Better Lives Now: Leveraging Refugees’ Talents, organized by RefugePoint and the Women’s Refugee Commission with support of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, will take place in New York. The event is also produced in partnership with Club de Madrid, The Canadian Mission to the UN, MercyCorps, The B Team and Refugees Deeply. The event will bring together government officials (including from both refugee hosting and donor countries), noted philanthropists, key business leaders, UN officials and senior NGO representatives.
 

Better Lives Now will formally launch the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative, a collaboration among NGOs, UNHCR, foundations, government agencies, the private sector and others that aims to help refugees achieve a better quality of life and regain agency over their finances and futures, while at the same time supporting the peace, stability and prosperity goals of the hosting countries. The event will also build on the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), which will be considered for adoption by member states during the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly.

Aurora Dialogues Programming

The event will be part of the Additional Aurora Dialogues Programming that includes international conferences and public lectures aiming to bring together leaders with the unique expertise and contribute to finding solutions to the world’s most pressing humanitarian challenges. In keeping with the spirit of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, the Aurora Dialogues shine a light on the people who are working to address today’s atrocities in a real and substantial manner and seek to identify ideas that will deliver tangible change.

The inaugural 2016 Aurora Dialogues were held on April 23, 2016 in Matenadaran, Yerevan. Participants, including Aurora Prize Selection Committee members Hina Jilani, Shirin Ebadi and Gareth Evans, offered their views on the global refugee crisis, the role of women in the humanitarian community, and the role of the media in bringing humanitarian crises to the world’s attention.

In 2017, similar events took place in Yerevan and Berlin, whereas the 2018 Aurora Dialogues were held in New York (in March and September), Moscow, Yerevan and Berlin.