The United Nations has urged governments, businesses and other agencies to “reboot” the world’s response to refugees, with the number of people fleeing their homes rising as hostility to migrants increases.

The UN and Switzerland are hosting the first Global Refugee Forum in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The event is aimed at drawing pledges of financial, technical and other assistance, as well as encouraging changes of policy to enable better inclusion for refugees in society.

Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees, told the event: “Our world is in turmoil and 25 million refugees are looking to us for solutions.”

He noted that the number is far higher if people who are displaced within their own countries are included.

Mr Grandi said: “As a new decade dawns with some 71 million people uprooted from their homes globally, inside and outside their countries, it’s time to reboot our responses.”

Antonio Guterres
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (AP)

He called for a “broad alliance” of governments, business, development institutions, the aid community, sports organisations and other bodies.

Officials noted that most of the world’s biggest refugee hosts are not among the globe’s richest countries.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world must do more to shoulder the responsibility together.

“Developing and middle-income countries admirably host the vast majority of refugees and warrant greater support,” he told the forum.

In addition, he said, “at a time when the right to asylum is under assault, when so many borders and doors are being closed to refugees, when even child refugees can be divided from their families, we need to reaffirm the human rights of refugees”.