Sir Paul Collier, Economist HARDtalk

Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk I am Sarah Montague. The refugee crisis is one

of the world's most enormous problems. 60 million people have

fled their homes and countries. My guest today says the problem is

fixable, and we can do it easily. He is the Economist, Professor Sir Paul

Collier. The solution, he argues,

is to give refugees jobs. In doing so he suggests

everyone will benefit. But if the answer is so simple,

why has it not been done before? Professor Sir Paul Collier, welcome

to HARDtalk. Thank you for having me. You have said, of the Syrian

refugee crisis, that it is entirely manageable, we can do it easily. Yet

we are talking about millions of desperate people on the move. Why do

you say it is so fixable? Because it is. The reason we have a mess is

because of two reasons. One is that we have in international system

which is hopelessly broken. We have a system built in 1950 that is

completely unfit for the 21st century problems. We never changed

it. We've got a broken system which was then confronted by a potentially

perfectly manageable crisis, the Syrian refugee crisis. What the

responses were were then a bunch of political headless chickens. They

went through three phases, one was heartlessness, where they ignored

the problem. Refugees fled to Jordan, Turkey and 11 on, and those

three countries were left to bear the burden. That was the phase of

heartlessness -- Lebanon on. Then, briefly, for about five months, we

went to the phase of headless mess. And a small proportion of those

refugees moved to Europe, We're not, we're talking less

than a million Syrian There are 10 million

displaced refugees. Most refugees, a large majority

stayed put in the regional havens. Of course, there were other

migrants, though, who joined Of course, of course,

migrants and refugees are very But I interrupted you -

that was the headless phase. And then, very rapidly,

that door got slammed, and now we're back in the heartless

phase - ship them back And you have said that

if there had been - your words - "A timely application of the heart

and the head," we could have And you went on to say,

"There needs have been no deaths through drowning,

no exodus of the skilled to Germany, Let's start with

the drownings, right? The drownings were

entirely avoidable. If Europe had wanted to open

its doors to Syrian refugees, if, then the sensible thing to do

was to provide a safe means of transport from

the haven countries, right? The message "Swim to Europe" was not

an intelligent message. It made it inevitable that

what we would get would be the South American people smugglers

coming in, the big criminal businesses, who then sold

places on little boats. Not only did people drown,

but because those places were so expensive, the average

Syrian - a year's income was not OK, but to take on your point about,

if we had applied the head and the heart, how are you saying

that we should have done that? Go back to 2011, when the Syrian

refugee crisis started. As I said, the refugees

are not migrants. They're actually people who have

chosen to stay in their country. They flee out of fear -

fear of disorder, in some other We've got to write this book,

Refuge, because Alex and I, my co-author, were brought

into Jordan by the government... Yeah, yeah, we were brought

into Jordan because the Jordanian government said, "Help,

we've got a million refugees, it's a small country, pretty poor,

what on earth do we do?" We were then taken to

the main refugee camp. Alex, my co-author, director

of the Refugee Studies Centre, I'm an economist who works

on poor countries. I'm not really familiar

with refugees. What I saw in Zaatari

really deeply shocked me. These were people who

were being warehoused, They've got free food

and free shelter, that's the model of the camp,

so that's the model we've run for over 60 years -

feed them for free, clothe them And that's it -

schooling, no, work, no. There was a light-bulb

moment for you. We went to this camp,

as I say, Alex was familiar, I wasn't, I was shocked,

I was deeply moved. I was talking to refugees

in their homes, I'm talking to a 16-year-old kid,

"Are you at school?" It's a Portakabin,

you know, a container. Brothers and sisters, "Oh, yeah,

I've got an 18-year-old brother." 18-year-old brother back in Syria,

what's he doing in Syria? And then our somewhat bored

Jordanian government hosts said, "You know, actually,

once we are here, we've got time to show you something

that is really cool, we are pretty proud of,

and nothing to do with refugees." "It's the King Hussein industrial

zone that we've just equipped, ?100 million spent on it,

15 minutes away." Great big industrial zone

connected to the grid Because Jordanians didn't

want to go there to work. So for four years, a big empty

industrial zone which could have employed everybody in that camp

was sitting empty, and nearly 100,000 Syrian refugees

were sitting idly in a camp, OK, but before you come onto it,

we should explain that the Jordanian government had approached

you because you had a record, you are an Oxford academic,

but you had worked for the World Bank, you had

advised David Cameron, you had advised, recently advised -

still advising, I think - Chancellor Angela Merkel,

so you had a history of giving advice and being listened

to by governments. I try and give practical

under-the-radar-screen advice that I'm an economist, and so I work

on poorer countries, But I try to come up with practical

things that governments can do. So you are behind policies that

David Cameron has come up with - as a result of your book

The Bottom Billion and Plundering... So you say to the Jordanians,

they take you to this ?100 million And so we say, "Can we put

two and two together?" "Can we create some

jobs in the camps?" What Jordan was really anxious

about, the reason they haven't let refugees work was pretty obvious,

that they couldn't provide enough jobs for their own citizens,

let alone for refugees. So they saw letting

refugees work as a threat. So what we suggested was,

actually, you've got a big empty industrial zone,

why is it empty? Because Jordanians don't

want to work there and firms Why don't you use the fact that

you've got all these refugees as an opportunity to get

you on the map, to get Jordan noticed as a place where industry

can come and bring jobs? We put that to the Jordanian

government, and it was like a light Refugees could be an opportunity

for our own economic development. And so they've developed what's

called the Jordanian model now. And that involved, first, we went

to Brussels, and we persuaded the European Commission

to change its trade The European Community had got trade

barriers against Jordan. Well, nobody is going to produce

goods to sell in Europe So the European Commission agreed,

OK, we'll give you ten years' open, Then I used my previous

connections with the World Bank And they said, "Of course

we are missing in action, Jordan is an upper middle income

country, we're not allowed to work I said, "Ask the board, take

a project on refugees to the board." They said refugees are nothing to do

with the World Bank - UNHCR has a monopoly,

has had a monopoly on refugees for the last 60 years,

but it is a purely But if you're going to get

people jobs, where are Who are the companies in whose

interest it is to go to what arguably is a temporary

setup, somewhere in another country? We've been doing that for decades,

it's called globalisation. Germany has created thousands

upon thousands, probably But we are talking

about conversations that you first had two years ago,

and it was launched a year ago - what companies are now

offering jobs in Jordan? We've now got 39,000 jobs

already created, right? You've got 39,000 refugees

working in Jordan who That wouldn't have

otherwise been working. And this is because of international

companies saying... The whole thing only

got launched last year, Last September, the king of Jordan,

King Abdullah, said on CBS that Jordan has always been a place that

opens its arms to refugees, but now, and he made the point,

"A 20% increase in our population, such is the scale of the refugee

crisis, the huge burden on our country, we are in dire

straits," and he talked Most were in towns looking for work,

driving up rents, 160,000 Syrian kids in Jordan's schools,

unemployment skyrocketing, "Our health sector saturated,

our schools going through difficult And he made the point

about how difficult it is. In a way, this goes against that,

doesn't it, if you're Not at all, because part of the deal

is that the jobs come for both So the ratio that we are working

to is for every 70 jobs for refugees, 30 for Jordanians,

and so it's a win-win. So the companies come in,

they create new employment opportunities, new firms

in the zones, and those That model, the Jordanian model,

has already been copied in Africa. The government of Ethiopia is doing

it now in their industrial zones. So your argument that there have

been 30,000 plus new jobs created, there have been, what,

15,000 jobs for Jordanians? Yes, yes, yes, these

are doable things, right? And don't forget, this is starting

cold from a new idea, where no institution is used

to doing it. If we'd had this system in place,

if the global refugee system had been changed years ago,

as it needed to be changed, if we'd had a system

that was fit for purpose, But you've still got a problem,

though, because you've got a neighbouring country,

and your argument is, "Let's keep refugees local,

because they ultimately But they have children,

they need health services. The pressure on services,

and the scale of this, whether it is Jordan or Lebanon

or Turkey, we are talking about a massive influx of people

that is really overwhelming The World Bank, in October,

did go to the board, it did approve $300 million loan

to Jordan on soft terms to provide jobs in the industrial zones

for refugees and Jordanians, the first loan it had ever done

on refugees in 60 years, and at the same time approved soft

money for Lebanon to provide schooling for children,

for refugee children. So we can use international

aid money both for jobs and for the social services that

are being stretched OK, so your argument is extend

the rights of the refugees in a way, not just shelter and food,

keep those, but put alongside Of course, and a right

to decent social services, But the moment you do that,

you have effectively incentivised them to stay,

because the argument that they should remain local

is that they will go home. But if you effectively create

a new parallel life, where it is still going to be years,

and they have invested perhaps in a business,

why would they then go home? Well, most people,

actually, want to go home. Don't forget, these people,

that is mostly what they Conflicts do end, and you can think

of this as actually incubating the jobs that can move back

to the post-conflict society. When Syria gets back to peace,

which it will, the firms that are operating in Jordan,

if there were workforce, a lot of their workforce wants

to go back to Syria, they can set up

an operation in Syria. One of the miracles of capitalism

is that it's not a zero-sum game. If it's profitable in Jordan,

it can stay in Jordan. If a chunk of your workforce

is already skilled and trained and wants to go home to Syria,

you can set up So give us an example of a company

that is employing people now One of the things that

happening is who needs refuge Not just Syrian people -

Syrian businesses. And so now Syrian businesses

are moving to the zones, weren't allowed to do before -

there was no protection So businesses that were operating

in Syria are moving to Jordan If you were being bombed to bits

in Aleppo, you might think it's They're getting jobs

for their own people as well. As I say, capitalism

is not zero-sum. If you set up a succesful

firm in Jordan, why Even if you can then restart

the operation back in Syria. Earlier this month, we had the mayor

of a town in Lebanon, the mayor of Naameh,

called Charbel Matar, saying, "We have to stand

with our own people first before we stand with the Syrians,"

and he was saying that as he was issuing a decree to order

businesses owned or operated by Syrians to close,

which was in keeping with the law. Yeah, I mean, that's

tragic, isn't it? So it's no good lecturing

the government of Jordan, saying, It's no good preaching -

we've got to make it in the government of Lebanon's

interests to do things that are helpful to refugees,

as well as to their own population. But their population is 4.5 million,

they've got more than 1 I mean those are just numbers

that are unsustainable, I think that's probably right,

I think Lebanon is kind When you get to that

stage, you need... Actually, before you get to that

stage, you need some sort of threshold which says,

now other countries have got What about something

like what you called the headless policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel,

allowing in many refugees Why has that, in your

terms, not worked? Well, I think, first of all,

it was a noble gesture, so I'm still working

with the Chancellor - this was a noble thing to do, but it

wasn't a thought-through thing. It was done very quick decision,

wasn't thought through. You're working very closely with her

at the moment, you speak to her, you tell her it was a mistake

and she says what? She's reversed the policy -

I don't need to tell her it was a mistake,

she's reversed the policy. Has she acknowledged

to you that it was a mistake? Of course not - politicians don't

use words like mistakes, do they? Something like less than 5%

of the Syrian population is in Europe, but something

between a third and a half of all Syrians with university

educations are now in Europe. And your argument that it's

a tragedy is because, ultimately, They're the very people who will be

needed to rebuild the country. I do a lot of work

on post-conflict countries. The real bottleneck

is skilled people. But so German policy, you advise,

should be to encourage them It depends how long

it is before they can go back. At some stage, it's obviously

sensible to think that But at the moment, yes, it's too

soon to settle people for life. They should be basically

prepared with the skills Germany is the ultimate successful

model of high-skill, high-training, high-credentials,

high-minimum-wage job market. So Syrians, even those

with a university education, are utterly unsuited for the jobs

that Germany has, unfortunately. It would be far easier for Germany

to create jobs for refugees So those refugees, Syrian

refugees in Germany, They'd be the elite -

they'd have a job, yeah. I'm not in the business

of sending people back. But that is the logic

of your position. The German government,

I would remind you, is actually sending people back,

that's the model now. I believe it's sensible

for Europe to take some. One of our principles is solidarity,

everybody, every country has a duty of rescue,

and that duty of rescue You talk about politicians acting

as headless chickens, you also talked about an international system

that was broken - in part, because it's dependent on the UNHCR,

which you say is effectively working to laws that were devised

just after 1950. We have a situation now

where the president, the new American president,

is talking about cutting funding, a 28% budget cut to diplomacy

and foreign aid, and that would include the money

that goes to the UNHCR, and America funds more

than a quarter of the UNHCR. Given how critical you are of it,

do you see that, actually, We talk a lot with UNHCR,

and one of their responses to our argument is, "We are not

a job agency." Well, that is true,

UNHCR isn't a job agency, but unfortunately what refugees most

need is a job agency. So either UNHCR changes staffing,

skills up, and actually becomes capable of operating in the economic

space, getting business Or we bring in other agencies that

are already doing that - The tragedy of the last 60

years is UNHCR has had a monopoly, and it's

a humanitarian-only mandate. And so it's what,

contributed to the problem? Yes, it's perpetuated

a problem that shouldn't have You know, world numbers

of displaced and refugees But Richard Gowan, who's a UN expert

at the European Council on Foreign Relations,

talked about the cuts, saying they would cause chaos

and leave a gaping hole that other The camps, the free food,

the free shelter - The whole we need to fill,

which is at the moment a glaringly Tragically, at the moment,

most politicians are reacting The narrative has become,

"We've got to keep refugees out, When you talk to people

about refugees now, instead of their instinct being compassion,

the instinct is fear. The big asset that refugees should

have is automatically triggering the compassion of the vast

bulk of humanity. Paul Collier, thank

you for coming on HARDtalk. Our weather's set to turn a little

bit milder over the next couple of days, quieting down

in many respects. But before we get there,

yesterday we had some really big thunderstorms around,

this one brought some hail to West