Category: ΕΓΡΑΨΑΝ ΓΙΑ ΕΜΑΣ
Kathimerini: Hope has found shelter
The journalist of Kathimerini newspaper visited the premises of the Elpida Home and interviewed Amed Khan. In this article, the everyday life of the residents is described and Mr. Khan states that his dream is to make more Elpida Home projects feasible.
Huffington Post: The first UN World Humanitarian Summit: Results, omissions, and future goals
The first UN World Humanitarian Summit: Results, omissions, and future goals
By Arianna Tsolakoglou, Advocacy Officer of SolidarityNow
Published on the Huffington Post on 30.05.3016
The recently concluded, first-ever UN-led World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul may be remembered as an impressive logistical achievement: around 9,000 stakeholders representing 173 countries, including heads of states, representatives of UN agencies, NGOs, civil society organizations, philanthropy, the private sector and academia came together to talk about how to improve aid delivery to people affected by various crises around the world.
Unlike the COP, for example, the WHS was not an inter-governmental process in which governments tried to agree on a specific text in advance. Instead, it sought a range of ideas from all actors involved in humanitarian aid. This automatically meant that is was bound to be somewhat unwieldy and unfocused. And to a great extent, it was. Yet, it also meant that many voices that do not traditionally have power were given a voice – and were heard. Either way, the very fact that the Summit took place in the chaotic and directionless way that it did, was in itself a tacit recognition of a narrative that has become increasingly popular: the humanitarian sector is an “eco-system” rather than a top-down, command-and-control system and for this reason, it requires a stronger shift to collaboration and cooperation, among all its actors. By bringing this wide range of actors to the table, the summit also helped put humanitarian issues higher on the agenda in the politics, business and society at large.
What was agreed on:
The most concrete outcome of the Summit was the top 30 donors and aid agencies signing a so-called “Grand Bargain” to make aid more efficient, including harmonizing time-consuming donor proposals and reporting, reducing costs, introducing collective needs assessments, and earmarking less funding to specific projects. Also a shift towards greater use of cash transfers as aid was generally endorsed but did not constitute a collective agreement.
The “localization” of aid was also an important agreement of the discussions, as the Grand Bargain affirmed it will direct 25 percent of humanitarian funding in a more direct and efficient manner to local and national agencies. The Summit also marked the launch of NEAR, a network aiming to “reshape the top-down humanitarian and development system to one that is locally driven and owned, and is built around equitable, dignified and accountable partnerships”. Twenty-seven international NGOs also signed the new Charter4Change, committing to passing 20 percent of their funding to national NGOs by 2018.
Among others, the Summit also agreed on and emphasized the need for more innovative approaches to financing. Several initiatives were announced, including a one in which private investors make an initial investment into a humanitarian response program and are reimbursed (with a profit) by traditional donors only if certain outputs are met, an autonomous, global Islamic endowment fund for humanitarian needs and a private-sector led initiative to increase risk financing in the most vulnerable countries.
Finally, it was agreed that the humanitarian sector needs to better respond to conflicts and shift the part of the focus off natural disasters, and that protracted conflict must be at the core of humanitarian work.
What was not agreed on (and should have)
Perhaps the biggest disappointment of a Summit whose primary aim was finding ways to prevent and end conflicts was the absence of world leaders, particularly the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Apart from this –inexcusable- absence, what was striking was that a better deal for the people on the move and their hosts, was not made. Before the Summit, the UN Secretary General had proposed a fairer approach to sharing the burden of the people on the move with host countries, and a target to reduce internal displacement by 50 percent by 2030. To our disappointment, Summit participants only managed to agree on the need to pursue a new approach to address the needs of these vulnerable populations, without concluding anything more concrete, however.
Another great loser were the new actors who are at the very epicenter of the global humanitarian crisis – namely, volunteers and ad hoc civil society organizations who have come to the forefront in the last year or so, due the influx of the people on the move in Europe. The question of how to work with such groups, often made up of those with no humanitarian background or training, seems to have passed the WHS by. States have passed a resolution to better protect volunteers, but others on how volunteers can share information with professional humanitarians, were bypassed, sadly indicating that humanitarian actors that have stuck around for a while, are the ones who get the focus of attention.
The unwieldy list of individual and collective commitments of the Summit will supposedly be gathered into what the UN calls a “Commitments to Action platform”. But exactly how that will happen is not yet clear. The UN plans to “review” the commitments with the summit’s participants over the summer before the Secretary General presents a report to the UN General Assembly in September with recommendations for member states. But this does not mean that it is not vital for roadmap for delivering on the commitments made by all actors that attended the Summit, to be created. In fact, many of the participating actors have admitted to not knowing exactly how they will implement some of the commitments they made. And what is more serious than this?
What is certain about the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit is that it did not end. It is an ongoing process, which does not only involve proposing more structural changes to the humanitarian system, but also taking concrete actions to tackle the root causes of crises at a political level, and the political decisions that allow conflicts to flourish.
The fact that a global meeting that was premised on a reaffirmed commitment to humanity took place at all is already a major achievement. And besides, it would have been unrealistic to expect the Summit to be a revolutionary game-changer. But, it was a landmark in the sense that it effectively gave formal recognition to protracted conflict as the “new normal”, thereby acknowledging the scale and complexity of needs in this “new normal”, and the diversity of response required to address them.
Looking forward, the real challenge that lies ahead is to maintain the momentum of the Summit, and how to turn all the promises and commitments undertaken into meaningful – and measurable – humanitarian actions on the ground.
VIMA: The wounds and dreams of the refugees in the accommodation structure in Rovies
Their anxieties, their hope for relocation, and their gratitude to the Greeks
Published on the newspaper “To Vima”, June 3rd 2016
On one of the hottest afternoons of June, in the yard of a family hotel in Rovies, children are seen running, playing on the swings, playing quietly, almost silently, under thee shade of trees. Walid, one of the few adults who got up this morning, uses tools to take care of the garden, repairs what is broken, and is constantly looking for something to work on. In the kitchen, only few women help the cook to prepare traditional dishes of their homeland. Nearing the end of Ramadan, life for the people hosted at the hotel starts just before the sun sets, while breakfast is served at 2.30 in the morning so that they can endure the endless hours of fasting.For the past month, the coastal village of North Evia hosts 82 refugees who are eligible for relocation, and are mainly from Syria, with 40 children being among them. This is all being done as part of the Hosting and Housing Program implemented by SolidarityNow in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and with EU funding.
The full article is in Greek and can be found here
Huffington Post: A day with them at the Museum is a special day
Solidarity Now familiarizes refugees with the Greek culture through visits to the Museum of Cycladic Art. In this article, the fourth visit to the Museum is described, which took place in the context of the “Home for Hope” project, with the common goal of connecting people through art and culture.
By huffingtonpost.gr
ETHNOS: It’s like I live with my sister
A tribute in Ethnos newspaper on Saturday 24th of October, to Narin’s family hosted in Hamad’s home in the center of Athens; this is one of the families referring to the UNHCR and Solidarity Now hosting program “Home for Hope”. In the context of the whole project, the concept entitled We Are Family is developed, as mentioned in the article, which presents to the public the living conditions among people based upon mutual understanding and acceptance. Extended reference on the hosting program.
See the article ΕΤΗΝΟS
Project Syndicate: Bringing Europe’s Migration Crisis Under Control
by George Soros
Published in Project Syndicate, on April 11th, 2016
The asylum policy that emerged from the European Union’s negotiations last month with Turkey became effective on April 4, when 202 asylum-seekers were deported from Greece. The policy has four fundamental flaws.
- It was negotiated with Turkey and imposed on the EU by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
- It is severely under-funded.
- It is not voluntary, for it establishes quotas that many member states oppose and requires refugees to take up residence in countries where they don’t want to live.
- It transforms Greece into a de facto holding pen with insufficient facilities for the number of asylum-seekers already there.
All of these deficiencies can be corrected. The European Commission implicitly acknowledged some of them on April 6 in a new set of proposals for reforming Europe’s asylum system. But the Commission’s proposals still rely on compulsory quotas. That will never work. Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans is inviting an open debate.
A comprehensive asylum policy for Europe, I believe, should establish a firm and reliable annual target of 300,000-500,000 refugees. This is large enough to give refugees the assurance that they can eventually reach their destination, yet small enough to be accommodated even in today’s unfavorable political climate.
There are established techniques for the voluntary matching of supply and demand in other fields, such as matching students to schools and medical interns to hospitals. In the case of refugees, those determined to go to a particular destination would have to wait longer than those who accept the destination allotted to them. Registered asylum-seekers could then be required to await their turn where they are currently located.
This would be much cheaper and less painful than the current chaos, of which the migrants are the main victims. Those who jump the line would lose their place – which should be sufficient inducement to obey the rules.
This plan would require at least €30 billion a year. This includes providing Turkey and other “frontline” countries enough financial support to allow the refugees living there to work and send their children to school; creating a common EU asylum agency and border force; addressing the humanitarian chaos in Greece; and establishing common standards across the EU for receiving and integrating refugees.
The EU undoubtedly has the capacity to raise at least €30 billion a year, which is less than 0.25% of its 28 members’ combined GDP of more than €16 trillion, and less than 0.5% of total spending by its national governments. What is lacking is the political will. The EU’s fiscal rules restrict most member states from running larger deficits and financing them by issuing new debt. That is why the question has not even been raised, let alone seriously considered.
Sooner or later, new taxes will have to be levied to cope with the refugee crisis. Scraping together insufficient funds year after year won’t do the job. By contrast,”surge funding” would enable the EU to respond more effectively to some of the most dangerous consequences, by helping to tip the economic, political, and social dynamics away from xenophobia and disaffection toward constructive outcomes that benefit refugees and countries alike. In the long run, this would reduce Europe’s total spending to contain and recover from the refugee crisis.
There is a strong case to be made for using the EU’s balance sheet to finance the surge. With global interest rates at or near historic lows, now is a particularly good time to utilize the EU’s triple-A credit. Doing so has the additional advantage of providing a much-needed economic stimulus. The amounts involved are of macroeconomic significance, especially as they would be spent almost immediately and exercise a multiplier effect. A growing economy would make it much easier to absorb immigrants, whether refugees or economic migrants.
The question is how to use the EU’s triple-A credit without arousing opposition, particularly in Germany? First, we must recognize that the EU is already a triple-A borrower. During the eurozone crisis, the EU established financial instruments such as the European Financial Stabilization Mechanism (EFSM) and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), capable of quickly tapping tens of billions of euros on attractive terms.
These entities, which retain considerable borrowing capacity, should be redirected to secure the surge funding required to address the migration crisis. Using an existing mechanism, albeit for a new purpose, would be much more efficient than creating a new one. It would require only a political decision – one that could be taken on short notice.
Two sources of money – the EFSM (for eurozone members) and the Balance of Payments Assistance Facility (for non-eurozone EU members) – should be put to the task. Both are backed entirely by the EU budget – and therefore do not require national guarantees or national parliamentary approval. Their combined gross borrowing capacity is €110 billion, a number corresponding to the EU budget’s annual revenue.
The Balance of Payments Assistance Facility’s €50 billion of borrowing power is almost completely unused. The EFSM has extended some €46.8 billion in loans to Portugal and Ireland but has substantial spare capacity. They jointly have well over €60 billion of capacity, and this capacity grows each year as the loans to Portugal and Ireland are repaid.
As with the euro crisis, the refugee crisis requires a quick response. But it differs from the euro crisis in that the beneficiary countries – Jordan, Turkey, and Greece – are on the front lines of what is a collective European undertaking. They are entitled to grants, and should not be obliged to repay the monies they receive. Instead, the EU and its member states must find new sources of tax revenue to repay the surge funding.
The new tax revenue could come from a variety of sources, including the EU-wide value-added tax, which already provides revenue; a special tax on petrol, as German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has suggested; or a new tax on inbound EU travel and on visa applications, which would shift some of the burden onto non-EU citizens.
While it will take a long time to complete the process of levying new taxes, bondholders will want to be assured that their bonds will be serviced and repaid. That’s why the EU must guarantee that it will generate the new tax revenue by the time it is needed, even if the exact source has yet to be determined.
THE GUARDIAN: The terrorists and demagogues want us to be scared. We mustn’t give in
by George Soros
(the article was published in The Guardian, 28.12.2015)
Open societies are always endangered. This is especially true of America and Europe today, as a result of the terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere, and the way that America and Europe, particularly France, have reacted to them.
Jihadi terrorist groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaida have discovered the achilles heel of our western societies: the fear of death. Through horrific attacks and macabre videos, the publicists of Isis magnify this fear, leading otherwise sensible people in hitherto open societies to abandon their reason.
Scientists have discovered that emotion is an essential component of human reasoning. That discovery explains why jihadi terrorism poses such a potent threat to our societies: the fear of death leads us and our leaders to think – and then behave – irrationally.
Science merely confirms what experience has long shown: when we are afraid for our lives, emotions take hold of our thoughts and actions, and we find it difficult to make rational judgments. Fear activates an older, more primitive part of the brain than that which formulates and sustains the abstract values and principles of open society.
The open society is thus always at risk from the threat posed by our response to fear. A generation that has inherited an open society from its parents will not understand what is required to maintain it until it has been tested and learns to keep fear from corrupting reason. Jihadi terrorism is only the latest example. The fear of nuclear war tested the last generation, and the fear of communism and fascism tested my generation.
The jihadi terrorists’ ultimate goal is to convince Muslim youth worldwide that there is no alternative to terrorism. And terrorist attacks are the way to achieve that goal, because the fear of death will awaken and magnify the latent anti-Muslim sentiments in Europe and America, inducing the non-Muslim population to treat all Muslims as potential attackers.
And that is exactly what is happening. The hysterical anti-Muslim reaction to terrorism is generating fear and resentment among Muslims living in Europe and America. The older generation reacts with fear, the younger one with resentment; the result is a breeding ground for potential terrorists. This is a mutually reinforcing, reflexive process.
How can it be stopped and reversed? Abandoning the values and principles underlying open societies and giving in to an anti-Muslim impulse dictated by fear certainly is not the answer, though it may be difficult to resist the temptation. I experienced this personally when I watched the last Republican presidential debate; I could stop myself only by remembering that it must be irrational to follow the wishes of your enemies.
To remove the danger posed by jihadi terrorism, abstract arguments are not enough; we need a strategy for defeating it. The challenge is underscored by the fact that the jihadi phenomenon has been with us for more than a generation. Indeed, gaining a proper understanding of it may be impossible. But the attempt must be made.
Consider the Syrian conflict, which is the root cause of the migration problem that is posing an existential threat to the European Union as we know it. If it was resolved, the world would be in better shape. It is important to recognise that Isis is operating from a position of weakness. While it is spreading fear in the world, its hold on its home ground is weakening. The United Nations security council has unanimously adopted a resolution against it, and the leaders of Isis are aware that their days in Iraq and Syria are numbered.
Of course, the outlook for Syria remains highly uncertain, and the conflict there cannot be understood or tackled in isolation. But one idea shines through crystal clear: it is an egregious mistake to do what the terrorists want us to do. That is why, as 2016 gets underway, we must reaffirm our commitment to the principles of open society and resist the siren song of the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, however hard that may be.
KATHIMERINI: The EU’s position is “dreadful”
Kathimerini
Article published in Kathimerini
In an interview with the Greek newspaper Kathimerini, the Eugene Mayer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale, Seyla Benhabib, characterized the way the# EU has handled the refugee crisis as dreadful. Professor Benhabib will be in Athens to attend an event on migration organized by the Harvard Business School Club of Greece and SolidarityNow.
Benhabib criticizes the “narrow-minded selfishness” of countries such as Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Austria and called the camp in Calais a “human disgrace”.
As mentioned, the “Viktor Orban strategy has been clear for some years: to approach as much as it can in a one-party presidential regime while continuing to receive community funds. What I do not understand is why democrats like David Cameron and Francois Hollande do not respect the human rights of asylum seekers in their countries.”
The Turkish-American scholar argues that with the policy of open borders towards Syrian refugees, Germany has already “resigned” from the “absurdities” of the Dublin Regulation. With this in mind, she asks: “Why continue to overload Greece? Why transport refugees by plane to German soil to process their applications for asylum there, instead of leaving them subject to the tear gas and dogs of the FYROM police? “.
Regarding the attitude of her birthplace, Benhabib observes: “Turkey is the largest refugee host country in the world, with 3.2 million refugees – not only Syrians, but also almost one million Iranians, Iraqis and Afghans. The Turkish policy is among the most generous internationally.”
Benhabib, however, is anything but positive regarding Erdogan. Already in 2013, she wrote (in the New York Times) that freedom of the pres , political and artistic expression was dramatically limited. “Unfortunately, the situation today is much, much wors ,” she says in the “K” of the newspaper Kathimerini. Although the AKP “has achieved much in the 12 years of it being in power,” Turkey today “is moving rapidly to adopt an authoritarian presidential system.” The Yale scholar considers the tipping point the failed “coup” against Erdogan by the Gulen movement and the rise of Kurdish HDP. In order to explain the authoritarianism of the Turkish president, she cites Machiavelli: “The wounded and vulnerable Prince is more violent than the one who is strong and confident.”
And the United States is in turmoil during this election period. Benhabib attributes the rise of Donald Trump to proletarianization of the American middle class, likening the Republican candidate directly with Mussolini and Franco.
“As all right-wing demagogues in history, Trump promotes anger and resentment towards the weak and admiration for the rich and powerful,” she observes, stressing however that “the election period that ‘bred’ Trump also produced the first open Social Democrat candidate in the US – the Bernie Sanders. Many white working class people are not fascinated by Trump and are voting for Bernie.”
HUFFINGTON POST: From a migration crisis in the 1990s to a refugee crisis in the 2010s: Closing your eyes (and borders) does not solve anything
by Anna Triandafyllidou, member of the BoD of SolidarityNow and professor at the European University Institute
The refugee crisis has gone into a new phase in the last days after the unilateral decision of Austria to call a coordination meeting with Balkan countries and effectively block its borders creating a cascade effect down to the FYROM Greek border. As Austria has severely limited the entry of people seeking international protection to a few tens per day, it has not only violated the terms of the Geneva Convention but also undermined all efforts of Germany, Italy, Greece and the European Commission to find a common European solution to the crisis.
What is most problematic in the move of Austria is less its not holding the EU line. What is truly puzzling and worrying is the overall policy of the Central Eastern European countries seeming to believe that if they keep their eyes tightly closed, the ‘problem’, that is the refugees, will disappear. This denial of reality reminds one so strongly of the attitude and policy of southern European governments in the early 1990s when the citizens of these same countries that now close their borders (the Central European countries) were migrating en masse to both western and southern Europe, mostly without documents. Italy, Greece and Spain at the time also seemed to think that if they denied reality (notably that this was part of a much wider geopolitical transformation that was unstoppable and that migrants were there to stay because their problems at home would not be fixed overnight), tightened border controls and facilitated expulsions, the ‘problem’ would disappear.
What was the result? 7-10% of the resident population in southern Europe are migrants but their integration process has been tumultuous and difficult. And this has been a loss for all involved: the migrants who have fought with state bureaucracies and worked without documents for many years, the welfare and tax systems who lost revenue, the 1.5 and 2nd generation that are still striving to become citizens – perhaps it was only migrant smugglers and unscrupulous employers who profited! Is this what we want to happen today? Why repeat a similar mistake of short-sightedness?
The refugee crisis will not last for years on end but it is predictable that 2016 will be a ‘hot’ year for arrivals as the situation in Syria is difficult and bombing has escalated. The EU and particularly Central and Eastern Europe is facing a dire demographic situation and an unsustainable welfare state future if its working population continues to decline. Austria is a country with low unemployment and Poland has continued growing during the Eurozone crisis years. The current policy appears to be knee-jerk reaction by some conviction that these countries are ethnically homogenous (sic) and should remain that way. Indeed again it reminds so much the political debates of southern Europe in the early 1990s…
A response to the current refugee crisis requires however a comprehensive strategy and a careful analysis of the data: Currently of the people arriving in Greece, only 45% are Syrians, nearly 30% are Afghans and 18% Iraqis. In addition 35% of arrivals are children, 45% men and the rest are women. A response to this situation requires:
A system of relocation quotas across Europe to distribute people is necessary.
A transfer of knowhow from northern and western countries that have worked with migrants and refugees for decades should also be activated – a European Peace Corps of NGO workers that would bring this know-how to the EU countries with lesser experience could be an idea here.
Relocation and integration would give work to many young persons in the receiving countries and also make sure the human capital of refugees and of their children would not be lost.
In addition a foreign policy is necessary which includes an EU Turkey deal but also a more far reaching strategy. There is a need to involve other countries in the region, particularly Lebanon and Syria. There is a need for research and analysis of data to understand whether what we witness is secondary moves or asylum seekers from neighbouring countries or arrivals directly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Last but not least, the USA, Canada and Australia should be involved through the UN in a wider resettlement process. These are the solutions to the crisis not closing our borders and closing our eyes.
The article was published on the HuffingtonPost Blog, Greece.