20 June 2024 — On World Refugee Day, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) calls attention to historic global displacement figures, a sign of worsening times for millions of IRC clients. 120 million people have been displaced globally, a number that has more than doubled over the past ten years and increased by 10 million since last year.
Climate change, conflict—and, increasingly, poverty—are converging with alarming intensity, starkly evident in the lives of millions living in a handful of countries. By the end of 2023, 75% of the world’s displaced were living in countries highly exposed to climate-related hazards. Nearly half of the world’s displaced are living in countries impacted by both conflict and climate—like Sudan, DRC, and Syria—as humanitarian access and funding decrease to historic lows, and civilians are increasingly caught in the crossfire.
The lack of international support to crisis-affected states and their neighbours—in the form of humanitarian funding, of climate adaptation, of diplomatic muscle, of resettlement slots—means that injustice and human suffering within these communities are also growing.
David Miliband, President/CEO of the IRC:
World Refugee Day should mark a new commitment to help people in need, not just a historic number of people in need. Innocent civilians are victims of conflict and disaster and need support, not demonisation. 120 million displaced are 120 million individual stories, 120 million urgent reasons for action.
The displacement crisis is also a children’s crisis: while children make up 30% of the world’s population, they are 40% of the forcibly displaced. It is a climate crisis: 26 million displacements within home countries alone by climate disaster. It is an equity crisis: 75% of the world’s displaced are not hosted in the West but in low and middle-income countries. It is a crisis of the rule of law: the failure to uphold peace and security, and growing ferocity and impunity in conflict has meant the average number of civilians forced to flee their homes per year is now double the average of the past 25 years. And it is a crisis of responsibility, as we face an historic $40 billion humanitarian funding gap, telling of governments in retreat from the world stage.
These figures should challenge the private sector, NGOs, governments and multilateral organisations to work together for new solutions. That means measures to help people adapt their livelihoods and living to rising temperatures. It means education and health provision for people on the move. It means protection for vulnerable groups, especially women and girls, who often face extreme levels of violence and abuse. And all this takes reinforcement of effective diplomacy to stop and prevent conflict.
These man-made problems need equal effort in response. This is not too much to ask.