The Refugee Crisis This Week's World

Welcome to This Week's World - a new show that hopes to bring

you the big ideas and the trends that are shaping the world.

Switch your microphone off before your say

We will bring you the one about the Iraqi Prime Minister and the sofa.

This week, is it time to shut down refugee camps?

We're at the biggest in the world and it's not where you'd expect.

David Miliband tells us why the whole system may be broken.

And, we speak to the man who once tried to abolish the World Bank.

Is that still his plan now he's in charge of it?

How Obama's olive branch is making more flee their home.

And, we ask our panel for their moments of the week.

Before all that, some of the bits that may have caught your eye

Do not adjust your sets. This was the week the unimpeachable were

finally impeached and the unassailable were elected. Normal

service will resume soon. Or will it?

As the anticorruption summit got going in London President Roussef

was suspended in Brazil for... Corruption.

Cue protest and counter protest. How many days until the Olympics again?

Not to be outtrumped, the Philippines voted in Dirty Harry as

their new President. Who know whethers it was his promise to

execute 10,000 or indeed his jokes about rape that delighted the public

most but collectively they got him the job.

In Europe, don't offend Erdogan whatever you do, he is now suing one

of Germany's biggest media moguls. He. With the country's Prime

Minister resigning last week, that migrant deal with the EU is looking

more strained. Oh, and it's Eurovision this

weekend. What do you prefer? European techno or European

technocrats? Forget the Brexit debate. Brits wanting to leave the

song contest have a 20-point lead. To chat through some

of those stories, and more, our panel in the studio,

Blathnaid Healy, UK editor Great to have you both here.

of the Financial Times. Great to have you both here.

start by asking each of you Great to have you both here.

person of the week. Doesn't have to be somebody you like. Who springs to

mind? I would have to say President Erdogan of Turkey, not because he is

somebody I like but because he Erdogan of Turkey, not because he is

been trying to escalate his attempt to export his allergy to any

criticism to Europe. In Turkey, there are about 2,000 people, 2,000

cases against people who have dared to criticise him. He is actually

been trying to do the same in Germany. Germany which needs him and

has to assert and extent fent allowed him to do this. This week he

has tried, but luckily failed, to have an injunction against the CEO

of a major media group because the CEO wanted - made a statement that

was published in German media, in support of the comic who written a

famous poem... Who criticised him. It was an offensive poem. He now

faces a criminal case. I guess that the point is that Turkey is

centre-stage of so many things right now, EU summit, the EU deal, it's

the humanitarian summit, as well. From Angela Merkel's standpoint

there is a need to balance the issues and the concerns of her

country who wants to express their feelings about him, but also to keep

him on side because he is so key to what's happening in Europe right

now. Pretty central. Your person of the week, we have been talking about

the new Philippines President who they call Dirty Harry. You have gone

one further. Yeah, the first transperson to be elected into the

Philippines Congress so a different story to the one that dominated a

lot of the headlines in the Philippines. She's from a political

dynasty, I think both her mother and father were figures, large figures

in politics there. She has taken a seat. She was voted with an

overwhelming majority of 62% of the vote. She's vowed to take on the

trans-cause and further equality of the trans-community. There was a

councillor elected here, trans-gender, as well, you would

think it was a tipping point and the cases in China, we have had the

opposite. Yeah, a difficult case. A person whose identity hasn't been

disclosed is known as MrC and he was born female and was working for a

company and was told by the company they couldn't - he couldn't wear the

clothing that he wanted to wear to work every day because it wasn't

deemed to be appropriate for the company that he was working within.

So he took his case after he was fired to the labour arbitration

panel and they effectively told him, well, sorry, but the company was in

the right. There was no discrimination. It's interesting

when the state steps in and I think your row of the week takes us on to

that. The toilet insanity, that's what I call it. In North Carolina,

essentially, the legislator passed a bill that would prevent people,

transgender people, from choosing which bathroom they wanted to go to.

This is, of course, part of a much larger trend that we are seeing in

various US states right now. What happened this week is that after the

Justice Department stepped in and essentially told North Carolina to

scrap this bill, North Carolina has sued the Justice Department. There's

going to be a lot of wrangling about the civil rights act and what does

it mean and what does the inclusion of sex actually mean? But it's a

case that actually says an awful lot than it's not just about bathrooms.

Interesting when Obama comes as it were to the rescue in a civil rights

case. Yeah, the words this week that really resonated in the

transcommunity were the words spoken about we see you and I think the

transcommunity took those words and people who have been vocal within

the community, it meant a lot that Loretta Lynch said that and said we

are going to work to try to help. We are going to end with your soft

furnishing moment of the week, I say this advisedly. You have gone to a

different place. The gaffe of the week wasn't necessarily with the

Queen and David Cameron. In fact, it was earlier with a pristine white

sofa in Iraq. This comes off the back of the protests over the

weekend with those who occupied parliament. There was a sofa that

had blood stains on it and bottles and the speaker and Prime Minister

in Iraq looking at it kind of mournfully. This photograph for a

lot of people in Iraq summarises, I suppose, the feeling of how out of

touch they are with the people that they could be looking mournfully at

a sofa when there are, you know, much wider issues outside of the

Green Zone. What was interesting was that the way that started to go

viral. It wasn't that it started more protests, people were filming

their own sofas. All these people looking at their own sofases and

people photoshopping people. It totally took off on social media and

it was widely shared. Does this feel like let them eat cake moment, when

leaders seem out of step and out of touch with the electorate?

Absolutely. I think that said an awful lot about Iraq, particularly,

at this moment. The Government is in disarray, when people are out on the

streets, and there doesn't seem to be a solution to any of this. I

think it was both desperation, but also just people are just fed up and

the sofa and the fact that you just had them looking at a white sofa for

no reason. Nobody tried to figure out what the source of this picture

was, which was striking. Nobody even cared what the source of the sofa

was. It told them, you know, this is the state of Iraq today.

Now, most people know the Syrian war has prompted a refugee crisis

But, in fact, it's just a small part of a much more

Across the world, the number of refugees is rising.

And the system that's meant to deal with them is failing.

Here's the story of that failure in numbers.

After World War II the United Nations was set up. One of its early

tasks was to help refugees in Europe using aid money. Over 70 years that

remit has grown hugely. So has the cost. In 2,000 the cost of managing

all the crises was $2 billion. Now, it's $25 billion.

Even in real terms, that's an incredible rise.

War is a huge factor. 80% of today's humanitarian effort now goes on

helping people displaced by long-term conflict rather than

disasters. Despite being intended as a

temporary status, the average time spent as a refugee is now 17 years.

Someone displaced at the end of the last century is probably still

unable to go home. And over 80% are refugees for over

ten years. The movement of Syrians and others

to Europe caused major political upheaval. But migrant and refugee

numbers are much higher in countries next to warring neighbours.

In 2015 the International Rescue Committee estimated that 60 million

people in total are displaced around the world with 42,000 on the move

everyday. The UN is gathering this month to

talk about it but one major emergency charity has already pulled

out. We no longer have any hope that the world humanitarian summit will

address the weaknesses in humanitarian action and emergency

response. For others the entire system of humanitarian aid has

failed so badly it's time to rethink it completely.

So any clues where the biggest refugee camp is?

A camp, set up as a temporary measure 25 years ago,

Kenya's government now wants to close it down.

Dadaab, for many, symbolizes everything that's gone wrong.

My name is Mohammed, I am leaving one of the camps. I was born here.

What I know is only this camp. I wanted a better life than this one.

I think my mother has lost hope of going back to Somalia because of

this war. She tells me that we are expecting to stay some months, two

months, one month and then we go back to our country. But months,

years, years, years until we come here and up to now we are here. Also

my born was born -- also, my wife was born here. We meet here and we

got married and have a little baby girl we have now and we are

expecting another one. You can imagine years living in a refugee

camp. We don't know another place. We

don't know our country, Somalia. We are just like a bird in a cage.

Cannot move anywhere else. We are just imagining like we are

Kenyans, because we don't know any other country. We are Somalis but we

don't even know where Somalia is. If you ask me which direction Somalia

is I cannot tell you. We are doing a hard job, we are

working the same as Kenyans do here. We are earning less than 100 US

dollars. We are not looking at the amount we are earning but we are

looking at people we are helping. We are helping our mothers, our

sisters, our children. What we are helping is our people.

What will make me happiest in my life is seeing a different thing in

my daughter and my children. A different life. I lose hope now, me.

But what I am hoping is my children to get a better life than what I had

in this refugee camp. Now she's new, she's only two years. But what I am

expecting, or what I am praying to God to give me is my daughter to get

a good life and a good and freedom, freedom is the most important thing

in a human being. David Miliband, former

British Foreign Secretary, now President of the

International Rescue Committee, Does he have a solution

to what's going on? I asked him if the current

humanitarian system is up I think there is a massive issue

that the post-war settlement has set up a set of institutions which were

designed for yesterday's problems, not tomorrow's. There is frustration

about the institutions of the UN in the way they work. But it's the last

best hope. The refugee camp was set up in 1992, Dadaab, as a transit

camp, I don't think anyone thought it would be going 25 years later.

It's the most hellish transit camp you would imagine. Thousands of

people, generations born there. In a way, a symptom of a humanitarian

system that doesn't work. There needs to be a new deal really with

countries like Kenya that says we understand that for you to house

large numbers of refugees is delivering a global public good, but

to do that effectively, to let people work, you are going to have

to get international support and so the role of the World Bank and other

institutions becomes absolutely vital to a new kind of bargain, not

just with the refugees, but with countries like Kenya. What is that

new deal, that bargain? President, I think it is not a small

number of people, possibly 10% of the refugees, the most vulnerable,

are relocated to richer countries, the West and elsewhere because they

are orphans etc. The only real hope for the large majority of people is

to become productive residents of the countries they have fled to.

That is a massive call for the countries concerned. If we can

ensure they get international support to build up their economies,

it becomes a chance to avoid the kind of Dadaab situation, long-term

housing people in places that become magnets for criminality, never mind

for terrorism. I want to look at your solution, state saying you are

not refugees any more, you are citizens? Well, I think I use the

word productive residents. At the moment come I think we are stuck in

a situation where refugees are seen as only a burden. While they are not

allowed to work, you can see why people think that. Should we be

saying that in the UK, should we be welcoming Syrians in greater numbers

and saying those people will come and they will work? I think so. At

the moment... How many? We are in a situation where the UK has committed

to accept six Syrians per Parliamentary constituency. I was

saying if they were taking 25,000 Syrians a year, that would translate

into 40 per parliamentary constituency. That is not go to

overwhelm the system. Do you think Angela Merkel was on the right track

when she said she was going to open her doors to 1 million people? Yes,

because there were already 500,000 Syrians in Germany when she made her

pledge. The problem is, there were two things missing from the

commitment that she made. One was, how do we have more effective action

in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, so that those countries are able to

support people better? Secondly, she needed more support from the rest of

Europe. The danger is that it divides Europe. Is your message to

the British public get used to it, this is going to have to happen? My

message is that there is a choice. Either refugees come to Europe in a

disorderly, illegal and dangerous way, or they come to Europe in an

orderly, legal and organised fashion. The latter is far, far

preferable. The sight of thousands of people dying in the Mediterranean

is something that I think Paul's everybody. What people I think in

Britain want to see is compassion. But also competence. -- that appals

everybody. When you have 80% of people in this kind of XL for more

than a decade, do you think the UN is still the best body and

organisation for solving this, or dealing with it? I think our two

reactions to the complicated and crazy world we live in. One is to

think that the problems are insoluble, places like the Congo

have not been solved for years, God knows how they will be solved. The

other is let's take the steps, one at a time. The UN is at a critical

juncture. There are record numbers fleeing conflict, this is when the

UN has to have the strength to reform itself, as well as to call on

others to reform. There is a sense for many that something is broken.

People feel they never stop giving to charities and causes, they are

being asked to open their homes and countries to people. And yet the

scale of the problem is overwhelming. You can't just point

to the Syrian war, you have to say there is a fundamental problem with

how we define refugees, or how we attempt to approach and solve the

problem. I think people are feeling like the problem might be too big

for them to do anything. That is why what is missing is a plan. The plan

has got to be about the limited numbers that are going to be

relocated to richer countries, and the big new effort that is going to

take place in the countries that are hosting refugees, which are on the

borders of countries at civil war, not countries in Europe, and frankly

not the US either. We need a new deal that recognises these are

long-term problems that need a economic and social solution. The

campus-based, temporary relief is not going to be the way of the

future. The way of the future is get these people into work, get their

kids and education, make them parts of society, and it is up to the

countries concerned if they become citizens, get them into a position

where they can go back if the war ever ends. Do you think a Trump

presidency could make the world safer? I obviously can't get into

the ins and outs, the left and right of American political debate. What I

do reflect on is the new toxicity of issues associated with refugees in

the US. It is all the more striking, because I work less than two miles

from the Statue of Liberty, which says bring me your poor and huddled

masses. The DNA of the US is about welcoming people from all over the

world. Thank you. A big idea, but could work in practice?

Jordan's proximity to Syria and Iraq has made it a first port of call

It now hosts 1.2 million refugees - 10% of its own

The refugee crisis costs $2.5 billion a year, or 6% of its GDP.

Dr Mohammed El Momani is a Jordanian Minister of State.

Thank you for joining us. Is it realistic to say that you are no

longer refugees, you are now residents, you can go and work?

Look, it depends on the case. In a country like Jordan, for example, we

have an unemployment rate of 13%. So, we don't have jobs to give to

refugees to begin with. That is why, through the London compact, we

discussed with our European friends and international communities,

possibilities of creating jobs and then, of course, anybody can take

these jobs. I guess if a country, a host country, does have enough jobs

to offer to anyone, yes, they can use refugees to take these jobs and

to make better living for their lives. In fact, it would be good for

the economy of the host country, as well as for the refugees to improve

their studies. Now, for refugees who do not work, we have to provide for

their education, health, for all of their needs. So, if they end up

getting a job, maybe they can help themselves in the background and in

return, the economy will benefit. What do you make of the plan of

ending refugee camps and letting refugees stay, become residents and

workers? I think the most important thing for us is that we should be

able to help refugees in different ways and shapes. Providing them some

services through refugee camps still a feasible thing. In Jordan, we have

experience with 1.3 million Syrian refugees. In fact, 90% of those live

outside refugee camps. We have 140,000 Syrian students in our

school system, which puts tremendous pressure on the schooling system in

Jordan. Some schools had to go back to a two shift system in order to

accommodate this large number of Syrians. Hundreds of thousands of

Syrians have visited our hospitals and medical centres in order to get

proper health care. So, this is exactly what we're doing in Jordan.

That is why we are getting of these components, I guess, and support

from the international community, because the way that we dealt with

this humanitarian crisis has been, I think, an example to be followed.

Thank you very much for joining us. For the first time ever, the World

Bank has a leader that does not come from politics or business.

He is the medical doctor who once called for the banks to be

abolished, now he runs it. Set up alongside the IMF, the World Bank's

focus is ending poverty. By tradition, it is run by an American.

Born in Korea and raised in Iowa, he was put forward by President Obama.

He once argued that give session with GDP growth cast human beings

aside, and in office he has been a radical and deeply controversial

reformer. Jim Yong Kim, you are a medic, you

have 60 million displaced people around the world. What is your

prognosis and what is your cure? As a medical doctor, one of the things

we know is that prevention is always better than cure. I would step back

and say, we have been reacting after the fact. We have been emergency

room doctors that respond to the carnage that comes in. What we need

to be our thoughtful people that think about the whole system and try

to prevent it from happening in the first place. Would you say that you

are putting the World Bank on a totally different track, really? We

are really now thinking in a completely different way. We have

found ourselves in the middle of all of the discussions about

humanitarian response, because we understand that a lot of it is

development focused. The demand really came from the humanitarian

community itself. The former High Commissioner for refugees, Antonio

Gutierrez, came to me and said these humanitarian emergencies last for so

long. Some people have put it as high as 15 years plus. He told me

that we don't really know what we're doing, we are not development

specialists, you guys have to be involved. If you are looking at

prevention, rather than cure, take us back to Iraq and Syria. What

would have been should have been done differently there? I wasn't

there with the start of hostilities. But I can tell you what, we had no

system where, throughout the UN system, the World Bank system, the

humanitarian organisations, where we sat down, compared notes and say,

can we agree where the high-risk areas are? We never share that

information. We should keep ourselves accountable to being able

to look around corners a little bit, to look upstream. When there is a

situation we know we should intervene in, let's find a way to

intervene, in a way that will make it more likely that there will be

peace, there will be stability, there will be prosperity and growth.

After World War II, Bretton Woods essentially established an

infrastructure that was meant to solve these kind of development

issues. You look at where we are now, 60 million displaced people,

conflicts, wars, all of the rest of it. There is clearly an

acknowledgement that the institutions are not working? I

think that the realisation we have come to is understanding that we are

probably not reaching the scale that we need to reach. The funding that

comes from governments is mostly ground-based, which is great, but it

is only $140 billion or so a year, not nearly enough to meet the needs

in the world. So, the question we ask his, what is the scale needed to

really turn the tide on forced displacement, extremism, on violent

extremism. Are the institutions we have got up to that job, or are they

an anachronism? I think albeit institutions together, if we were to

work together much more closely, we could get the job done. That is one

thing we are exploring right now. There is already talking many

development circles about the need for another Marshall plan, that

everything we been doing has been not intense enough, not enough

upstream, and not a great enough scale. I don't know that we would

want to create new institutions. I think what we really need to do, and

what we are hearing from leaders all over the world, is an insistence

that the great multilateral agencies work together. You were the one that

famously called for the abolition of the World Bank. As President now, do

the same things irk you, or have you ripped up the old model? When I was

part of the movement in 1994, the bank was very focused on GDP growth.

Our complaint at that time was that things like investing in health and

education should not be afterthoughts. All of the good

things that people need, health, education, social protection, these

things don't happen automatically with GDP growth. That was really our

very specific critique. Over the past 20 years, the bank has changed

completely. Now we are among the most vociferous advocates of

investing in health and education. Except your critics will say that,

actually, that is not what the World Bank should be doing, that you have

turned it into an NGO? There's nothing we do at the World Bank

group that we have not thought about deeply in terms of evidence. Let me

give you some. For a long time, people said health, this is about,

you know, charitable outreach to individual sick people. In

developing countries, from 2000-2011, 24% of what you call full

income growth, not just growth in GDP, but in people's ability to

participate in the economy, 24% was due to better health outcomes. We

now know, for certain, that investing in health is directly

connected to economic growth. When you talk about investing, do you

think the World Bank has a role in telling developing countries how to

spend the money that is coming into them? It is to be that we were quite

ideological. We had very specific beliefs about what countries should

do and we just didn't have the evidence base to back it up. At the

World Bank, we have really, really made an effort to move beyond

ideology. We are not saying do this because Ideologically... It's not

just about ideology, do you attach conditions, do you want to see

certain specific outcomes from a country when you landed money? When

you say conditions, it is as we arbitrarily put conditions on to the

money. I was against that. I was against that when we were protesting

the World Bank. The good news is that there is a lot more data and

evidence now. Thank you very much indeed.

Could world peace start with a train line?

Could a new approach to urban planning solve the intractable

In Think Again, we ask film-makers to put forward a completely

the Middle East, older people will tell you about a time when it was

possible to have breakfast in Beirut, lunch in Damascus and dinner

in Baghdad. But, alas, that was in the past. 100 years ago, colonial

powers signed an agreement which established borders ending the era

of free travel across the Levant. Here is my idea. The mega linear

city. How can we make cities along the east Mediterranean coast more

socially and economic connected? Europe has done it. Imagine this. A

fast train network that extends from Turkey to Egypt, and back...

Because, you know, the trains have to come back. It cuts down travel

times and costs across the region. The idea is to transform the region

from poorly connected cities to an integrated urban network. Think of

it as a mega linear city. This may sound far-fetched, but is not

entirely inconceivable. This developer and has already started in

Lebanon. Almost half of the coast is now one continuous urban strip. It

can be an inspiration for what is possible, like the possibility of

having breakfast in Alexandria, lunch in Beirut and dinner in

Antalya. For decades Cubans have been fleeing

the austerity of their homeland Castro's exiles were even granted

favourable immigration status in the United States under a law

called the Cuban Adjustment Act. But now the US and Cuba are amigos -

which may see the act repealed. Thousands of Cubans are now trying

to make to America before This Week's World followed some

of them on their journey. We need to have a policy that's fair

to everybody trying to get into the United States. All we are saying is

treat the Cubans like any other immigrant that comes into the United

States. Don't elevate them to this special preferential type of

treatment. Treat them on a case by case basis.

And for the politicos amongst you who wondered why I didn't ask

David Miliband about Labour's high octane controversy, the Tooting

by-election and rumours he might work for Hillary Clinton,

Look, I am really not going to get into... If I become a commentator on

national politics I have a funny feeling as to what might be the

clips that come out of this. OK. We didn't get that. Are you going to

rule out quickly for me a Tooting by-election? I am not ruling out...

What I have to be is disciplined. Could you imagine working in Hillary

Clinton's administration? I am a British citizen not an American

citizen. You are being - Approach this. No, I am not running - I am

running an NGO, not running for parliament. I would like to see you

make that logical link. Quickfire quickly. Ask it again and I will not

answer it again so... I find that quite hard.

Your emotions are quite flat. I do notice that things annoy

you more. There haven't been

sort of personality changes? There's definite changes. Especially

on the emotional side of it.