Worldwide there are 70,8 million people who have been forced to leave their home, approximately 60% stem from only three countries: Syria, Afghanistan and South Sudan. About 80% of the refugees find asylum in a neighboring country like Turkey or Pakistan.
Despite the global outcry on how to solve the crisis, it often leads to heated discussion with little or no real outcome. Potential hosting countries are often overwhelmed by the challenges which come with taking in a lot of people. Parts of society even might be scared by it, especially in countries where the cultural differences loom large. Right parties continuously use this fear to gain new votes and rise to political power.
It is now the 8th year into the Syria conflict and the world is far from finding a solution.
The Syrian civil war in short: In 2011 anti-government demonstrations developed into a total disaster when President Bashar al-Assad tried to crush the protests violently and deadly. From then on the opposition took up arms themselves and a civil war began which took 360.000 lives and forced millions of people to flee.
When you are forced to leave your home because a full-blown war is going on, you do not exactly have a great deal of time to plan anything or grab all your certificates (If you have any). This brings us to the first problem, you might not be able to proof your identity in the country you find exile in (in case a country actually provides you exile). Without any proof of identity you most likely struggle in finding a job, having a bank account, boarding a plane or renting an apartment. Just a few examples but every single one of them complicates your life tremendously. If you are basically not identifiable you have no protection by the law whatsoever.
Syrian refugees do not have access to a trustworthy state-based system which could prove their identity. One thing refugees often do have with them is a mobile phone as this allows them access to a wide variety of information and helps them in their dangerous journey.
ID2020, an alliance of Microsoft, Accenture and Gavi tries to solve the identity crisis by creating a digital ID which is based on blockchain and biometrics. At various enrollment stations throughout the world they will collect your biometrics , e.g. fingerprints, Iris or your voice, and then create a unique identifier which is saved to the blockchain. You can then manage your identity on your mobile device. A completely decentralized way, which does gives you the control of your identity and not some government which might be corrupt or at war or even both.
Big Data and cloud services might also help in doing more predictive analysis which would allow to get a much better understanding of a crisis. Several databases could be combined in the cloud so multiple stakeholders could access and combine the data to gain understanding on how to predict where help is going to be needed. One example Mercy Corps gives, is for example the prices of goat meat. If there is a significant change in the price of goat meat in a specific region this might be an indication that the residents are trying to get rid of their goats before they leave the region. Further analysis could be done to which country the people from this region tend to migrate and the chosen country could prepare.
Stanford University uses a machine learning algorithm to match refugees to specific regions were their skillset matches best the working environment which increases their chances to find a job up to 70%. Unfortunately, this service currently only is available in the US and Switzerland, but it could potentially be scaled.
Victims of bombings often loose some limbs. Unfortunately, many children are affected by the bombings too. Two Jordanian founders Loay Malahmeh and Dave Levin founded 3D Mena, the company creates 3D printed prosthetic hands. They can print a complete arm costing less than $75 which is a tenth of the original cost.
Problems like this should be erased at the root, but this should be the job of the politicians. Where politics fail, technology can do its part to help the victims to the best of its abilities. Furthermore new innovations created in crisis are not only suitable for refugees and could help the whole world. For example worldwide there are many more people who are in need of an affordable prosthesis.
While all of these initiatives come with great intentions and help the refugees tremendously, many of them lack the founding to reach all in need.
Consequently none of them currently has the potential to stop the suffering right now, hence remains a task for the worldwide community to find a way.
Sources:
https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/zm8ajj/how-tech-is-helping-to-solve-the-refugee-crisis
Harnessing the Power of Technology to Solve the Refugee Crisis
https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35806229
https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-blockchain-id2020
https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/syria/how-can-technology-transform-refugee-crisis
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