The cost of the refugees ensuring that coronavirus pandemic a groups of donations drying up as wealthy nations make cutbacks so how do we ensure protection to some of the worlds most Vulnerable People this is its odd story. Hello and welcome to the program on im wrong on the coronavirus pandemic is having a devastating impact on refugees around the world preventative measures like social distancing and frequent hand washing are often difficult to implement in crowded camps and the aid agencies helping the refugees a struggling as well humanitarian organizations are warning of huge budget shortfalls wealthy nations in Europe North America and the middle east slashing donations and keeping that money at home to tackle the economic fallout of the pandemic one of the Worlds Largest charities laid off nearly 1500. 00 staff and pulled out of 18 countries last month a recent survey estimated that global government aid will drop by 25000000000 dollars by next year lets take a look at the World Refugee crisis the war in syria has displaced 5600000 last Year International donors placed 5500000000. 00 to help host countries such as turkey lebanon and jordan. Nearly 2500000. 00 afghans are living as refugees many of them in pakistan the e. U. Has pledged an extra 24000000. 00 to help the. 2000000. 00 south sudanese have escaped to neighboring countries like ethiopia and kenya and the 1500000. 00 are internally displaced the ones asking for 1300000000. 00 in aid this year and i mean on marjah over a 1000000 Ethnic Rohingya have been forced from their homes 750000. 00 of them fled to bangladesh the u. N. Wants to raise 877000000. 00 to help them. I. Lets bring in our guests in Geneva Heather Lee director of the new humanitarian a nonprofit Journalism Organization focused on humanitarian crises in paris director of partnerships and policy at the Norwegian Refugee Council and in beirut scene and associate professor of policy and planning at the American University of beirut and chair before refugees and to thank you all for joining us now the figures are completely mind boggling as weve said 5500000000. 00 just for syria 24000000. 00 for refugees in pakistan and the list goes on and on i want to begin with solving in paris every organization that ive spoken to and publicly has said that doesnt matter whether its nato organization with this the u. N. Anybody remotely connected with dealing with refugees is worried about money i guess its the same for your organization the Norwegian Refugee Council however all we past the point of no return is this now unsolvable. No i wouldnt say so i mean 1st of all i think that theres its still a lot of things that are unclear in terms of how 19 will impact the most Vulnerable People in some of the poorest countries but there is still time although that time is now with the iranian out because we see that we see that numbers are rising quite fast in a lot of the places that we were operating n. R. C. Is operating in more than 30 countries around the world and and were quite concerned about that but there is another element to this as well and that is that you know were either were worried about the Immediate Health impacts could be 90 there were also incredibly worried about the secondary impact on people when you have countries and governments and oh seeing understandably Public Health measures to limit the spread of the virus thats going to happen and they are an effect on an economies its going to have an effect on whether people are able to have in common whether they going to be able to put food on the table and that is going to be a longer term issues that we have to deal with and for that you know we have to also start responding but you know lets take a phone for example design 3 refugee camp in jordan its effectively a large city in jordan its not a small refugee camp its how do you i mean the mind boggles how do you do it how do you stop these people from you know getting coded 19 how do you socially distance in a refugee ji camp surely its impossible. Well its challenging thats for sure i mean what some of the things that we in that region Refugee Council have been doing in some of the refugee settings networking and places where there are dense populations so displaced people it is you know doing shelter works or helping people its its expand there are places where they stay so that they can have more social distancing it is building quarantined facilities so that people who are either infected or at risk you know at the take the risk can be separated from the others it is install a new better wasnt sanitation facilities to make sure that you know also it displaced people and people in refugee camps are able to follow some of the same and advice that we are getting and we are following in terms of hygiene etc so there are definitely things that we can be doing to limit that limit the impact that this will eventually potentially have on people but it is challenging nobodys and nobodys discounting now let me bring in also yassine head from beirut joe the chair of the American University of beirut refugees and this is have before we came on air i was speaking to a couple of academic friends of mine about whether there had been any Academic Studies done on d dealing with issues like covered 19 in a refugee camp and actually the answer that came back was not that we know of is there anything did has this been planned for by anybody who is that did this come out of the complete that field. No there is some work happening at the moment and i think there is research taking place to understand the implications of the government. But of course in a lot of time off. Mic a lot of the efforts are to contain and to make sure that there is not outbreak and refugee settings in communities and form a settlements and the camps where actually there might be at risk particularly because the social distancing is a luxury for them but whats most widening. Is also the percussions of the lock down on the livelihood and on the ability for the Refugee Families to earn a living the vast majority of refugees across the globe but particularly and this part of the earth actually going to live on and that informant work they need to go out daily to get the living they were an informal setting and a culture and construction and basij shops and you know the lockdown has created an immense pressure on them to keep going and if and i hope will be they will be and we will be saved from from this virus im not sure about being saved from hunger and from poverty and from destitute and this is a major concern for all of us how were going to get those people back into some kind of chop have i see that youre nodding in agreement there have alys from is the director of the new heman its hereon part of your job is to try and get published a t. V. Newspapers parody caused by gains for the plight of refugees is that working are you you know people just lost interest i mean thats thats the question right. I would say in the early days of the mic everyone was very much focused internally of course you know they had their own lives directly threatened by this virus and it was. We set out really proactively to remind the world that this could very well have an even more devastating effect in other parts of the world than what we were seeing in the early days in china and in europe fortunately that hasnt come to pass yet. And i think we are starting now to see a recognition of the fact that this is a Global Pandemic if its spreading in one part of the world thats a danger to everyone in the world the nice i think there there is a bit of. A bit of consciousness that were all very connected but also id say that at least the optimistic view is that the pandemic has spawned a kind of International Solidarity because for the 1st time everyone around the world is experiencing a crisis to different degrees and i would push back against this idea that the pandemic has been an equalizer because its certainly affecting vulnerable communities harder than everyone else but it has awakened i think people all over the world to the idea that that you know what it feels like to be in a crisis and thats hopefully can create some empathy for crises beyond this particular virus and it is a very interesting point really sold im going bring you in here yet we are all going through the pandemic there is this quote almost you know solidarity is have a says that were all going through this we are all going through this but you know refugees like have a says all some of the most vulnerable and the money isnt there to help them we might all be going through some of us are a bit more equal than others right. I mean thats definitely true and i can i can just sort of support whatever it was saying that you know and weve seen that in in in our relationship with the public and with corporations that set up there is a lot of solidarity there is a lot of understanding there is a lot of empathy etc and but at the same time i think they you know where everybody is also very concerned with themselves to some extent so you know you know the u. N. Has put out in an appeal for 6800000000. 00 u. S. Dollars to respond to it it needs all those in the poorest countries in the world and just 17 percent of that has been funded so far and another important point here which is which is for us and you know very concerning point is that even a lot of that 17 percent has not yet reached the front line responds responders and you know we we feel that we have window of opportunity here before we see the really big serious outbreaks and were concerned that were as a community we as a humanitarian sector are not moving fast you know really not getting the assistance and the preventative measures that we could be giving out out to the field out to the refugee camps quickly enough so so you know this is one of the messages that we are sending to to the entire area humanitarian sex sector including to actually donors and to the u. N. That we need to get better at that pushing that assistance out to the front line responders freight where they can actually be put to use getting the money to the frontline obviously a very crucial thing to do not so you are saying even before the coated 19 crisis that was in places like turkey in places like lebanon a suspicion of paranoia of Syrian Refugees out on the streets from ordinary lebanese people from ordinary turkish people who were simply overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the. The g. s in their country that spawned some fairly right wing politicians to make outlandish statements about the nature of Syrian Refugees this is not just in lebanon in turkey this is globally theres a lot of people who abuse the refugees as a scapegoat therefore its become political and getting money to them has become political is that an accurate statement you think. Absolutely you know i mean there are issues around the hate Speech Center for p. R. And the symmetry is ation are refugees and migrants and gender and blaming them for a lot of the areas in our economies are societies and theyre not will start in the global not this has been ongoing for some time and i fear with the government being this going to action to aid that and also im not saying this as just out of that reflection actually a lot of the nation has been across the globe but it is that not will not in the more developed countries are turning into themselves theres an inward looking up brought at the moment and that would actually fuel more and more International Feelings and feelings against my kittens and strategies as a matter of fact this is this mantra of global crises as refugee crises are to be sought at the National Level at local level solving global problems with look at response as has been ongoing for ages and i feed this is going to be ongoing again with a cover 90 govern 1000. 00 pandemic is a Global Pandemic as a name ses but as a matter of fact a lot of the responses until now have been boston the National Local and inward looking and i fear this is going to translate into that a fugitive spawns in the coming years and those issues around an official response of helping the effort is helping that Host Community is going to be made. Local problems are easy to be a result of local responses but it was some funding from here this has to be changed and all this benefits the problem is a global problem that is to be addressed at the global lovett similarly in the government in pandemic and becoming a typical actions and global problems need to be added as at the global level in a multilateral approach and i think this is a strong message that we need to always keep in mind and send to the countries across the globe but also to the you know these platforms that we can speak up speak in you know whether its actually the g. 20 or other of the not g 7 or other you know meetings that we need to spread this work they blow by a this is a global problem that we need to respond globally and in multilateral approach let me go and theres been our other 2 guests that im speaking to other to get because im fascinated to hear what they might think is it time. For a Global Response rather than a local one. I was just going to jump in because in fact if you compare the the worlds reaction to this crisis compared to the financial crisis in 2008 then you really did see a multilateral approach where leaders were gathering at the European Union etc to look at how they can Work Together to address this crisis and this time around we have not at all seen that and in fact we have seen quite the opposite in which everyone is kind of each man for him or herself and in fact countries are fighting with each other over protective equipment and masks i mean its its degenerated to such a level of nationalism protectionism and and im afraid that were very very far from a multilateral approach to this i would add that actually a multilateral approach probably wouldnt work anyway because this is a transnational problem rather than a multinational problem and so my my guess is that were not likely to see that we havent seen the u. N. Security council talk about this at all i mean its been its a its been a very different kind of challenge this time around or maybe if we gave all the refugees Bank Accounts going to be a problem i want to bring in solving here what do you think multinational approach multilateral approach or is it the right approach right now that we have this local approach. No i think i think really to mix i think we need to do several things and we need to have several be able to think several thoughts at the same time but what what what i do agree with is that weve seen a shame here. You know a collective failure in no way to just speak out and tear it to react. You know one of the issues that really been working on for example is to document the conflict displacement displacement that has happened as seems that since the pentagon demick broke out you will remember that the u. N. Secretary general went out and called for a global cease fire since he did that more than 600000 people have been displaced by conflict you know obviously whereas were sort of sitting in lock downs and were shifting our movement we all understand that people being forced to flee and forced to move is not a great way of all of fighting this pandemic and yet for all of that you know as have or was just saying that the Security Council has failed to choose speak out about that and support the u. N. Secretary general school over you know mainly disagreements about whether the alltel who can say she should be mentioned in a recession or not and that is not global leadership. And so yes we are rejecting at least so far that there is more that could be done on the global and collective level if you know at the same time there is also an important debate here about localization and the role of local groups as well and in the end this response. Which i think is it was a dispute it. There is a bottom line here in the the refugee crisis in whatever country youre in simply doesnt get the kind of press the good 19 is getting locally people are there are there is refugee fatigue there is there are people who arent going to vote for a government that promises to help out refugees 3000 miles away is just something that governments have to deal with traditionally theyve dealt with that by having forum budgets and theyve had that money that people accept is going to be spent in Foreign Countries those budgets have been shrinking over the last few years however the refugee crisis has been getting larger and larger and larger now the question id like to ask you nasr in beirut is is there 0 one more efficient way of spending the money that you are getting rather than keeping asking for more money this is a question that was put to me actually by somebody from the department of International Development the u. K. s version saying i wonder if its time for us to apply Good Business practices. Absolutely you know weve been using the same 2 was that a man and and again you know a soul was trying to support the did effigies and it were lost community has and im sensing here not communities because 80 percent of the refugees and or the actually live in developing and fracture countries are not so theyre not living in developed economies and develop based so you need to support both but at the same time and others that there was with using theres been mostly support to keep the hands of those refugees above what were not actually giving them the United States or deny to actually make them graduate from being dependent on 8 and that has become the work of the humanitarian machine for many many of these crises and so thats why actually refugees become dependent on india hosking its become dependent now what we need to do we need to look empowered those refugees and improvers economists but they live where they can you know are selfreliant and that would require you and totally different mindset of the existing one with the humanitarian organisations and humanitarian machinery quote we need to think big really big Something Like marginal land but come to those places where there are millions of refugees in also by millions of poor i mean not talking about the middle east lebanon jordan turkey africa ansara and this is where you need to really invest in those economists and empower yourself in shes improve their Human Capital make them reliant on themselves and then they graduate from being dependent and this is on the one hand on the other has are yes and also we are we are running out of time and i would like to you have made some very important points id like to toss the other guests may comment on a less solving you do policy for the Norwegian Refugee Council have you looked at making do with what you have been spending more efficiently is that something that you regularly look at. I mean were always looking out in how to sort of improve our programming and i think were i think yes hes making an excellent point here and i think you know we as a sector need to always be looking at that and i think we are i think we are for example you know this crisis has also is also highlighting the importance of using cash programming for example and using that is an interesting tool and i want to add one thing which is actually as a as far as i see it as a positive thing that weve seen so far for many years now and you know in the context of the grand bargain and you know a process that is trying to do you know make humanitarian work more efficient weve been calling for simplification of procedures from donors for making you know reports standardize the set responding a lot of the time and resources just because different donors have different requirements etc and because there is not a lot of flexibility from many donors this is where we have in the term crisis actually seeing quite a swift in the mentality and the signals that regaining from donors and where they have shown flexibility they have agreed to see the east river reporting requirements etc which has allowed us to respond quicker and were saving a lot of time and resources on that and we hope really hope that this will be a shift and that the some of these changes that we have seen recently will stay with us also after after the coup in cote 19 crisis sort of disappeared states a little bit because it is making humanitarian work more efficient but i do want to add you know one thing you know i think theres 3 messages that really have here and that is you know there needs to be more funding for the code in 1000 response there needs to be that funding needs to go to frontline responders more quickly but thirdly it is really important to also keep in my. And the problems that we had before that they havent gone away so it is it is really important that we are able to maintain that humanitarian funding that we have weve done weve made great progress sorry a layoff we already got so i do want to bring in head in geneva now that you teach a you know you give a person officiates for a day you get a you teach a person to fish they eat for a lifetime is a very old cliche but is it time to spend the money more efficiently when part of what we do at the new humanitarian is to map out the way that aid Architecture Works and we have seen over years and years that of course that has existed for i mean decades really to reform the way aid is delivered has been very slow in becoming reality so there is absolutely justification for looking at the way aid is spent and thats not so much you know that people are being wasteful but more that the whole system is structured in a way that continues to deliver for instance. Aid year on year for crisis that we now know last for many years and iranians have actually run out of harms way out thank you very much have the early in geneva now so youre seen in by region all the solving in paris thank you much thank you very much and thank you to fortune you can see the program again any time by who is visiting our website out 0 dot com and for further discussion go to our Facebook Page thats facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story and you can also join the conversation on twitter we are at a. J. Inside story for me among and the entire team here in doha wife and. I. Be the hero the world needs. Washing. They call them c days knowledge property subdivided into small quarters where one or more families live crammed together is the only option for many haitian migrants in chile and its Public Knowledge that they are exploited by unscrupulous landlords and now with the coronavirus pandemic theyre being discriminated further. A few weeks ago this day with 88 groups became nationwide news because authorities moved the haitian residence to a special her teen area with better facilities but 1st the results of their growing the virus test were published on the municipalities web page violating a patients right to confidentiality. But neighbors began throwing rocks and rolling insults at the haitians because a few of them had been confirmed to be carrying coronavirus now they tell us i think feel even more discriminating and vulnerable than ever. Hello there im the star with the top stories here on aljazeera stocks in japan and australia have opened down after markets in the United States recorded this steepest falls since mid march the Dow Jones Industrial average fell by nearly 7 percent on thursday so it came on rising Coronavirus Infections and a poor Economic Forecast from the Federal Reserve and now the World Health Organization is warning of a sudden rapid rise in coded 1000. 00 infections in parts of africa raising concerns about how developing nations will cope with the pandemic amid interest reports. For africa to reach 100000 Coronavirus Infections in only 92 parts
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