Ministry Statements & Speeches:
Mr President,
New Zealand welcomes the timely report by the Secretary-General on refugees and migrants and its call for a new and comprehensive framework to address large movements of refugees and migrants.
The New York Declaration on refugees and migrants that we adopted this morning is a critical step. But it is only a first step. Innovative solutions and agreement on concrete outcomes are required. We must look to greater and earlier investment in conflict prevention and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda to address the root causes of the current unprecedented flows of irregular migration.
Mr President,
As we have heard today, mass movements of vulnerable people cause untold disruption, despair and devastation for individuals, communities and countries, the refugees and as the recipient communities which absorb them. The challenges posed are complex and multifaceted, and we have a shared responsibility to manage the irregular migration flows in a collaborative and comprehensive way, with full respect for international law.
New Zealand is committed to doing our bit. We will continue to work with the UNHCR and the international community to find protection solutions for the most vulnerable people and to resettle refugees under our Refugee Quota Programme, the size of which we are increasing.
In our own region, New Zealand is committed to strengthening cooperation and the capacity to address irregular migration, in particular through the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime.
In March, Ministers endorsed a landmark Bali Declaration. It acknowledges the growing scale and complexity of irregular migration challenges and aims to reinforce regional long-term strategies, dismantle criminal human trafficking and smuggling syndicates, and expand legal, safe and affordable migration pathways.
In the Pacific, the potential for future climate-induced migration is of real concern. New Zealand has endorsed the Nansen Initiative on Disaster-Induced Cross-Border Displacement and the Platform on Disaster Displacement
Mr President,
New Zealand will continue to play our part as we work towards the adoption of Global Compacts on refugees and migrants that are meaningful, ambitious and based upon legal obligations and standards, which and harness the key commitments on forced displacement made at the World Humanitarian Summit earlier this year.
We will do our best in our remaining months in the Security Council to spur the Council to take more steps to address and to resolve the crises in Syria, Libya South Sudan and elsewhere which, to a very large extent have driven the problems we are discussing today.
Thank you.