In a seminar on 26 May 2015, Ewen MacLeod, Head of the Policy Development and Evaluation Service (PDES) of the UN Refugee Agency, focused on the impact of emerging global trends – population growth, climate change, urbanisation, and migration – on current arrangements for the management of forced displacement.
MacLeod highlighted the changing nature of war, conflict and violence since the end of the Cold War as an explanation for the growth in internal displacement and protracted refugee situations. He also shared a review of the growing phenomenon of failed, fragile and conflict affected states – now a key challenge for international cooperation in general, and for the development and humanitarian community in particular. See below for quotes and images from the seminar, which was held in the UNU-MERIT conference room.
KEY QUOTES
“It took Europe centuries of war and bitter experiences to learn to resolve conflicts through political mechanisms.”
“The tale of development is relatively positive – until you start deconstructing some of the global statistics.”
“There is a growing number of people falling into poverty in middle income countries. We see this happening at the same time as we observe an increase in the number of failing or failed states.”
“War and violence is no longer taking place within inter-state wars. There is an increase in intra-state wars. Outside interventions are only making things worse.”
“Achieving security and peace with the involvement of all actors is a very complex and complicated process and takes painstaking work.”
“Peace is the absence of conflict and violence. It does not mean that everyone will have an equal slice of the pie.”
“We need a different template. It needs to start with a deeper political, economic analysis of countries.”
“The instruments currently at our disposal do not allow us to put a country back on track.”
“We must find better ways to do business. We need more investments in developing social capital among refugees. They need to be more involved and get more opportunities to negotiate their own rights.”
LECTURE IMAGES
In today’s seminar Ewen MacLeod, from the UNHCR, focused on the “new world disorder”. See the key quotes here: http://bit.ly/1cgbF7E
Posted by United Nations University-MERIT on Tuesday, 26 May 2015
MEDIA CREDITS
UNU / S.Brodin