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  • 30 Jan 2017 by Patricia Emmert

    by Tino Calabia • December 9, 2016 

    Posted originally on PassBlue

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — One year ago, almost 1 percent of the world’s population, about 65 million people, had been forcibly displaced from their homes.  That is a population size that would constitute a nation larger than Britain or would be the world’s 21st-largest country.  But instead of creating their own country, the majority of the 65 million people fled to about 15 countries: Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey (Syria’s neighbors); Iran and Pakistan (Afghanistan’s neighbors); and Ethiopia and Kenya (Somalia and South Sudan’s neighbors).

    Such forced displacement adversely affects development in the communities that host displaced people and sows resentment among residents toward the outsiders who have flocked to their country, said Xavier Devictor, an adviser for the fragility, conflict and violence group at the World Bank. He introduced his group’s new report, “Forcibly Displaced:  Toward a Development Approach Supporting Refugees, the Internally Displaced and Their Hosts,” to the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service here in late November.

    In response to the overwhelming influx of displaced people, the World Bank has initiated a study with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to identify areas where a development approach can help reduce the costs of the crisis and lessen local resentment and hostility.

    Over the next five years, low-cost financing from the World Bank will provide grants to Jordan and Lebanon for development, such as job training and education. The aim is to help reduce poverty among both the people who have been displaced and the people living in the communities hosting the displaced. This way, the development approach can address the medium- and long-term socioeconomic dimensions of forced displacement, while complementing the work of such entities as the UN refugee agency and other humanitarian organizations.

    In contrast to so-called “economic migrants” who cross borders seeking jobs and other opportunities, people who are forcibly displaced are fleeing violence and possible persecution only to end up facing an uncertain future long after they survive their sometimes hazardous flight.

    On arriving in a host country, they require emergency or immediate services, supplied by the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and similar agencies.  Soon the kinds of development support provided to Jordan and Lebanon by the World Bank should enable forcibly displaced persons to work, have their children attend school and rebuild their lives, according to the report.

    Bereft of such support, people who are displaced could encounter more hardships and further adversely affect their new community. The length of exile of people who  have fled their homes has ranged from several weeks for Kosovar refugees in 1999 to almost 70 years for Palestinian refugees.  But the average duration has been just over 10 years, and the median duration, four years.

    Devictor of the World Bank also pointed out that what seems a simple term, “refugees,” often causes confusion.  For example, at the end of 2013, the UN’s count of “refugees” in Norway was 46,033; Eurostat’s, 18,734; and Statistics Norway’s, 132,203.  The UN refugee agency’s number was based on the total number of asylum-seekers who got a positive decision on their claims in the previous 10 years.

    Such discrepancy among the three different tallies has led data collectors to begin to standardize terms such as “refugees,” “migrants,” “forcibly displaced persons” and “internally displaced persons.”

    For now, the approximately 24 million people who have crossed an international border are generally understood to be refugees and asylum seekers. About 41 million people who have moved but not crossed an international border, despite conflict and violence in their country, are viewed as internally displaced persons.  The two groups combined make up the 65 million persons in 2015 referred to as those living in “forced displacement.”

    The plight of refugees and asylum seekers was once widely considered a humanitarian problem that required quick responses by humanitarian agencies. B ut at the UN Summit on Refugees and Migrants in September, the plight of these people became better understood and deemed a global problem, calling for using the World Bank’s development approach, among many other strategies.

     

    About Tino Calabia

    Tino Calabia began his humanitarian work as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s and then ran a Bronx antipoverty agency and wrote numerous federal studies ranging from the rights of female offenders to racial discrimination on college campuses. He has served on national Asian American boards and organized seminars in former Eastern-bloc countries for exchange students he mentored while they lived in the United States.Calabia has an undergraduate degree from Georgetown, attended the University of Munich on a foreign-exchange fellowship and has a master's degree in English and American literature from Columbia University. He lives in the Washington area with his wife, Dawn Calabia, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

  • 30 Jan 2017 by Patricia Emmert

    In 1958, then-Senator John F. Kennedy wrote A Nation of Immigrants. The text outlines the history and importance of immigration to the United States, as well as proposals to liberalize immigration law.

    As one of his first presidential acts, President Kennedy established Executive Order 10924 to promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps. Since 1961, 225,000 Volunteers have been welcomed in 161 countries — including Muslim majority ones, as well as many below our southern border. As foreigners, we were accepted without prejudice into homes, schools, offices, and houses of worship by our hosts.

    At the time, each of us made an oath: I promise to serve alongside the people of my Country of Service. I promise to share my culture with an open heart and open mind. I promise to foster an understanding of the people of my Country of Service, with creativity, cultural sensitivity, and respect. I will face the challenges of service with patience, humility, and determination. I will embrace the mission of world peace and friendship for as long as I serve and beyond. In the proud tradition of Peace Corps’ legacy, and in the spirit of the Peace Corps family past, present, and future - I am a Peace Corps Volunteer.

    Because of this, those of us who have served in the Peace Corps have a special responsibility. We are tasked with sharing, in a spirit of humility and respect, what it means to be an American. We must speak up on behalf of the refugees who have now been prevented from entering our country and receiving our welcome in return. 

    Now is the time to rededicate ourselves to the mission and goals of the Peace Corps, to commit ourselves to constructive dialogue – to representing the open hand of America, rather than the closed fist.

    To do this, multiple channels exist:  

    • Call 202-224-3121 to connect with your member of Congress. Ask to speak with the foreign policy or homeland security staff representative. Pledge your support for refugees and disapproval of the executive order titled, “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.” Learn more about your representative's statements on the executive order.
    • Send an email to urge Congress to reject intolerance.
    • Connect with the NPCA affiliate group, Peace Corps Community in Support of Refugees, to learn how to take local and national action.
    • Contact local resettlement affiliates to inquire how to lend support.
    • Engage in community-level activities with your local affiliate group. Ask RPCVs to sign up with NPCA to receive updates and information on key issues.
    • Join our nationwide National Days of Action, March 3 - 15, to meet with Congress at the district level and urge their support of Peace Corps values.
    • Donate to NPCA’s advocacy efforts to bolster our presence on Capitol Hill and provide more grassroots opportunities for you to advocate.

    Our national security depends not on building walls, but bridges. Peace is a product of friendship and understanding, and the Peace Corps community demonstrates our lifelong commitment to those ideals by following through when it’s needed most.

    In service,

     Glenn Blumhorst
    President & CEO
    RPCV Guatemala 1988-91