Brussels, 26/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - When it is extended, the European Union's support to refugees and displaced people should be based less on emergency humanitarian aid and more on helping the insertion of the 60 million people concerned in the countries where they have become established.
This is the central point of a new approach presented by the European Commission on Tuesday 26 April. The Commission would like to promote this new approach at the humanitarian summit in Istanbul on 23-24 May.
Favouring synergy between humanitarian action and development policy, the Commission's approach aims at further involving public and private actors from the countries hosting refugees and displaced people, while taking account of past experience that has worked or failed.
With the uprooting of the victims of conflict or climate phenomena lasting more than five years for most people, the Commission underlines the importance of providing appropriate education for under-18 year olds (who accounted for half the people in refuge in 2014) so as to avoid creating lost generations. Access to the jobs market in the host countries should also be supported in order to enable the people concerned to meet their own needs, contribute to the growth of the host country and be more integrated there. On this point, the Commission could provide expertise to help the governments of host countries adapt their legislation. Furthermore, the Commission says that in order to facilitate the access of displaced people to basic services (water, health, accommodation), a pluriannual budget programming strategy would help ease the efforts of the host countries - which are already in an economically precarious situation.
“Long-lasting crises have become the new normal, yet they are often managed in old ways. Refugees and displaced people do not only need our emergency help but also long term perspectives and hope for the future”, European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides said in a press release.
There are 60 million people in the world who have been forced to find refuge in another country or who have been displaced inside their own country because of conflicts, violence and human rights violations. Refugees come mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan. Over the last six years the Syrian crisis has generated 4.7 million refugees (a million of whom have come to the EU) and 6.5 million displaced people within the country itself. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)