WQ Dispatch January 2022

The Winter 2022 issue is well underway. Our focus: The New North. Our goal: Advance the conversation around Arctic issues during a time of increased attention and consequence around climate change, military security, economic development, governance, and Indigenous rights. A deep bench of distinguished writers and thinkers are hard at work to provide the very latest perspectives. The New North will publish in February. 

Since the publication of our Fall issue, Humanity in Motion, the challenge of human displacement has persisted in many parts of the world. From the Poland-Belarus border to the shores of the Aegean Sea to Mexico’s capital city, forced displacement – driven mostly by violence, climate disasters, and a lack of opportunity born from poverty and corruption – is creating enduring headlines. One thing is clear: global displacement is rising, even amidst the second year of COVID-19 lockdowns. 

These stories and more have provided new urgency to our notable collection of essays, reported stories, and first-person narratives featured in Humanity in Motion. 

We heard from Colombia’s President Iván Duque Márquez and King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein of Jordan, who both made strong arguments for welcoming refugees and integrating them into their host country’s societal structures, not only because it is the right thing to do but also because it is the smart thing to do. 

“More than five million Venezuelans have fled their country due to political discontent and poverty. Colombia has welcomed more than 1.7 million, and I am deeply committed to helping them through this upheaval in their lives,” wrote Duque. “I was inspired by the call of Pope Francis, who in the encyclical Fratelli Tutti, called on world leaders to embrace our fraternal responsibility to migrants and refugees and to attend to this neglected population with a sense of humanity and genuine care.”

“Syrians study at our schools, receive treatment at our hospitals, and are vaccinated against COVID-19 at our vaccination centres. We believe in the importance of providing vaccines, health care, and education to the refugees we host, because their wellbeing and advancement will ultimately reflect on our own wellbeing and advancement,” wrote King Hussein. To demonstrate this point, he shared the story of Waleed, an Iraqi refugee, who is one of several refugees who are using their medical training to assist Jordanians during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has strained healthcare providers and systems.  

Similarly, we heard from Dr. Ihlas Altinci, MD, who shared her harrowing story of fleeing Syria with Sarah Barnes of Wilson Center’s Maternal Health Initiative. Dr. Ihlas has found renewed purpose with the global NGO CARE, managing reproductive and maternal health services to refugees in Turkey and Syria. 

Hallam Ferguson’s searing portrait of his own friends and colleagues who became Afghan refugees overnight when the U.S. brought home the last of its troops, provides a poignant backdrop to the stories we have seen since of Afghan families settling into new communities. Such as this one in Owensboro, Kentucky, where a housing shortage is creating sustained uncertainty for refugees desperate to start a new life. In Virginia, refugees await in military barracks and other temporary housing until their visas and permanent housing can be arranged. Yet, despite the challenges brought by the unexpected transition for many, it remains a preferred situation to those left behind in Afghanistan, as Ferguson talked about with John Milewski in this issue of Wilson Center NOW, among other timely topics facing the displaced and the communities they are turning to for refuge.

When we first began planning our coverage of human displacement, more than anything, we wanted to show the urgent and complex needs beyond the headlines, which can often paint stark contrasts between warring factions. Nowhere is that more true than along the U.S.-Mexico border. So, we turned to lawmakers from both countries to identify solutions. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and Sen. Claudia Ruiz-Massieu of Mexico co-authored this essay, which focuses on solutions. “We must find a way to balance the needs of those already in our country, while also offering refuge and support to those fleeing persecution and seeking better opportunities,” they wrote, then shared constructive ideas around regional law enforcement, temporary worker programs, and addressing the root causes of migration, to do just that. 

Many of our contributors called on politicians to embrace a combination of time-sensitive humanitarian response and long-term development approaches when it comes to human displacement and migration. That need was glaringly evident in Kary Stewart’s story of four generations of one family, living as refugees in the Saharan desert. Nobody would predict that when fleeing war in 1975, Nanaha Bachri’s family and others would remain in a makeshift camp decades later, piecing together a life built on memories of hardship and loss, yet hope gently tugging at the future. Stewart and I discussed this and more in another edition of  Wilson Center NOW. 

Generations of hardship is something that David Beasley of the World Food Programme has seen too many times. “When you go into some of these refugee camps that have been there for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, it is a disgrace to humanity that we have just totally forgotten about these people and are not doing everything we possibly can to reintegrate then back into the communities, because you’ve got children two, three generations, who know nothing but a refugee camp,” he told us. He also spoke about the innovative programs that are transforming food handouts of the past to a sustainable model based on human dignity, programs that were recognized with a Nobel Peace Prize.

One story that came out since our issue was published struck a particular chord is that of Amal, a larger-than-life puppet representing the journey of a young Syrian refugee searching for her parents. With a world divided over how to address refugees and migrants, the cross-country theater production of The Walk, which traveled across Europe, provoking conversations along the way, got at the very essence of human displacement: it is about individual people, human dignity, and increasingly, it is about future generations. 

We heard about those future generations from Henrietta Fore of UNICEF; young people who yearn for education and opportunities to contribute to society: “It doesn't matter if you are a displaced young person, or if you are one who's been living in your community. And it could be rural, or it can be developed, or developing. We think that if you're displaced, it means that you're a beneficiary of services, when what the young people are saying is, they want to be part of the solution. They want to be working on whatever it is.” 

Working together, across political ideologies, across generations, is what will ultimately bring us to the solutions that will help the displaced without risking stability and progress of host communities, solutions that will instead strengthen the collective. This need will only grow more urgent as greater numbers of communities are disrupted by poverty, conflict, and by our changing climate, so eloquently articulated by Elizabeth Ferris, in her compelling overview of displacement born from extreme weather events past and predicted for the future.

“The World Bank’s updated and just-released flagship report, Groundswell, predicts up to 216 million internal climate migrants by the year 2050 if the pace of climate change continues on its present course. To put this into context, present estimates of internally displaced persons due to violence, conflict, and disasters stand at 55 million with growing numbers experiencing protracted displacement,” writes Ferris. She also notes, “Climate change doesn’t affect everyone equally. The poor and marginalized not only have fewer resources to adapt to climate change but often live on the most inferior land, making them even more at risk from environmental hazards.”

And therein lies the crux of the issue: human displacement, no matter the cause, has an outsized impact on the poor, communities with fewer resources, and groups with less influence. Until human displacement becomes an issue of political urgency, we will not deploy existing solutions to scale or invest in new innovations. 

The Wilson Quarterly will continue to follow this issue, which remains a priority for Wilson Center’s leaders and scholars, who are committed to tackling this most pressing global issue through independent research and open dialogue to inform actionable ideas for the policy community.

Cover art: A man walks with his children as migrants settle at the checkpoint logistics center "Bruzgi" at the Belarus-Poland border near Grodno, Belarus, Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)