DHC’s keynote speech: Women’s Forum Global Meeting

I’m delighted to be here at the Global Women’s Forum.

UNHCR is honoured to be part of such an important event which brings together key partners to advance gender equality, human rights, and women’s leadership.

And I am glad refugee girls and women around the world are not forgotten.

At the end of June 2022, an estimated 103 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes due to persecution, war, violence and human rights violations.

One in every 77 people worldwide are now forcibly displaced. That is more than twice as many as a decade ago and this trend is likely to continue in the coming years.

And while violence against women and girls occurs at an alarming rate globally, refugee and displaced women are at heightened risk. We estimate that 1 in 5 of them have been subjected to sexual violence.

UNHCR is working on the front lines to provide life-saving support for survivors of sexual violence, operating in 135 countries and territories.

UNHCR also focusses on innovative gender-transformative programming that empowers women and girls and engages men and boys as allies for change.

Women and girls are indeed powerful agents of protection and change and their voice needs to be heard and listened to.

Over the past six months, I have been to Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ukraine and Burundi. During countries, different cultures, different challenges… but in all these places, I witnessed the same strength and resilience among women.

Wherever I went, I was impressed by the key role they played in supporting their communities while building a future for their children.

In Bangladesh, they were leading the health response during throughout Covid-19 pandemic, in some of the most densely populated refugee camps in the world.

In Afghanistan, amid a dire humanitarian crisis, the main concerns of mothers was to keep their girls in school, to give them an education and a role to play in shaping the future of their country.

I saw the same drive among Burundian refugee women. Returning home after years in exile, hundreds of them are already cultivating their land and rebuilding their communities.

I remember the determination of these Ukrainian women and girls I met in Slovakia, Moldova and Ukraine earlier this year. Despite the destruction of their homes and the struggles of exile, their main objective was to return home and rebuild their lives and their country.

I am grateful for this opportunity to give these women all the credit they deserve.

And I take this opportunity to acknowledge the great work done by one of these amazing women, sitting next to me today: Anuscheh Amir-Khalili, who will tell us about the Flamingo network she established to support refugee women’s social and economic participation.

One of UNHCR’s priority is to engage and empower women-led organizations and leverage their expertise and intimate understanding of their communities, to inform our humanitarian response.

In 2021, UNHCR provided some US$751 million to 951 local and national responders, of which 728 were national NGOs - the highest number of local and national partners to receive funding by UNHCR to date.

Local and national actors now comprise 82% of all UNHCR’s partners, and a growing number of them are led by women.

Dear Leen, you are a perfect example of these women leaders who make UNHCR’s work possible around the world. Your work in Syria, providing psychosocial support to children and medical case workers, is the sort of thing that keeps a community alive. I am glad to meet you here in Paris where you have completed brilliant studies and launched a promising career while continuing to support refugees and displaced persons and raise their voices. This is the women leadership that UNHCR is pushing for, wherever we operate.

In Sudan, UNHCR in camp management, and they now make up 25% of leadership roles, a significant increase from the 5% they were at only two years ago. In Tanzania, about half of refugee leaders elected in the Nyarugusu camp, the biggest in the country, were women.

From Myanmar to Columbia, through Syria, Congo or the Sahel, UNHCR supports women leadership and promotes gender equality. In all kinds of displacement context, we are working with communities to increase women participation and decision-making, to strengthen their resilience and foster gender equality.

Of course, much remains to be done and we are committed to continue empowering women-led organizations despite the growing global challenges we face.

And in a context of increasing humanitarian needs and shrinking resources, the private sector has a key role to play. Not only in providing financial support to UNHCR and its partner but by creating employment opportunities for refugees.

Social inclusion often starts with work. Securing a decent employment is the best way to create the sense of safety and stability needed for refugees and their families to integrate and contribute to the communities that host them. It’s also the key for parents to be able to send their kids to school to build a better future for them.

Dear Théo, I cannot insist enough on the importance of the work Each One and other NGOs are doing on socio economic inclusion of refugees.

I do believe employers of all kinds can greatly benefit from opening up their workplaces to refugees and I want to congratulate you for facilitating the link between them, helping refugees navigate complexe recruitment procedure while guiding employers towards creating the most inclusive workplaces possible.

This kind of initiative, supporting refugees in seeking employment, to develop their skills and sustain themselves on the long run, is a key complement to what UNHCR and its humanitarian partners are doing. Our resources are more stretched than ever by the many emergencies worldwide and I am glad to see a growing number of social entrepreneurs like you, joining us in supporting refugees and those who generously host them.

As the Women’s Forum organizers, we strongly believe that only greater cooperation among all categories of stakeholders (government, humanitarian, development and civil society actors) can effectively address the global challenges we are faced with. while providing sustainable, inclusive and equitable protection and solutions and inclusive solutions for refugees and other displaced populations.

And in this collective effort, women and girl voices must be amplified, heard, listened to.

This is the spirit in which the Global Compact for Refugees has been developed and adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations and UNHCR will sustain its efforts towards gender equality and the empowerment of refugee women in girls.

I take this opportunity to invite you all to our second World Refugee Forum that will take place in Geneva in December next year.

We all have a role to play, now more than ever. Thank you.