During the annual High Commissioner's Dialogue, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres called on the international community to urgently adapt and respond to the new challenges of population growth, urbanization, climate change, water and food scarcity and energy insecurity.
8 December 2010: During the annual High Commissioner’s Dialogue, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres stressed the growing gaps in the global framework for safeguarding displaced and stateless people, and called on the international community to urgently adapt and respond to the new challenges of population growth, urbanization, climate change, water and food scarcity and energy insecurity.
The High Commissioner highlighted three areas for attention, including protection gaps in the international system for adequately protect displaced people; the disproportionate burden of responsibility for helping refugees that falls on poor countries; and failures by many States to solve the situation of statelessness people and lack of other human rights. The High Commissioner also highlighted the need for action on displacement problems caused by natural disasters, climate change, economic and other man-made calamities, gang violence and vulnerability arising from the uncertainty of post-conflict situations for which no agreed international solutions currently exist. [UNHCR Press Release]