Statement by the High Commissioner at the Summit of the Future 2024, New York

Thank you Mr. President,

This morning, we heard from three young people, including Monicah – a bright woman, a refugee.

I don’t have much to add to her wise and beautiful words but let me reflect from the same perspective: as the future also belongs to all the young people who, like Monicah, have been forced to flee their homes because of our collective failure to make peace.

And so these young people are now forced to dream of a new future – away from their countries or their communities.

What will those dreams be?

What will be the dreams of 120 million refugees and displaced people?

We have the opportunity to help them shape the future. Especially those for whom it brings fear as much as hope.

We have the opportunity to say that we refuse to let refugees bear the price of our failures. That we refuse to abandon those countries and communities that have been hosting refugees, decade after decade.

And what a chance we have. To include refugees and all displaced people, young and old. To open doors, schools, clinics to them, with support from the international community, so they can contribute to the communities hosting them – while we work, together, on finding solutions to their plight.

Let us all – donors, host countries, the private sector, the UN, civil society, displaced people, all! – work toward the vision of the Global Compact on Refugees. Where refugees are seen as an opportunity and not a burden, and they can think of a future in which they are not refugees.

And let me add UNHCR’s voice to Monicah’s voice, to the voice of all the displaced and join them in the call for peace.

At this Summit of the Future, we must be able to imagine and work towards a future without refugees – but without peace, Mr. President, this will simply not happen.