Addressing forced displacement
There is ultimately no door that can be closed on the displaced—not in good conscience, and not without multiplying the social strife that produced it.
Today, there are over 84 million forcibly displaced people around the globe. That is more than during the Second World War. The figure bears grim testament to the volume of suffering and instability in the world at present.
Tragically, it is only likely to rise. Most of the conflicts and crises that are driving displacement remain stubbornly entrenched; many are deteriorating further. All the while, climate-induced displacement is expanding the ranks of those fleeing hardship. Over 20 million people and rising are displaced by weather events each year. By some estimates, there could be 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050.
If managing the current volume of displacement has proven a challenge, the task of justly resettling many times that number will pale in comparison. It will require a radical and cooperative shift in how states recognise, process, and resettle refugees. And it will depend on a generosity and humanity of spirit that we, as an international community, are largely yet to demonstrate.
As difficult as the task may be, it is critical that we join together in trying. There is ultimately no door that can be closed on the displaced—not in good conscience, and not without multiplying the social strife that produced it. We ignore it at our peril as much as our own shame.
Australia will therefore:
Scale up support for front-line humanitarian services. The UNHCR plays a critical role in providing emergency relief and shelter to asylum seekers. However, chronic underfunding has stressed the safety and sanitation of camps, as well as the agency's ability to provide adequate nutrition to refugees. To help redress this, Australia will rally partners to increase our contributions to the UNHCR on a mutual basis. We will seek to ensure the agency is fully resourced to meet current and future demand for emergency relief, shelter, and resettlement support.
Advocate recognition for climate refugees in international law. Australia will push strongly for the United Nations to adopt an additional Protocol to the Refugee Convention, which would recognise climate-induced displacement as a basis of refugee status. This would be an important step in establishing legal obligations on the part of governments with respect to climate refugees.
Champion a significant international step up in humanitarian intakes. As part of this, Australia will increase our refugee intake to 50,000 per year, with visas granted on a permanent-residency basis. We will also push other major countries to proportionally match our step up. It is crucial that the international community increases intakes from the UNHCR resettlement process specifically, to help ease the pressures on the corridor countries that host, often informally, the mainstay of the globally displaced.
Coordinate fragility prevention measures across Australia's wider foreign policy. Addressing displacement when it occurs is vital. But our approach in general should be preventative, aiming to ease its underlying drivers. That is why the strategy elsewhere targets key sources of fragility, such as natural disasters and economic precarity, through development and other levers. To ensure these initiatives are synergised in ways that better prevent displacement, we will enhance coordination between DFAT, AFP, Defence, ONI and DPMC on their respective fragility-relevant policies. We will also aim, in turn, to better integrate our joint prevention efforts with the US' integrated Global Fragility Strategy.