UN hopes G20 will stick with refugee crisis commitment

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By CGTN's Zhang He

At the Hangzhou summit in 2016, G20 leaders called for a global concerted effort to address both the consequences and root causes of the refugee crisis, and the United Nations hopes the commitments will be followed in the upcoming summit in Hamburg.

The world's 20 largest economies should find solutions to the refugee crisis, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in an interview with CGTN. The group of 20, which accounts for 85 percent of the world economy and two-thirds of its population, would have phenomenal impact on the issue if joint efforts were applied.

”We are encouraged by the position taken by the G20 last year in China, which we hope will be reiterated and made even more practical by the G20 in Germany this year,” said Grandi.

A sign hung up in the headquarters of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland. /CGTN Photo

Grandi appealed to the G20 countries to unanimously find solutions to such global challenge, and expressed hope the commitments would be translated into concrete contributions in Hamburg to support relief and protection efforts to refugees, and to bring the humanitarian crisis to an end.

"I think the reason that the refugees move so much and so far away indicates an important point. They are not just a problem for host countries, just for a few donor countries, that’s a global problem,” he said.

In the past few years, Germany has been a leading country both in providing asylum to refugees and making contributions to refugee programs.

According to Grandi, the country has a strong interest in proposing to other G20 members common approaches to solving the refugee problem.

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