President and CEO of Robert Bosch Stiftung Joachim Rogall thanked the 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: immigration, migration and integration as global, European, global challenges, and a need to be a partner in development for Africa,” said Joachim Rogall.
He was followed by Ruben Vardanyan, Co-Founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, who highlighted the historical significance of the first Aurora Dialogues taking place outside of Armenia and explained the logic behind choosing Germany as its location. “[This is a European] country who took a very serious responsibility as the immigration crisis hit all of us,” noted Vardanyan. “It was critical for our Initiative to open these discussions worldwide,” he added.
Former President of the German Bundestag Norbert Lammert, who delivered the keynote titled Migration Crisis: A Global Responsibility, shared with the audience his initial reluctance to accept the invitation to the conference, citing being humbled by other participants as the main reason. “Thank you for the invitation that I hesitated to accept at first <…> because I’m not convinced that I know more about the subject than most of you,” he said. He proceeded to stress 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.”
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. Citing some alarming statistics, he highlighted the difficulties migrants and refugees were facing and also called for acknowledging the positive impact they might have on the host countries’ economies. “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.
The day’s moderator Nik Gowing, International Broadcaster and Visiting Professor, Kings College London and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, defined the flow of the first session by asking the panelists a series of passionate questions regarding migration and its impact on the future of our world. “How do you create the capacity for the next generation?”, he inquired. “There’s not a horrific legacy being built up.”
Geert Cappelaere, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, UNICEF, agreed with that and explained the current policy used to resolve the issues. He mentioned that targeting the younger generations was key and lamented the apparent impossibility to get rid of migration completely. “For us the straight answer is to invest in children where they are today. That is not happening sufficiently,” he admitted, adding that “prevention of migration is an illusion. We need to accept migration. We need to see together how best to address migration, but preventing it is an illusion.”
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 and warned about the danger of overlooking it. “Looming in the background of all is a cloud about climate displacement. And the current discussion in the climate context is that we could have as many as 200 million climate-displaced people by 2050,” she explained.