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0:46

Hi, I'm Ravi Agrawal. This

0:48

is Global Reboot. Welcome

0:53

to the show. No one wants

0:55

to be a refugee. The world

0:58

creates refugees. When

1:00

you have a world with active conflicts,

1:02

with a climate crisis, with a food

1:05

crisis, with political crises,

1:08

you get refugees. And

1:10

there are some 108 million displaced

1:13

people all over the world today, of

1:15

whom about 35 million are refugees,

1:18

struggling not just to build a home, but

1:20

to get legal paperwork to exist.

1:23

This is a big global problem.

1:25

It doesn't get enough attention. It

1:28

needs a reboot.

1:30

There are many organizations that

1:32

deal with this global crisis. And

1:34

perhaps the most important of those is

1:37

the United Nations High Commission

1:39

for Refugees, or UNHCR. Well,

1:42

my guest this week has the number two

1:44

role at that organization. Kelly

1:47

Clements is the UN's Deputy High Commissioner

1:50

for Refugees. She's been at UNHCR

1:52

since 2015, and she was

1:54

previously in the US government working

1:57

as a Deputy Assistant Secretary

1:59

of State.

1:59

on this very issue. Global

2:02

Reboot is a partnership between

2:04

Foreign Policy and the Doha Forum. This

2:07

is Episode 5 of Season 3,

2:09

How to Reboot the World's Refugee

2:12

Crisis. I spoke with Clements

2:14

at a live event at the United Nations General

2:16

Assembly in September. What follows

2:19

is a recording of that interview. Let's

2:23

dive in. The

2:26

Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees

2:28

at the UN, Kelly Clements. Let's welcome

2:30

her on.

2:40

Kelly Clements, welcome to Global Reboot. Thank

2:42

you very much. Great to be here. So let's

2:45

begin with the very obvious question. How

2:47

do you define a refugee?

2:49

So it has a very particular legal

2:52

basis, but I'm going to tell you that

2:54

refugees can be fleeing conflict, persecution,

2:58

generalized violence, but they

3:01

are people that leave their original countries.

3:04

And we talk about forcibly displaced

3:06

people who may be fleeing very similar reasons,

3:09

but they don't leave their homes and they don't leave

3:11

their home countries. And in some contexts,

3:13

I mean, Syria is an excellent example

3:15

of that. Displaced people can

3:17

be displaced one, twice,

3:20

three times, and now you see the same thing in Ukraine,

3:22

you see the same thing in Sudan, and

3:25

so on. So

3:26

no one chooses to be a refugee. So

3:29

people will try every way possible

3:32

to stay within their home country until

3:34

really they don't have another option.

3:36

And so we see

3:39

internally displaced first, and

3:42

that's why the numbers are so much larger than

3:44

refugees. Three times. Yes. And

3:46

then, of course, about three

3:48

quarters of them will stay in neighboring countries

3:51

around their home country. They don't go further afield.

3:54

Well, I imagine many of them can't

3:56

leave. I mean, it's not easy to cross

3:58

borders. No. No.

3:59

And, you know, the refugees

4:02

are, they really

4:03

are like you and me. I

4:05

mean, some have means, some

4:07

don't have means.

4:09

In context that we work in, often

4:11

you see those that have means leaving

4:14

first, and maybe they go further,

4:16

because they have the wherewithal to do that.

4:18

As conflicts increase

4:22

and lengthen and become protracted,

4:25

that's when you see those that really

4:27

truly have not been able to leave

4:29

before coming out. And

4:31

that has been the case,

4:32

I think, in every refugee context

4:34

that I've worked with.

4:36

So, sketch this out for us. Where

4:39

do we tend to find the most refugees

4:42

globally? We find refugees in every

4:44

part of the world. But the largest

4:47

populations of refugees have tended

4:49

to be, well, now, of course, the

4:51

Ukraine

4:52

situation, where

4:54

you have between five

4:56

and six million people

4:58

who are now mostly within Europe.

5:02

The Syrian situation,

5:04

where, again, you have about 6.8

5:06

million internally displaced, but

5:08

another five

5:10

to six million refugees,

5:11

most, of course,

5:13

in Turkey, in Iraq, in Jordan,

5:16

Lebanon and Egypt. The

5:19

Myanmar situation, and a situation

5:22

I know rather well that was

5:24

where I started my career three decades ago,

5:27

three waves of Rohingya have

5:29

left Myanmar over that period of time, 1978,

5:32

1992, and most recently in 2017. There

5:38

are over a million

5:39

now in Bangladesh.

5:41

In the Horn of Africa, of course, now we

5:43

see this tragedy unfolding in Sudan.

5:47

Sudan was a host of refugees, well

5:50

over a million before the war began. And

5:53

you had South Sudanese refugees actually

5:55

returning precipitously to

5:57

South Sudan when the war broke out.

5:59

But now there are some 4

6:03

million internally displaced Sudanese,

6:05

newly in the last five months,

6:07

and a million refugees. Most

6:09

have gone to Chad, but also to South Sudan,

6:12

Central African Republic, Ethiopia,

6:14

Uganda. And then back

6:17

to Asia, Afghanistan. And

6:19

Afghanistan has

6:20

been, this has been a country

6:23

in conflict for four decades, and

6:25

Pakistan and Iran have of course been

6:28

generous hosts for those four decades. They

6:31

between them host between 6 and 7

6:33

million Afghans.

6:35

Not all of them are registered refugees,

6:38

but some are undocumented. And

6:40

then inside the

6:41

country, of course, you have 3.5 million conflict

6:44

displaced. And that's also

6:47

a huge driver. So, Turkey, for example,

6:49

hosting both Syrians and Afghans

6:52

and Iraqis in large numbers. So,

6:55

that's sort of a global snapshot, but

6:57

give us a sense of, let's say there's a

6:59

big earthquake in country X,

7:03

and then a large

7:05

part of the population finds

7:07

that it has to leave. And

7:10

let's say they need to migrate to another

7:12

country, a neighboring country, and

7:14

you see this large refugee population

7:17

build up all of a sudden.

7:19

What does UNHCR do? So,

7:22

we're an agency that focuses on those

7:24

that are fleeing for the reasons that I mentioned at

7:26

the beginning, persecution conflict. But

7:29

in some of these contexts, in particular,

7:32

let's take February, what happened

7:34

in Turkey.

7:35

I happened to be in Iraq when the earthquake

7:38

hit. I

7:40

was going to Syria next.

7:41

So, ended up diverting, going

7:44

to Aleppo into that area where

7:46

we already had a

7:47

large relief operation that

7:50

had been underway for 11 years. What

7:52

we did during that circumstance is

7:54

we would obviously support the internally

7:57

displaced that were part of that relief

7:59

program

7:59

We've had in place protection aid, legal

8:03

assistance, other ways that people can

8:05

support themselves. And then we turned

8:07

it into a very quick

8:09

inject of the images of

8:13

people standing

8:14

and looking at buildings that

8:16

actually you could not tell the

8:17

difference of those buildings. Were they war damage

8:19

or were they from the earthquake? But

8:21

it was clear it was from the earthquake. They

8:23

were basically looking at their dwellings

8:26

and wondering, OK, we have no homes

8:29

now. What are we going to do? So trying

8:31

to find emergency shelters so people weren't sleeping

8:33

in parks, trying to ensure that

8:35

you had clean water. And we

8:37

worked through the partners that

8:38

we had for the relief operation quite

8:41

extensively. And we did similarly in

8:43

Turkey

8:44

because, of course, there was a huge refugee

8:48

protection aid program underway there with the

8:50

government. And so we would convert

8:52

in a situation like this, and when you have major

8:55

earthquakes, if we're present,

8:57

you don't worry about mandates.

8:59

You don't worry about,

9:01

well, that's your job. Or should we

9:03

be asked or what have

9:04

you? We offer.

9:06

It's a whole of approach, whole

9:08

of UN approach. And we do what we can

9:11

to save lives and minimize

9:13

suffering because it's just catastrophic.

9:15

So I mean, obviously, that was an emergency

9:18

example. But in general, globally,

9:21

what are the biggest drivers of the

9:23

creation of refugees? And

9:26

I'm guessing that climate change

9:28

has kind of steadily risen up that

9:30

list of drivers. It is. It

9:33

is. I think,

9:35

statistically, still, conflict

9:36

is the largest driver of displacement.

9:39

But like you said, climate,

9:42

climate factors, climate change, natural

9:44

disasters.

9:45

Last year, there were 32 million people

9:48

that somehow moved were displaced

9:50

because of climate factors. It's quickly rising.

9:53

And I think when we talk about

9:55

drivers of displacement, there

9:58

are four factors that we talk about.

9:59

There are, of course, conflict,

10:02

climate,

10:03

COVID, and aftermath

10:05

people in terms of not having a way

10:07

to be able to survive where they were, and

10:10

cost of living in inflation. And we saw

10:12

the ripple effect with Ukraine

10:15

and what that meant

10:16

for food, food insecurity.

10:19

And it's very hard

10:21

to

10:22

look at a population that's on the move

10:24

and say, it's only for that reason. It's

10:27

only because there's a war in their original village,

10:29

or it's only because they

10:32

may be

10:32

a member of a particular ethnic group

10:35

that is persecuted.

10:36

Increasingly, it's an overlay of

10:38

multiple factors.

10:40

And I think Venezuela

10:41

is a good example of that. Conversations

10:44

with Venezuelans about why they

10:46

have left

10:47

the country, it's

10:48

a very complicated mix

10:50

of factors. Because it's a big decision

10:51

to make, to leave home. Yes. You

10:54

also have what

10:54

we call mixed movements of people. People

10:57

that may be going more for economic reasons, people

11:00

that are going because they're trying to save

11:02

their life. Because they're in harm's

11:04

way, in danger. And you see this in

11:06

the Sahel, you see this in the Horn

11:08

of Africa. I was in July

11:11

on the border with Ethiopia and Somalia,

11:14

the place where we're providing

11:17

some pretty innovative work for

11:19

both Ethiopian farmers and

11:21

Somali refugees. And they've been there for a couple

11:24

of decades,

11:25

working together to cultivate land

11:27

and to provide food for communities.

11:30

But now they have

11:31

a quarter of a million drought

11:33

victims

11:35

that have come from Somalia

11:37

or other parts of Ethiopia into the

11:39

area to try to be assisted.

11:40

So you have this very interesting mix

11:43

of people on the move but for different reasons. They're

11:46

coming for water, they're coming for food.

11:48

Whereas those early Somali

11:51

arrivals were coming because of war. So

11:54

in your role, when you think

11:56

about fixing this

11:58

gigantic...

11:59

global,

12:01

decades long, centuries long, millennia

12:05

long problem. How

12:07

much of your mind space is on

12:10

the emergency triage and how

12:12

much of it is in fixing the problem

12:15

for the longer term?

12:16

Oh, wouldn't we love

12:18

it if those member

12:21

states up the road could

12:23

perhaps make a little peace? That

12:26

would be nice. I mean, there's nothing that

12:28

a refugee would rather do

12:31

is to go home, to go home to a community

12:34

that's safe again, they can rebuild. And

12:38

that, I think, is the preferred

12:40

option always. But as I mentioned,

12:43

when you don't have a political

12:45

resolution,

12:47

you have people that have been in

12:49

displacement or as

12:51

refugees for years,

12:53

going on generations. Some

12:55

of those Afghans in Pakistan have been there

12:57

for 40 years. Children

13:00

born in Pakistan, they don't know Afghanistan.

13:03

And so you have to, you really

13:05

need to think differently about

13:07

how you support a population. And

13:10

so we've really done some creative

13:12

work that needs to be redoubled

13:14

going forward about how you don't look at

13:17

a response just with a humanitarian

13:19

lens. For UNHCR,

13:22

we have

13:23

primarily humanitarian funding coming

13:25

our way. But increasingly,

13:28

some of the development banks, for example,

13:30

have

13:31

invested in longer term resilience,

13:34

trying to find some solutions where

13:37

if people can't go home,

13:39

and for a very small

13:40

percentage of the population are

13:42

resettled, but for the most part, people

13:45

are staying where they are. How do they

13:47

support themselves?

13:49

How do they then think

13:50

differently about their futures?

13:53

They want a job. They want to put their kids in school.

13:55

They want adequate health

13:58

care. They want clean water.

13:59

I mean, these are very basic things. Basic

14:02

means. Security, obviously, which

14:04

is why they remain where they are in many

14:06

cases, is for that security. So

14:09

we have partnered

14:10

now, and this is where a lot of our work

14:13

is generated. I don't want to minimize

14:15

the emergency response, because if

14:18

I can just pause for a moment on that. The

14:21

emergencies over the last couple of years,

14:23

on average, we've responded to a new emergency

14:26

every two weeks. Wow. And

14:28

for that, there's a declaration

14:31

and additional

14:32

resources and people and partners

14:34

and so on to go and support what is

14:36

the first response. And those are communities. Those

14:38

are local communities that we need to support. And

14:41

this is an increasing frequency

14:43

than in years past? Huge. Huge

14:46

increase. Because of climate change?

14:48

And conflict.

14:49

And conflict. And conflict.

14:51

I would not say one over the other. The conflict has

14:53

been quite substantial. Right now we

14:55

have 23 active emergency declarations,

14:58

some massive,

15:00

related to Sudan, for example, now,

15:02

or Ukraine,

15:03

and Afghanistan,

15:05

for that matter. And then 20

15:08

or so that are on the horizon, they're on the precipice,

15:10

that were quite concerned about them. You

15:13

have Burkina Faso and Mali that are

15:15

active emergencies in some places where

15:17

access is almost impossible.

15:19

But then you also

15:21

have fragility within those countries

15:24

and neighboring countries where this kind

15:26

of instability could spread. So

15:28

the emergency response is significant. But

15:31

we're increasingly trying to turn that emergency

15:34

response into something that looks very different. I'll

15:36

give you an example. With Sudan

15:39

and with this million refugees

15:42

now leaving, new refugees,

15:44

Chad already had 400,000 refugees before

15:46

the war broke

15:47

out. They

15:50

now have almost 600,000 new Sudanese

15:52

refugees.

15:55

And of course, mostly

15:57

they're at the border areas. We're trying to...

15:59

figure out ways with the government and local

16:02

authorities.

16:02

How do we help them move them

16:05

to locations that are safer and where

16:07

services can be provided? Trying

16:09

to avoid camps.

16:10

We really want alternatives to camps.

16:13

And part of this support

16:16

is now coming from the international financial institutions.

16:19

The World Bank, for example, already had a

16:22

huge partnership with the Chad

16:24

government about reinforcing health and

16:26

education services. So they've

16:28

almost turned into an emergency development

16:31

approach, where

16:32

rather than looking at a parallel

16:34

system

16:35

of humanitarian relief, you

16:37

immediately pivot to thinking, what does this

16:40

population need? What do they

16:42

want

16:42

that we can help to provide so

16:44

they are less dependent on international

16:46

aid?

16:48

Like I said, jobs.

16:50

Can you put kids in school

16:52

almost immediately? How do you provide

16:54

that health care that they might need deeply traumatized

16:57

individuals?

16:59

Let's not have the

17:00

international community

17:03

fly in and provide, but

17:05

use those local resources and build

17:08

on government structures to be able to provide.

17:11

This is what we're trying to do in many parts

17:13

of the world now.

17:13

And if

17:15

I could just pause for a moment on

17:18

Ukraine, one of the

17:21

systems that were put into place within days

17:24

after the war breaking out

17:25

by the European Union was a temporary

17:28

protection

17:29

that allowed people to work immediately,

17:31

put their kids in school, and basically

17:33

have a residency.

17:35

And that

17:36

gave them the tools to be able to support

17:38

themselves. Colombia

17:41

and Ecuador have done the same thing with

17:43

Venezuelans, a residency permit

17:45

so that they can work. And this

17:47

is what we're trying to do then, trying to support

17:49

the governments, to support those structures, as

17:52

opposed to come in with a

17:54

long-term relief operation

17:56

that is neither effective nor efficient.

17:59

So we spent some time now discussing

18:03

the scope and scale of the problem. And

18:06

this is obviously a problem that will keep reemerging.

18:09

It's not a static issue. There will be more conflicts.

18:12

There will be other reasons that will

18:14

generate more refugees. But

18:16

if we had to think about rebooting this

18:18

issue, if you had to think

18:21

about the things that we

18:23

could reform or change to

18:26

better address the global refugee crisis,

18:28

what

18:29

would you do? Well,

18:31

you know, I was thinking about this because we had a conversation

18:34

this morning with a number of member states and

18:36

partner agencies about

18:38

the growing humanitarian gap

18:40

in terms of financing. Because

18:42

while we have record need around the

18:45

world, an enormous budget that

18:47

is undersubscribed, we

18:49

also in the last year have had a record

18:51

amount of support for the organization

18:54

and for the work not just we

18:56

are doing but many partners are doing.

18:58

But it's a narrow way

19:01

to look at aid.

19:02

It's a narrow way to look at support.

19:05

It also is something where you need

19:07

to take the decision making that

19:09

may take place not

19:11

so close to the places we work, but

19:14

right down to the local level

19:16

to have refugees displaced,

19:19

making their own decisions, designing their

19:21

own programs, implementing their own

19:23

programs. And so we're trying to shift

19:25

very much the way that we deliver.

19:28

So it is a

19:29

catchy term called localization.

19:32

It's not UNHCR.

19:33

It's the 1,100 partners

19:35

we work with of which 70 or 80 percent

19:38

are actually national or local and

19:40

really trying to invest in refugee led,

19:43

women led community based organizations

19:45

as the primary deliverers of aid. So

19:47

that's a shift I think that can only

19:50

strengthen the response and can increase

19:52

resilience in a community in including those displaced

19:55

populations.

19:56

But there have to be very flexible

19:59

funding mechanisms.

19:59

to be able to support this.

20:02

And this is something that, you know, from

20:04

a humanitarian perspective, the public

20:06

sector that we get most

20:07

of our support from, although increasingly from

20:09

the private sector, they are flexible,

20:13

but the humanitarian

20:14

way of approaching

20:16

this can be sometimes rigid in terms

20:18

of timeframe.

20:20

So going back to a

20:21

different approach, this emergency development

20:23

or looking at solutions,

20:26

we need the financing mechanisms

20:28

in order to support that. And you

20:30

saw that with the World Bank

20:32

when IDA 18 and then

20:34

IDA 19, and now

20:36

talking about 20, the host

20:38

and refugee

20:39

sub-window,

20:41

where you then had, obviously,

20:43

governments being able to ask

20:45

for that kind of support

20:46

through grant mechanisms

20:49

for middle-income countries that were

20:51

big refugee hosts, the global

20:54

concessional financing facility,

20:56

and again, another way of

20:58

reinforcing, not in a short-term

21:00

way, but the systems and the sectors

21:02

of the country to be able to reinforce that. So

21:06

you can do what you see now in Uganda, very

21:08

progressive refugee policies. Refugees

21:11

can move, they can work. You have

21:13

Ugandan students in refugee schools,

21:15

and you have refugee students

21:17

in Ugandan schools. But you don't

21:20

invest in a parallel

21:21

system. You really try to reinforce. Not

21:24

every mechanism, not every

21:26

funding

21:27

instrument

21:29

is designed in a way

21:31

that's flexible enough for us to be

21:33

able to do that. So increasingly, we have to look

21:35

at this not as a humanitarian

21:38

intervention or a development one,

21:40

but something that's much more flexible, keeping

21:42

in mind that there's a very specific way

21:44

that we need to be able to deliver aid in

21:47

a humanitarian way that's apolitical, neutral,

21:50

and so on. But the financing itself

21:52

can be much more flexible than it is. I

21:55

want to come back to that, but I also

21:57

want to put a...

21:59

criticism to you. It is

22:02

a criticism of the UNHCR and the

22:05

UN system in general. And the criticism

22:09

goes like this. You have

22:12

a wide range of funders, but

22:15

of those funders there is a

22:17

disproportionate amount

22:19

of funding that comes from the United States. So I

22:22

was looking at your website

22:24

and it showed that

22:26

of the 3.4 billion that comes from a whole range of

22:30

countries and some private donors,

22:32

about 1.2 billion was coming

22:34

from the United States. That's

22:37

more than 33 percent. You look at

22:39

the top 10 and you've

22:42

got most of the G7 in the top 10.

22:45

And then the criticism then

22:48

is that these mostly rich, mostly

22:50

Western countries, they often then say to UNHCR that why

22:52

don't you focus on the areas

22:55

that matter to us. So

22:58

for example, Europe or Ukraine or in America's case, Central

23:00

America or South America. So goes

23:04

the criticism. And then a lot of the global south gets ignored,

23:07

whether it's Africa, whether

23:10

it's large parts of Asia. Do you think that

23:12

that model is broken? The United States

23:16

has been an incredibly generous

23:18

donor

23:20

to our agency. Let me say that right off the top.

23:24

And you worked for the U.S. government, but you're

23:26

wearing your UNHCR hat. I am. But we

23:31

are overly dependent on them

23:34

and we've had these conversations. And I think in terms of

23:36

the top four, five, six donors, they provide

23:39

of the public support we get,

23:41

they provide between 70

23:44

and 80 percent. Which is enormous, which of course

23:46

is not healthy. And we're

23:52

not alone.

23:54

This is something that's shared with

23:57

my sister agencies. We need much

23:59

more diversity. of support. It's one of the reasons

24:01

why we went to the

24:03

private sector several years ago to really build

24:06

up a strategy with several reasons. One,

24:08

a clear financing gap,

24:10

you know, in terms of the

24:11

kind of support they can provide

24:14

that we can't find elsewhere.

24:16

Second was the expertise and the innovation

24:19

that they can help us drive. And I can give you some

24:21

examples if we have time later

24:22

related to that. And the third

24:24

is the advocacy,

24:25

and especially as we see

24:27

refugees increasingly

24:28

part of that polarized debate

24:30

and becoming the other. Business

24:35

matters in terms of a voice. So to

24:37

try to advocate for policies

24:39

that are inclusive and humane

24:42

and so on, that's very important.

24:44

But we've tried to diversify,

24:46

and actually 20

24:47

percent of our budget last year was filled

24:49

by the private sector and individual givers.

24:53

The public sector remains very

24:55

focused on those few member

24:57

states in particular.

24:59

And that is something

25:00

we're trying to diversify. It

25:03

has been quite difficult. I think in

25:05

numerical terms,

25:07

the number of governments that are now providing

25:09

to

25:09

UNHCR has gone up year

25:11

in and year out, but not to the

25:14

scale that we need to try to meet

25:16

a little bit of that gap.

25:17

Right. Your website also had a per

25:19

capita contribution thing, and I saw Monaco

25:22

was number one, which I'm sure adds

25:24

up to like, you know, nothing.

25:26

We love Monaco. Very

25:29

rich country. But

25:34

I guess, you know, part of the

25:36

complaint here is that should donors

25:39

have, by

25:42

giving money, should they have

25:44

the ability to sway what you do? Well,

25:47

the High Commissioner has a very particular mandate.

25:50

And the way that our

25:53

organization is set up,

25:54

he reports back to the General Assembly.

25:56

And that provides a

25:58

level of

25:59

independence.

25:59

independence.

26:01

Also with regard to

26:03

what he's been asked to do by the General

26:05

Assembly, there has to be

26:07

a way that we provide a level of

26:09

support

26:10

to refugees displaced in

26:12

need wherever they may be.

26:15

And that kind of independence

26:17

in terms of his mandate is very

26:19

important to that. And I think we

26:21

have a very healthy governance

26:24

group, but it's, you know, it's over 100 member

26:26

states. And you have a very strong

26:28

voice in those governance discussions

26:31

that we have from our host countries.

26:33

And that I think is quite different

26:35

perhaps than some of my sister agencies.

26:38

And I think that makes for a healthy organization. Because

26:41

when we talk about donors, and I want to say

26:42

this first and very, very

26:45

forthright, we're not just talking about the donors

26:47

that provide us

26:48

resources. The hosts are also

26:50

donors. You know, they've been doing this for decades.

26:53

They're providing a global public good.

26:55

They're keeping their borders open. They're

26:57

doing the best they can, some of them with

27:00

meager

27:00

means. And they need much more support

27:02

than they get. I guess the sense of

27:05

inequality is that the rich Western

27:07

countries write the checks. And

27:10

then the countries that end up being the

27:12

hosts for refugees, you

27:14

know, whose populations end up being

27:16

bloated by refugee inflows.

27:19

And then, you know, that ends up affecting

27:21

their economies and the way

27:23

their cities are populated and their supply

27:26

of energy and food. And the ripple

27:28

effects are meant that those countries

27:30

tend to be middle income or poorer. And

27:33

that leads to a sense of injustice. It's

27:36

about three quarters of refugees

27:38

are hosted in low and middle income.

27:41

That's a lot. It's one of the reasons,

27:43

frankly, why the world came together

27:45

in 2018

27:46

to establish this

27:47

global compact on

27:50

refugees.

27:51

That was not just about refugees.

27:53

That was very importantly also about hosts

27:56

and about the way that we look at a response.

27:59

assisting just one part

28:02

of the population, if you provide

28:04

support you're also providing it to the host communities

28:06

too, because you know how much they have

28:10

shouldered in terms of these

28:12

additional guests and visitors

28:14

and refugees who've been

28:16

in their communities. So it has

28:19

been an approach that we've looked at

28:21

very intentionally, where it's about

28:23

self-reliance for the refugees, it's about finding

28:25

other

28:26

solutions, including solutions

28:27

that may not be in those host

28:29

countries. Resettlement

28:31

is one, some of the scholarship

28:33

programs we've done with education are another,

28:35

we call them complementary pathways,

28:37

other ways to be able to support and

28:40

relieve the burden. But it's also

28:42

about the kind of support in

28:44

those communities like these fragile services

28:47

that may not be ready to have double

28:49

the number of students in their classrooms, like

28:51

we saw

28:51

in the Middle East or

28:54

even in Pakistan and in

28:56

Iran,

28:57

where they need much more additional support.

28:59

So that of course then has

29:02

a much

29:03

bigger community of

29:05

actors involved, including those host countries,

29:08

but also civil society, refugees,

29:11

organizations and others

29:13

in terms of being able to provide protection

29:16

aid and find solutions. It levels

29:19

I think a little bit, again, this,

29:23

the potential to see an

29:26

organization sway in one direction or

29:28

another, because we really don't. And

29:30

the way that we construct our programs

29:33

are really bottom up,

29:34

and they're very much based on who

29:37

the population is we're trying to serve, what

29:39

the host communities may need, which

29:41

actors are there,

29:42

do we need to bring in other actors for reinforcements,

29:45

or do we have the kind of local and community

29:47

support that we require. And so

29:50

the

29:50

budget is built that way and up. That's

29:52

a needs based budget.

29:54

That's not necessarily what we're going

29:56

to get. In fact,

29:56

we don't receive that

29:58

amount.

29:59

quite balanced region to region.

30:03

So it's clear to me that one

30:05

of the things that your organization

30:08

needs is more money. Where

30:11

does the private sector fit into

30:13

this? And I keep hearing about things

30:15

like leveraged finance and

30:17

blended finance when it comes

30:20

to not just organizations such

30:22

as yours, but also the World Bank

30:25

and other groups that are looking to solve other

30:28

big issues. So how

30:30

are you looking at that problem? So with

30:32

the private sector, we've looked at it in

30:34

a number of ways. From

30:37

a perspective of a humanitarian

30:39

agency, there

30:40

are a number of avenues that we're looking

30:42

at on the private sector side

30:45

from some of the expertise elements,

30:49

but also when we look at

30:53

different ways of financing what we think

30:55

needs to happen in a particular context. And I'll

30:57

give you an example, maybe we can link it back

30:59

to climate. And for

31:01

climate, there are a couple of components

31:04

that we're looking at. Operational delivery. How

31:06

do we do things differently? You saw,

31:08

for example, in the case of a

31:11

million Rohingya going to Bangladesh, in

31:13

those months right after, in 2017,

31:16

all you saw was sparse

31:19

hills, no trees, nothing.

31:22

We quickly put into place

31:24

something that we think now could

31:26

be potentially scaled up on

31:28

a refugee environmental protection

31:31

fund, which basically takes

31:34

tree planting with clean

31:36

energy like LPG, and

31:38

then allowing

31:40

carbon credits to be purchased, then

31:43

sustaining this kind of support. So

31:45

it's not something that you need to have additional capital

31:47

come in for

31:49

both the environmental purposes, but

31:51

also for clean cooking and general

31:53

support. But it's those sorts of innovative

31:56

financing mechanisms that we think are

31:58

possible.

31:59

We've done similar things with some of the development

32:02

banks, including, for example, with

32:04

the Islamic Development Bank using Wacof

32:07

and non-Wacof sources. The

32:09

capital that is necessary

32:12

at the beginning that then becomes revolving

32:14

that we can then use to be able to

32:16

provide support in some of the operations in a

32:18

way that you then aren't looking

32:21

at a program injection needing

32:24

an emergency appeal that's then been responded

32:26

to be able to move. We've got already

32:29

in a bank a guarantee

32:32

that we can then access those funds because

32:34

of the capital that then has

32:36

been built up. We've

32:39

used some of these sorts of techniques

32:41

in terms of some of the financing that's

32:44

required. It's still relatively

32:46

modest, to be honest, but

32:48

there's potential there. And

32:51

one of the ways where we see the

32:55

relationship with the private sector building is

32:57

in the collaboration that we've had with the International

32:59

Financial Corporation. And

33:02

that we now have the kind of empirical

33:05

evidence that we need that if you have

33:07

investment in refugee areas

33:10

and host communities that you actually see

33:13

the per capita of that community increasing,

33:15

which has meant then more investment from

33:18

those businesses and more investment from the

33:20

banks in terms of being able to provide

33:23

whatever service might be required in that area.

33:27

So I think from the private sector side, some of them

33:29

are, and we've heard

33:31

a lot about tech and AI

33:33

and that sort of thing, it

33:36

equally applies in the refugee context

33:38

through things like predictive analytics.

33:41

How do we know what's coming in terms

33:43

of the weather patterns? How can we

33:46

see areas where there might be potential

33:48

for a spark of a local conflict that

33:50

then spreads the

33:52

overlay of some of those areas

33:54

to know we've done this, done some

33:57

serious work in the Sahel and in

33:59

the Horn of Africa? to be able to predict

34:02

people's movements, to be able to then pre-position,

34:05

to be able to support more easily.

34:08

That would not have been possible without the private

34:10

sector. There are

34:12

a number of those areas. And that's

34:14

a growing part of the pie now? Yes.

34:16

Well, so last year, of course, Ukraine was a big factor.

34:19

I mean, we raised $1.2 billion

34:21

from the private sector. Our strategy

34:24

had been to exceed a billion by 2026. So

34:28

this year, it's not looking so good

34:30

in terms of both the public support but also private support.

34:33

Wow. Because interest in Ukraine

34:35

is waning? Yes. It's one of those, as we talked

34:37

about earlier, you have a lot of interest

34:39

at the beginning in an emergency. If

34:41

it's a natural disaster or

34:45

a major event like this one has been. But

34:48

you have to keep focus and you need to keep

34:50

attention by individuals but

34:53

also businesses on why it matters

34:55

to continue to engage and to support

34:58

this kind of action. You know, over the course of this

35:00

conversation, I feel like you've mentioned

35:03

maybe 10 countries that

35:05

you visited in the last year. I

35:09

would

35:10

not like to look at your sort of slight schedule

35:12

calendar.

35:13

That's probably very scary. But you

35:16

see a lot of suffering. You see

35:18

a lot of hard times for a lot of people

35:20

in a lot of parts of the world. What

35:23

gives you hope?

35:25

The stories of people

35:27

I talk to, and regardless

35:29

of their suffering or their

35:32

experience, they

35:34

are always thinking about the future. And

35:37

I'll give you a couple of examples. I met

35:39

this Ukrainian woman on the outskirts

35:42

of Kiev

35:43

called Helena, and

35:45

she was taking care of her husband who did

35:48

not have the wherewithal to take care of himself.

35:50

And we were making some little

35:53

fixes to her windows that had

35:55

been impacted from some

35:57

of the shelling from the early days of

35:59

the war. earlier parts of the war. You know what she

36:01

was telling me? She

36:03

was most angry that

36:06

her greenhouse had been shelled,

36:09

so she couldn't grow her hot house tomatoes

36:12

to be able to provide for the community, because

36:14

she was one of the community farmers.

36:16

So how quickly could she get those hot

36:18

house tomatoes growing again to

36:20

add to the apples where we went in her backyard,

36:22

and she picked some apples and gave them to us? I

36:24

mean, regardless, she spent six weeks down in

36:27

a cellar with her husband. And yet,

36:30

just a few weeks later, we're having this conversation

36:32

about her growing her crops again. Or

36:35

Pascaleen, this

36:36

Congolese refugee I met in Burundi

36:38

last year,

36:39

who had domestic violence,

36:42

then sexual violence

36:44

en route from Congo to Burundi.

36:47

She became a community leader. So

36:49

she was mobilizing. She had a whole group

36:52

of other community leaders to go and provide

36:54

health information to other refugees

36:56

in the camps. And she was making these

36:58

connections with the Burundi

37:01

local community. These are the sorts

37:03

of conversations that I just, they

37:06

stay with me for a very, very long time. And

37:09

I haven't mentioned this in this conversation

37:12

yet, but we have an opportunity, actually,

37:14

in December, which is

37:16

the Global Refugee Forum. And this

37:18

is where we springboard forward

37:20

on things like

37:23

climate adaptation,

37:25

mitigation,

37:27

education, some of

37:29

the solutions we've been talking about. And

37:31

those sorts of things, what's at the center?

37:34

It's refugee displaced and stateless

37:36

voices. They're the ones that are

37:38

driving our agenda. And they're the ones that we need to

37:40

be listening to. And that's what gives me hope. Thank

37:43

you for doing what you do.

37:44

It's really, really important. And the world needs

37:46

it.

37:47

And

37:49

the work you do every day clearly makes such

37:51

a huge difference. Kalvi Clements, thank

37:53

you for joining us. And

38:04

that was Kelly Clements, the UN's Deputy

38:07

High Commissioner for Refugees. Global

38:10

Reboot is a partnership between Foreign

38:12

Policy and the Doha Forum. Our

38:14

production staff includes Rosie

38:17

Julen and Dan Efron.

38:19

Next week, we're taking a break for Thanksgiving, but

38:22

after that, you will hear from Monica

38:24

Medina, the United States'

38:26

first ever diplomat for biodiversity.

38:29

She now serves as President and CEO

38:32

of the Wildlife Conservation Society,

38:35

and she will join me to discuss how to preserve

38:37

and protect our oceans, a

38:40

really important topic. Thanks

38:42

for listening to Global Reboot. I'm

38:44

Ravi Akramal. I will see you next time.

38:59

Thank you.