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Strategy 16: Refugee Relief

Wars, economic and environmental disasters cause people to flee their homes. There are an estimated 24 million refugees living in countries other than those of their birth in the world today. An additional 29 million people are "internally displaced" -- seeking refuge within their own country. Roughly 80% of all refugees are women and children. Refugees face the common hardships of unemployment, inability to speak the dominant language or understand the culture of their hosts, residing in their new homes as illegal or undefined aliens with no political power, and prejudice and resentment from local citizens who may be experiencing difficulties meeting their own needs. This situation makes these populations easy targets for exploitation.

A Global Conference on Refugees that resulted in the signing of an international agreement guaranteeing the basic human rights and basic needs of all refugees in the world would be the first step of a program that would bring lasting relief and eventual elimination of the global refugee problem. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees would be charged with the responsibility and given the authority and funding for implementing an international Refugee Relief Agency that would guarantee the safety and coordinate the delivery of food, shelter, health care and other refugee needs. Education programs will be started that will teach the language(s) of the new region refugees are located in and train them for possible job opportunities. Along with providing security for refugees, a Refugee Security Force will gradually expand its territory of influence until it includes the areas the refugees came from and then progressively allow the refugees to return to their homelands.

In an effort to halt or prevent violence or discrimination against, and/or exploitation of refugee populations, the Refugee Relief Agency would implement a teaching campaign aimed at the native population to raise the awareness level of the problems refugees are facing and fleeing from. Educating how lifting the quality of life for the refugee population will positively affect the public at large, whether the refugees end up settling in their new homes or not will be one of the educational goals.

Costs/Benefits

Benefits from the Refugee Relief Program would include stable homes and lives for millions of people, refugees transformed from marginalized populations to integral parts of a country, preferably back in the ancestral homes in which they would prefer to reside. Secondary benefits for host nations include the elimination of a drain on the country's economy, a possible reduction in smuggling and other organized crime operations which often rely upon refugees, and a better job and wage market without the downward effects of an exploited labor source.

The costs of the Refugee Relief Program would be $5 billion per year for ten years. This is about 2% of what US teenagers spend each year, or 20% of the amount of arms sales to the developing countries of the world (37% of just US arms sales to non-democratic states), or 0.06% of the world's annual military expenditures.

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