package, but also the political
Speaker 1: package that refugee slots are opened up for refugees to
Speaker 1: come to countries like the US and make a success
Speaker 1: of their lives, and actually all the evidence is that
Speaker 1: they do. But their net taxpayers, they're not a security risk.
Speaker 1: Was they get vetted to the gills before they are
Speaker 1: allowed in. They actually we even did a study they
Speaker 1: pay back their car loans at a higher rate than
Speaker 1: the American population. At the ultimate piece of Americana is
Speaker 1: to play back your car loss, your second car line.
Speaker 1: So that's the fourth part of the the back. So my
Speaker 1: argument is, this is the proposition that refugees, neet and
Speaker 1: displace people need be no more afflicted by poverty and
Speaker 1: inequality than the rest of the global population is a lot.
Speaker 1: If you do those four things, you'll get a long
Speaker 1: way towards achieving the goal that we've said. Now, you're,
Speaker 1: of course continuing to drive distinction between refugees and economic
Speaker 1: migrants in many countries in the developed world that is
Speaker 1: not so clear a distinction. Why is it important to
Speaker 1: maintain It's a great point. I mean, it's it's important
Speaker 1: to maintain it in crude terms, and then we can
Speaker 1: come onto them subtleties and crude terms. There is a
Speaker 1: difference between the girl who is threatened with kidnap by
Speaker 1: Bucoharam in Northeast Nigeria. The family who are threatened by
Speaker 1: sheer death squads in Iraq because they've worked had a
Speaker 1: relative who worked for the American diplomats or the military.
Speaker 1: There's a difference between them and somewhat people who are
Speaker 1: fleeing for their lives and someone who is poor but
Speaker 1: wants a better life. There's a difference. I would argue.
Speaker 1: There's obviously a difference legally in international law, because the
Speaker 1: first group has rights in international law, above all, the
Speaker 1: right not to be sent back that the immigrant doesn't have.
Speaker 1: But I would argue there's also a moral difference. It's
Speaker 1: not that one is good and the other is bad.
Speaker 1: It's not. That's not the point I'm making. But the
Speaker 1: moral responsibility on a state that is receiving a refugee
Speaker 1: is different from an asylum claim. It's different from the
Speaker 1: moral claim on a country that is receiving a would
Speaker 1: be immigrant. In between those two polar opposites, there are
Speaker 1: many shades of gray. And you can argue, well, you know,
Speaker 1: if someone's farm is no longer farmable because of climate change,
Speaker 1: are they forced from their home? You know someone who's
Speaker 1: someone's If there's famine in South Sudan and they flee,
Speaker 1: then you can see that there are gray areas because
Speaker 1: the definition of a refugee is worth saying. That is
Speaker 1: someone who has a quote unquote a well founded fear
Speaker 1: of persecution on grounds of race, sex, politics, ethnicity that
Speaker 1: has been interpreted over the last fifty years by the
Speaker 1: courts to mean someone for whom it's not safe for
Speaker 1: them to be sent home. One should hold fast to
Speaker 1: that distinction and that definition for two reasons, one of
Speaker 1: which is principled and one of which is purely pragmatic.
Speaker 1: The principal reason is that these are people who are
Speaker 1: in fear of their lives, and there should be a
Speaker 1: special quality of support for people who are in fear
Speaker 1: of their lives. The second pragmatic reason is that the
Speaker 1: politics of changing international law, on getting one hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety three countries to rewrite international law, A, it would
Speaker 1: never be achieved, and b if it was achieved, it
Speaker 1: would lead to a diminution of rights of refugees, which
Speaker 1: is neither good for refugees nor for immigrants. So, notwithstanding
Speaker 1: all the gray areas and the difficulties, I think an
Speaker 1: immigration policy is different from a refugee policy, so we
Speaker 1: think that refugees can in the future suffer from poverty
Speaker 1: to no greater degree than non refugees. Putting on your
Speaker 1: hat as a political analyst, you were the foreign Minister
Speaker 1: of the UK, how long will that take? We talked
Speaker 1: about some of the political obstacles, but being both optimistic
Speaker 1: and realistic, I mean, the problem is getting worse, not better.
Speaker 1: At the moment. The gap between needs and provision across
Speaker 1: the four indices or the four interventions that I've described,
Speaker 1: that the gap is growing, not diminishing. And I don't
Speaker 1: want to just be a politician and pumped back the
Speaker 1: question you but a lot depends on America because America
Speaker 1: has historically been a leader both in refugee admissions and
Speaker 1: in humanitarian aid. And it's now we're talking about shutting
Speaker 1: the largest land border in the United States exactly. And
Speaker 1: also you're talking about cutting all aid to the northern
Speaker 1: triangle of countries on Juras, Guatemalo, and Neel Salvador that
Speaker 1: are the source of people the border. So there's a
Speaker 1: double hit. It's not beyond the wit of politics. In
Speaker 1: the next twenty years to achieve that goal. We are
Speaker 1: committed globally. Nations have committing themselves to something called the
Speaker 1: Sustainable Development Goals that promises to eradicate extreme poverty by
Speaker 1: twenty thirty. And my point is that it's going well
Speaker 1: if you're if you're poor in India, the trends are
Speaker 1: in the right direction. But there are more extreme poor
Speaker 1: in Nigeria today than there are in India. And that's
Speaker 1: because it's a conflict in fragile state or parts of
Speaker 1: it are. The concentration of poverty is going to be
Speaker 1: increasingly among those affected by conflict. Now, the truth is
Speaker 1: that there's a fifth element to this, which is what's
Speaker 1: happening to diplomacy. If the crisis of diplomacy continues, if
Speaker 1: the US carries on its retreat from diplomacy in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: if Europe fails to become a major diplomatic power, if
Speaker 1: Russia stays on its Vanshiest course, then all of the
Speaker 1: treatment of the symptoms that I've described becomes that much
Speaker 1: more difficult. But we're dealing with more and more people.
Speaker 1: But I the optimist in me says that fact based policy,
Speaker 1: interest based policy, as well as values based policy still
Speaker 1: has a majority. There are the rising levels of education
Speaker 1: mean that people around the world can increasingly have their voice.
Speaker 1: We're meeting on the day when President urdu Grand's increasingly
Speaker 1: one man rule in Turkey has been rolled back by
Speaker 1: mayoral elections in Anchor and in Istample. Actually, President one
Speaker 1: has been pretty good to the Syrian refugees, so when
Speaker 1: one's got to recognize that, I think the biggest challenge
Speaker 1: we face is that people think we can't solve this problem.
Speaker 1: That's why it's important for me to do this podcast.
Speaker 1: The biggest mountain is not a policy mountain. It's not
Speaker 1: even the political mountain. It's the thought, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's just so complicated. It will never be able to
Speaker 1: sort this out. Actually, if you think about the global population,
Speaker 1: the numbers that I gave you, twenty eight and a
Speaker 1: half million refugees forty million in terms of this place. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's together one in every one hundred and ten people
Speaker 1: on the planet, but it's not that many. The number
Speaker 1: of if you take the refugee resettlement numbers, I mean
Speaker 1: we're talking, we're begging America please go back to ninety
Speaker 1: thousand refugees. Yeah, no, one's going to tell me. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've got fifty states in America, less than two thousand
Speaker 1: refugees per American state. No one's going to tell me
Speaker 1: that either California, but not even Wyoming is going to
Speaker 1: be overwhelmed by two thousand refugees arriving in one New
Speaker 1: York City can settle a multiple of that. Exactly, there's
Speaker 1: no reason to succumb to this tyranny that says the
Speaker 1: problems to complex, the problems impossible. I think the Pope
Speaker 1: says there's a globalization of indifference. I say it's not indifference,
Speaker 1: but there's actually more global consciousness. And it's not apathy either.
Speaker 1: It's a sense of agency. And that's what hopefully our
Speaker 1: work around the world allows people to see that there.
Speaker 1: We call ourselves as Solutions based NGO. We're out there.
Speaker 1: If you look at our social media, it's about solutions,
Speaker 1: it's not about suffering. And I think that we've got
Speaker 1: to break this tyranny that says the problems to complex,
Speaker 1: problems too big, we can't solve it. This is solvable,
Speaker 1: And I think listeners would like to know what they
Speaker 1: can do to help. Can you lift five things that
Speaker 1: individuals can do. I would love your listeners first to
Speaker 1: use their voice to stand up for the principle that
Speaker 1: people who are fleeing for their lives deserve help. I
Speaker 1: would love your listeners to volunteer at a local refugee
Speaker 1: resettlement center of the International Rescue Committee runs twenty five
Speaker 1: ephases across the US. Other agencies need support. I would
Speaker 1: love your listeners who are employers to give refugees the
Speaker 1: chance to work. And I would love your listeners to
Speaker 1: become supporters of the International Rescue Committee by visiting rescue
Speaker 1: dot org getting the information about the work we do,
Speaker 1: being armed with the facts about how to make a difference.
Speaker 1: And of course, since I've lived in New York for
Speaker 1: five years, I'm no longer ashamed of saying this. I
Speaker 1: hope they'll become financial supporters of US as well. You
Speaker 1: still have your accent, I still have my acts, and
Speaker 1: I still have my patriotic British heart beating. David, thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us Unsolvable, and thank you for the
Speaker 1: work that you do. Thank you so much, Shacob. Isn't
Speaker 1: it confronting to hear just how few displace people the
Speaker 1: US actually takes in? I loved hearing how the IRC,
Speaker 1: this organization that Einstein founded, has grown up to be
Speaker 1: this voice of reason. I mean, who is going to
Speaker 1: argue with Einstein? And a big takeaway that I got
Speaker 1: from listening to David was it refugees and displace people
Speaker 1: need pretty much the same things the rest of us do.
Speaker 1: Help to get back on our feet after a lass
Speaker 1: work that's paid a fair wage, and education for our children.
Speaker 1: I really love what he's got to say about cash. Basically,
Speaker 1: if somebody needs money, give them money. David is like,
Speaker 1: straight up, you need cash here, cash, which if you've
Speaker 1: ever been broke, you'll know that's the exactly right thing
Speaker 1: to do. Solvable is a collaboration between Pushkin Industries and
Speaker 1: the Rockefeller Foundation, with production by Chalk and Blade. Pushkin's
Speaker 1: executive producer is Mia LaBelle, Engineering by Jason Gambrell and
Speaker 1: the great folks at GSI Studios. Our theme music was
Speaker 1: composed by Pascal Wise and special thanks go out to
Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor, Heather Fane, Julia Barton, Carlie mcgliori, Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: and Malcolm Gladwell. I'm Mave Higgins. Now go Salvert