Noubar Afeyan introduced the panelists by saying, Refugees are kind of extreme immigrants. They’re forced immigrants. And immigrants, in many of the societies they end up in, end up being drivers of change, of creating jobs, and being from the innovation world, I’ve often wondered why that is.”
“We have on the panel folks who have chosen to dedicate a significant portion of their effort, and their corporate and civil society efforts to dealing with this because the notion is that if we want to wait for just states to deal with this, we may be waiting still for quite a while. The current refugees really don’t have that time.”
Ernesto Zedillo said it is important to realize that the problem we face is not mandated by God, or by a natural disaster. “All of the dramatic issues that we have in front us are really man-made,” he said and specifically called out politicians by saying, “At the end of the day, this is about power.” He said, “Sometimes, governments and people in power respond to what comes from the base. So I think it is our responsibility to give voice to the voiceless and say ‘come and address these problems with the instruments that humanity invented a long time ago — politics, diplomacy, civilization.’ ”
Paul Polman directly addressed the responsibility of business. “At the point that we are not addressing some of these challenges, it would incur more cost for businesses,” said the head of a global corporation which owns over 400 well-known brands.
Ludwig Georg Braun, head of the German medical and pharmaceutical device company, described his company’s findings in helping refugees. By registering refugees from Iraq and Syria into Germany, they recognized that 85 percent were younger than 40, and therefore a potential future work force. 20 percent are younger than 18, and began to attend school. They organized language courses and taught cultural norms, including gender equality. Once language instruction had begun, refugees were also eligible for vocational training, depending on their skill sets.
Mark Viso’s company PACT, partnered with Chevron to bring community based health care initiatives for women in Nigeria. “The solutions that we can embrace have to do with what you see here on this panel: the intersection of government, private sector business, market place, and civil society.”