Committee Name: Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian Committee (SOCHUM) Committee Topic: Refugees In Consistently Unstable Regions Country

Name: Federal Republic of Nigeria Introduction: Refugees are people living in regions constantly affected by conflict or environmental conditions, and are forced to flee from their homes and their stable economic standing in order to maintain their safety. In the UNHRCs annual Global Trends report released on June 16, 2009, there are a total of sixteen-million refugees and asylum seekers, and another twenty-six million internally displaced persons uprooted within their own countries. Efforts have been made, however, to resolve the issue. In fact, the figure describing 42 million refugees is the first drop in the refugee population since 2006 because of voluntary repatriation, and the downward revision of estimated of refugees, and asylum seekers. Refugees today face many challenges, most of them being repatriation, and for some asylum-seekers, to gain the title refugee. In most cases, when someone is forced to evacuate their own country, and seek refuge in another, are faced with conditions unimaginable to some. They are forced to lead lives of hunger in refugee camps, ridden with disease and sickness. They find it hard to put a roof over their heads, and rarely find sufficient food and water. On top of these miserable conditions, however, refugees are also faced with the impossible task of self-sufficiency But the current conditions in refugee camps are dreadful. With numerous diseases running throughout the camps, and people constantly in need of critical aid due to dehydration or malnutrition, people have little to depend upon in the camps. On top of that, the camps education programs are not able to sufficiently teach the meager amount of those able to learn, as they are at a shortage of teacher, and there are no teaching supplies.

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Solution: As with any situation regarding involvement between two countries, Nigeria proposes, first and foremost, the repatriation of refugees from their countries of asylum into their countries of origin. These refugees would undergo a screening process carried out three times annually, and if they were not to be deemed self-sustainable, they would be escorted to their country of origin. By doing so, money would not be spent on those who are able to sustain themselves. These screening processes would be monitored by the UNHCR, in order to ascertain the economic standing of these people, so as to not offer aid to asylum-seekers, and filter out those truly in need of aid. These processes would be funded by a system in which a certain percentage of the total gross national income (GNI) of all member states and the VAT (Value Added Tax) would be gathered and put into a fund. The VAT would use a formula to create the harmonized tax base, and will be capped at 50% of the total countries accumulated GNI. The money that is accumulated would then be placed in a fund to aid countries attempting to deal with their refugees, or to offer economic sustainability plans to repatriated refugees. The second step would be to conduct annual bi-lateral or multi-lateral talks to be hosted by a Council on Global Development and Environment, which would assume the overall responsibility of setting guidelines for repatriation between the countries of origin and asylum. The council and participating nations would consider the number of refugees, the motive for which they were forced to evacuate their country of origin and the presence of that motive during the talks. These guidelines would include deciding the means of transport for the refugees, the funding to implement the repatriation itself, and would work to resolve any conflict that would stand as a barrier between the refugees and their chances of repatriation. The third and final step would be

to offer aid to those who have been repatriated, but seeing as how the countries of origin may not be able to sustain the refugees, Nigeria proposes the integration of NGOs within the respective refugee sectors of the governments taking part in the talks, so that the governments would receive the resources and funding that can be provided by the NGOs. On top of that, specific specialized NGOs would facilitate particular needs of the refugees, like in the cases of education, health care, adequate housing and shelter, and basic needs such as food and water. Furthermore, Nigeria recommends that governments that have not already done so to implement economic sustainability plans to be given to the refugees. These plans would offer benefits to the refugees, such as monetary aid or employment opportunities, affordable temporary housing, and social security. Nigeria would also like to focus on the short term aspects of this issue, such as the current condition of the refugee camps, and their abilities to sustain large numbers of refugees. Some reformation that need to be put into effect in these camps include sanitation, medical facilities and aid offered to the refugees, and education systems so that the refugees would be able to sustain themselves. Specialized NGOs, such as Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) should be implemented into the refugee camps to help improve their sanitary conditions, seeing as how health in the camps is dire, and is the main cause of loss of funding and casualties among the residents, and lack of access to clean water is a very present danger in the camps. In fact, the UNHCR estimated that more than half the refugee camps in the world are not able to provide the recommended minimum daily water requirement of 20 liters per person, while an estimated 30% do not have adequate waste disposal and latrine facilities. Another specialized NGO that should be implemented is RESPECT (Refugee Education Sponsorship Program), which would help in providing aid to those in the camps. The education programs that would be provided, however,

would be specifically tailored to the needs, and current industries of the countries that the camps reside in, helping the refugees chances of employment in order to increase their likelihood of self-sustainability. To touch upon the topic o