Originally published on the CGS blog on September 30, 2011.
Last week I attended the Social Good Summit in New York City, hosted by the United Nations Foundation, Mashable and Ericsson. In every panel and key note the underlying theme of the interdependence between individuals and UN Agencies made itself known. In some cases individual countries were instrumental to the success of a program and in some cases technology was, but in every case without the institutional support, expertise and legitimacy of the UN and without the innovation, willingness to risk and passion of the individuals, success was impossible. Nowhere was this partnership highlighted more than on the panel discussing the 46 million displaced people in the world. The moderator put it best when he stated: “Technology must come with a generous helping of hope, because technology alone is not the answer.”
The co-founder of Refugees United, Christopher Mikkelsen, the UN High Commission on Refugees, António Guterres, and the CEO of Ericsson, Hans Vestberg, took the stage together to detail the ways that mobile technology, personal intervention and institutional access can work together to bring hope to the millions of individuals and families living in refugee camps around the world. In particular one story impacted not just me, but the panelists as well – Mr. Mikkelsen recounted the details of a Somali woman living for 19 years in Dadaab in Kenya, now the largest refugee camp in the world with over 450,000 people. This woman explained that she had been separated from her children 18 year earlier when her youngest was one year old. Using the Refugees United worldwide platform, the mobile coverage provided by Ericsson along with the institutional support of the UN High Commission on Refugees, Mr. Mikkelson was able to connect this Somali woman with the child she had not seen in almost two decades – within 30 minutes they had emailed pictures, spoken on the phone and fulfilled a dream 18 years in the making. Let’s just say I was not the only one in the room who suddenly found myself with something in my eye (looking at you CEO of Ericsson).
The UN High Commission on Refugees is a United Nations Agency that’s been around for more than 60 years. With a staff of around 6,650 people in more than 110 countries the UNHCR provides lifesaving support for over 35 million people every year. Watching the events unfold in Libya, Syria, Egypt and Tunisia, among others, reminds us how important the allegiance, protection, and relationship is between citizens and their state. Refugees and displaced persons lose the minimal safety net even the most oppressive or dysfunctional governments provide – they become the most vulnerable persons of our world, this is when the United Nations steps in to provide help. Of course as I described above they don’t do it alone, but without their breadth and depth it would be nearly impossible for individuals or corporations to have the space within which to help.
The core mandate of the United Nations HCR is the protection of these most vulnerable people in the world. The Agency accomplishes this by both ensuring the basic human rights of stateless people and by working to find long lasting solutions to their statelessness. Unfortunately this continues to be an uphill battle as the famine in the Horn of Africa so perfectly illustrates. As people flee Somalia in pursuit of food and water the refugee camps of nearby Ethiopia and Kenya are becoming overwhelmed. The UN High Commission on Refugees, working in accordance with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and other individual governments, is already at work attempting to mitigate the crisis, but they are fighting an uphill battle. This is where individual entrepreneurs, technology, corporations and country governments come into play to shore up the efforts of the UNHCR. Together these sectors remain focused on the ultimate goal for displaced people: normalcy.
The High Commissioner of Refugees, António Guterres , put it best when he said: “Keep your hope because it is hope that has allowed [displaced people] to survive in these difficult circumstances.”
