UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi called on the international community to “reboot” its stance on people in need of protection.

Speaking during the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, as event co-host, Grandi said: “Injustice, conflict and violence. This is why we are here. Our world is in turmoil, and 25 million refugees are looking to us for solutions.”

Assessing today’s global action on refugees as “piecemeal and unbalanced”, Grandi added that with “71 million people uprooted from their homes globally, inside and outside their countries, it's time to reboot our responses”.

But rather than displaying solidarity for people in need, “countries with more resources” had shifted the burden to the poorest nations.

This meant that “refugees are pushed aside too…often in camps, cut off from the social and economic life of the communities hosting them,” said the UNHCR chief. “Humanitarian aid helps, and remains vital, but is not enough and not adequate to turn the tide from despair to hope”, he added.

“Public support for asylum has wavered in recent years. And in many cases communities that host refugees have felt overwhelmed or forgotten. But refugee situations are ‘crises’ only when we let them become so, by thinking short term, by failing to plan or work together across sectors, and by neglecting the communities they arrive in,” said Filippo Grandi, who also heads UNHCR.

For the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the Forum revealed a “decisive shift” towards long-term action to assist the more than 25.9 million people worldwide who have fled their homelands due to conflict, persecution or violence.