I want to start by underlining our wholehearted support for UNHCR and High Commissioner Grandi’s passionate leadership. You have steered the organisation through a decade of global change.
A decade of increasing conflict, climate shocks and instability.
All these factors continue to push people from their homes, driving displacement ever higher.
In the world today, over 123 million people are forcibly displaced.
In the face of such challenges, we must focus on solutions.
I will highlight three that are priority areas for the UK.
First, we will continue to do all we can to tackle the root causes of displacement, including war, instability, and repression.
We will work at all levels, including through this Council to protect the rules-based international system and promote peace.
We will work with international partners to tackle people smuggling and human trafficking, which exploits vulnerable people for financial gain.
Just this month, the UK led a successful Border-Security Summit, where we secured agreements between participating countries, to drive efforts to disrupt organised immigration crime and save lives.
Second, we will seek solutions to regional and country-specific crises.
Many of which, from Ukraine to the Middle East, are the focus of this Council.
This month, the UK hosted a conference on Sudan with humanitarian and political objectives, including support for an end to the conflict and easing the impact on the region and we were grateful for the participation of Commissioner Grandi along with other parts of the UN leadership.
In Cox’s Bazar, we have funded UNHCR to support refugees’ access to healthcare, clean water and hygiene.
We will continue to advocate for safe, dignified and sustainable solutions for refugees, including at the UN Rohingya Conference in September.
And third, we continue to push for innovative approaches to addressing displacement.
We support the High Commissioner’s Sustainable Responses Initiative, which supports refugee inclusion and self-reliance, and ownership of solutions by host countries.
We look forward to the Global Compact for Refugees meeting in December – a key moment to review progress on pledges we made in 2023, to deliver better outcomes for displaced people and host communities.
And we encourage others to join and sustain our collective efforts to achieve the Compact’s goals.
In conclusion, President, to reverse the growing trend of displacement, we need to focus on solutions to the causes we have all discussed today.
The UK is committed to working with UNHCR and other international partners and institutions to achieve this.
