Solving the Syrian Refugee Crisis

Last week’s conference in London did not solve the Syrian refugee crisis.

That requires an end to the conflict.  The suspension of the peace talks in Geneva last week shows we’re not even at the end of the beginning of that process, as Churchill might have said.

But London did some important things.  It raised a lot of money for one, $11 billion.  $2 billion came from the UK alone.  This money means there should be no repeat of the fateful decision by the World Food Programme (WFP) to cut food aid to refugees, thus – according to all the surveys commissioned since – helping to precipitate the crisis last year.

London also addressed two more of those so called “push” factors that led to hundreds of thousands of refugees quitting the relative safety of the UN camps and programmes in Jordan and Lebanon, and making the perilous journey to Europe:  the lack of educational and economic opportunities.  London agreed a programme to get all refugee and host community children into education for 2016-17.  It also boosted an ambitious plan to open European markets and provide concessional financing to Lebanon and Jordan, in return for giving work permits to Syrian refugees.

Solving the Syrian refugee crisis is easier said than done.  But at least the elements for managing it are becoming clearer.

First, the EU needs to regain full control of its borders.  Immigration and asylum policies are not possible without an ability to regulate who enters your territory.  This is a matter for the Schengen countries not the UK, although we are providing assistance.

Second, as London has begun to do, we need to address the “push” factors that helped trigger the flight to Europe.  But with twelve times more refugees arriving in Greece last month compared to January 2015, this won’t address the short term challenges.

Third, we have a duty to help the most vulnerable, including through resettlement.  That’s not the same as giving a home to all those able to get to Europe.  Britain’s offer of 20,000 resettlement places puts it third behind Canada and Germany.  Yet the obligation to help refugees is universal. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s conference in March will hopefully broaden the number of countries resettling refugees beyond the dozen now doing so.

Fourth, we need to work with Turkey.  Turkey hosts 2.5 million Syrian refugees and its long coastline has become the people smugglers’ route of choice in to Europe.  Without Turkey, Europe’s southern border cannot be secured.  In return, Turkey needs to know that they will not be left to cope with the problem on their own.

Fifth, Europe needs to put in place Readmission agreements and Return programmes for those economic migrants who have joined the influx into Europe.  Less than half of those arriving in Greece last month were Syrian refugees.  The process of returning those who do not qualify to stay in Europe will be long, hard, and essential.

As the latest desperate scenes from Aleppo grimly hammer home, none of the above will do more than manage the problem for now.  Only rebuilding of the country following an end to the conflict offers a genuine prospect of ending Syria’s refugee crisis.

If there is a silver lining to the pressure the refugee crisis has put on world leaders, it is that the need for a political settlement has moved to the top of their priorities.

Until then the world’s humanitarian system and the Geneva agencies at its heart – UNHCR, ICRC, IOM – will be busier than ever, managing the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War.