Opening Remarks
President and CEO of Robert Bosch Stiftung Joachim Rogall thanked the co-organizers and partners of the Aurora Dialogues Berlin, specifically the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, Global Perspectives Initiative and Stiftung Mercator, and contemplated the relevancy of the conference’s main themes. “The topics of the conference fit perfectly into the focus areas of our foundation,” said Joachim Rogall.
He was followed by Ruben Vardanyan, Co-Founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, who explained the logic behind choosing Germany as the location. “[This is a European] country who took a very serious responsibility as the immigration crisis hit all of us,” noted Vardanyan.
Former President of the German Bundestag Norbert Lammert, who delivered the keynote titled Migration Crisis: A Global Responsibility, stressed out the complicated nature of the problems they all gathered to ponder. “What can a keynote do regarding the complexity of this issue?”, asked Lammert. “At best, hopefully, it can undermine the significance of the subject.”
Global Challenges of Migration
Opening the first session, Matthias Lücke, Senior Researcher and Member of the Management Board, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), delivered a presentation titled Migration Trends and Driving Forces. “Refugees are a very innovative group because they’ve survived a lot and they’ve managed a lot of challenges, so they might be really entrepreneurial,” he declared.
Geert Cappelaere, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, UNICEF, mentioned that targeting the younger generations was key. “For us the straight answer is to invest in children where they are today. That is not happening sufficiently,” he admitted.
Mary Robinson, Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Honorary President, Oxfam International, and Aurora Prize Selection Committee member, drew attention to yet another aspect of the migration crisis. “The current discussion in the climate context is that we could have as many as 200 million climate-displaced people by 2050,” she explained.
How Attitudes Influence Refugee Integration in Hosting Countries
The session opened by a presentation on the 2017 Aurora Humanitarian Index, delivered by Dirk Jacobs, Professor of Sociology, Université Libre de Bruxelles. Professor Jacobs walked the audience through the results to give the participants some context to the debate they would be having.
Andreas Görgen, Director-General for Culture and Communication, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Germany, encouraged the audience to look for the real reasons behind people’s concerns and xenophobia. “If people talk about their fears and about migrants coming in, most of the time they feel disconnected from their own society,” he lamented.
Gianni D’Amato, Member, Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration, addressed the issue of the responsibility. “All of us, all actors do have to do something to go in the direction they would like to go,” he said.
Lori Wilkinson, Professor, Director, Immigration Research West, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of International Migration and Integration, reflected on the burden the civil servants are carrying when it comes to interacting with the authorities. “You have to go with whatever government that’s in place. You’re stuck,” she explained.
Rita Süssmuth, President of the Consortium for the Development of the Turkish-German University (TDU), highlighted the fact that quickly giving the migrants a possibility to work was key. “It’s very important to give them an early <sense of> belonging,” she insisted.
A Marshall Plan with Africa: Development Aid and Investment
The first part of the session titled Looking for Solutions on Site was moderated by International Broadcaster Nik Gowing while the keynote was delivered by Günter Nooke, German Chancellor's Personal Rep. for Africa in the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, who shared with the audience his thoughts on changes in the narrative of the global development corporations.
Franz Fischler, President, European Forum Alpbach, warned the participants against getting carried away by well-wishing. “We are not to teach Africa how they should develop,” he explained.
John Prendergast, Founding Director of Enough Project, added: “For many governments in Africa, the incentive structures favor mass eluding, mass corruption and, in many cases, terrible violence.”
Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Laureate, Liberian peace activist, women’s rights advocate and Aurora Prize Selection Committee member, stressed out the importance of bottom-up vector when it comes to sustainable progress. “If it’s coming from outside, I don’t think it’s going to work,” she said.
Bernard Kouchner, Co-Founder, Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières), and Aurora Prize Selection Committee Member, said, “We need to help Africa and they need to help us.”
Hina Jilani, former UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders, Aurora Prize Selection Committee member, drew everyone’s attention to the real people who should benefit from whatever development plans are implemented. “If there is to be a development aid plan, it must invest in the people’s aspirations,” she noted.
Private Initiatives for Development
The keynote of the second part of the session titled Looking for Solutions on Site was delivered by Pierre Gurdjian, Philanthropy Partner, RVVZ Foundation. He pointed out that the most significant development in the world in the last couple of years had been the sustainable development goal movement. “It is legitimizing a particular way of looking at the world in a multilateral way, in a complex way, in a holistic and systemic way,” he explained.
Robert Jung, Head of Berlin Office for Digital Strategy and Transformation at EY and Founder of EY´s refugee support initiative, pondered the question of measuring one’s success when it comes to planning and implementing refugee-oriented projects.
Anja Langenbucher, Director Europe Office, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, highlighted the advantages the new technologies have given us. “One should think about positive things that you can do with digitalization,” she noted.
Jens Waltermann, Executive Director, United World Colleges (UWC) International, has expressed his surprise with some people’s misconceptions about others. “[Some people feel that] your identity suffers when you’re faced with people with another identity,” he explained.
Shaping the future: Gratitude in Action
The final session featured a discussion dedicated to the key takeaways of the conference. The day’s moderator Nik Gowing, International Broadcaster and Visiting Professor, Kings College London and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, invited the to “reflect on what we have achieved, what we should’ve achieved, and what we didn’t achieve.”
“There were a lot of monologues, but not much dialogue,” stressed out Ruben Vardanyan, Impact Investor and Social Entrepreneur; Co-Founder, Aurora Humanitarian Initiative.
Christof Bosch, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Robert Bosch Stiftung, warned the participants against striving to look for achievements in the wrong place. “Achieving happens where the refugees are,” he explained.
Winfried Kneip, Executive Director of Stiftung Mercator, drew everyone’s attention to the mere scale of the task in hand. “This coalition that we have already formed here is not by far enough to fulfill what we have to do,” he said.
Ingrid Hamm, Founder and CEO, Global Perspectives Initiative, was quite optimistic about the individual’s impact. “If somebody has an idea and commits to that idea, then in the end something happens that is influencing a whole region. That is something I learned today,” she concluded.