Interview
PRACTICE
Finding a safe haven Dealing with the world’s crisis in displaced people involves strong risk management, says Hanne Raatikainen, chief risk officer at the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR BY ARTHUR PIPER
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here are 70.8 million people on the planet who have been forcibly displaced, more than at any time since the Second World War. That includes around 41.3 million who have left their homes but not their countries, just under 26 million refugees and 3.5 million asylum seekers, according to the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR. Over half of all refugees (57 per cent) have fled just three countries – Afghanistan, South Sudan and Syria – and 85 per cent of refugees globally who make it out of danger are hosted in low- or middleincome regions in the developing world. Turkey, Pakistan, Uganda, Sudan and Germany are the top destinations. Since 2017, when UNHCR set out its five-year strategic vision to help tackle this growing phenomenon, the global environment for displaced people has worsened both in scale and complexity, says Hanne Raatikainen, chief risk officer at the agency. It can be difficult for the refugeehosting countries to cope with the sheer volume of people seeking shelter – Turkey, for example, is currently home to an estimated 3.7 million people fleeing war in Syria and elsewhere. In Africa’s Sahel region, the situation is rapidly worsening. In Burkina Faso, for example, attacks by militants have been forcing a daily average of more than 4,000 people to flee their homes and search for safety since January this year. So far, some 765,000 people have already been displaced in the country. “The whole environment is just so challenging,” she
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UNHCR’s high commissioner, Filippo Grandi, has been calling for renewed efforts to reinvigorate multilateralism
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