'Betts and Collier offer innovative insights into how to more effectively meet this challenge, with an important new focus on international solidarity and refugee empowerment' Kofi Annan
'Refugees and policy makers need practical answers to what is now a global crisis. This valuable book represents the kind of can-do thinking that we need to see' David Miliband
An eye-opening account of the migrant crisis which shows why our global refugee regime is broken and how it can be fixed
Europe is facing its greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War, yet the institutions responding to it remain virtually unchanged from those created in the post-war era. As neighbouring countries continue to bear the brunt of the Syrian catastrophe, European governments have enacted a series of ill-considered gestures, from shutting their borders to welcoming refugees without a plan for their safe passage or integration upon arrival. With a deepening crisis and a xenophobic backlash in Europe, it is time for a new vision for refuge.
Going beyond the scenes of desperation which have become all too familiar in the past few years, Alexander Betts and Paul Collier show that this crisis offers an opportunity for reform if international policy-makers focus on delivering humane, effective and sustainable outcomes - both for Europe and for countries that border conflict zones. Refugees need more than simply food, tents and blankets, and research demonstrates that they can offer tangible economic benefits to their adopted countries if given the right to work and education.
An urgent and necessary work, Refuge sets out an alternative vision that can empower refugees to help themselves, contribute to their host societies, and even rebuild their countries of origin.
Imprint: Penguin
Published: 30/03/2017
ISBN: 9780241289242
Length: 288 Pages
RRP: £9.99
Refuge is the first comprehensive attempt in years to rethink from first principles a system hidebound by old thinking and hand-wringing. Its ideas demand a hearing
[A] brilliant polemic ... [Refuge] is very strong on diagnosis ... [Betts and Collier] come up with a number of ingenious remedies
Brilliant ... Instead of making the usual hand-wringing humanitarian gestures, Betts and Collier have come up with some mind-blowingly simple, practical solutions, particularly for refugees from fragile or war-torn states
This book is a rare and wonderful thing: a work of politically engaged scholarship with a trenchant analysis and original solutions ... Betts and Collier can look at the bigger picture. They may thereby have helped to improve millions of lives
A brilliantly argued book... It's a call to action and it's absolutely needed
A page-turner
Based on careful historical and economic analysis, Refuge proposes win-win-win improvements for the world's 20 million international refugees. The integration of refugees encamped across the borders of their homelands into the economies of their hosts will contribute to their hosts' development; dispel the refugees' loss of hope; and further allow them to contribute to their homelands, if it is ever safe for their return. Refuge is the seminal work on one of the world's most important problems
This book is both timely and radical. But is also down to earth and practical. It is time to stop spouting the same old mantras about the existing refugee conventions and look at how we can best genuinely help refugees both now and in the future. Collier and Betts point the way
Refugees and policy makers need practical answers to what is now a global crisis. This valuable book represents the kind of can-do thinking that we need to see
This book is a must-read on one of the defining issues of our time. As the number of refugees reaches record highs, Refuge takes us beyond the simple emotional versus political split of the migration debate, by offering smart, practical solutions to address the global crisis. As such, every policymaker, and concerned citizen should read it!