Most migrants suffer from inadequate information and resources; often lack access to health services and financial protection for health from the host country. The right to health applies to everyone – irrespective of nationality, race, colour, sex or other status///CRIMSON TAZVINZWA////

Kanyambo is the chief operating officer of Choose Yourself, a nonprofit that empowers American, Ugandan, Kenyan and Rwandan girls in subjects ranging from mental health, reproductive rights and entrepreneurial skills. Her organization, which also aids stateless youth, is in the process of establishing a school at the Nakivale Refugee Settlement, one of the largest camps in Uganda.

Kanyambo met with any head of state or U.N. official who would listen at this year’s Africa Dialogue Series themed, “Towards Durable Solutions for the Forcibly Displaced Persons in Africa.”

Education and lifelong learning are two durable solutions, beyond the immediate humanitarian responses, that allow displaced people to integrate into society, said Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces, president of the 73rd Session of the U.N. General Assembly.

“We are contending with the worst displacement crisis since records began … We know that many displaced persons spend years, even decades in camps, in exile, in limbo,” said Garces, citing the importance of other solutions such as economic opportunities, societal contributions, voluntary return and repatriation.

“We need greater political and financial support for transitions at the humanitarian development nexus,” said Garces.

That sentiment prompted Kanyambo to attend the three-day event, which ended yesterday: “We need access to resources. We need partnership facilitation. And we need the United Nations to urge the Ugandan government to make this project a priority.”

It is impossible to talk about health issues in the past year in Europe without reflecting on the refugee crisis, and the challenges and opportunities that it has presented for Europe. Over one million children, women and men arrived at our shores and borders last year.

It is impossible to talk about health issues in the past year in Europe without reflecting on the refugee crisis, and the challenges and opportunities that it has presented for Europe. Over one million children, women and men arrived at our shores and borders last year.
The European Union had a common responsibility to ensure that these persons, many of them physically and mentally exhausted, were offered care and support, including through the provision of healthcare when required.
Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission

The challenge of migrants and refugees cannot be viewed as a short-term one that can be resolved exclusively by means of ‘exceptional’ or ‘emergency’ responses.

The drivers that result in large-scale movements of people within and between countries are diverse, complex and interactive. Many of them are more likely to increase rather than decrease in the coming decades, including extreme weather events and slower shifts in weather patterns resulting from global warming that can lead to food and water shortages and losses of livelihoods and impacts of population increases, urbanisation, land degradation, deforestation and sea level rise.

In addition, it can be expected that violence, political oppression and human rights abuses, as well as desires by people for a better life and greater economic opportunity, will continue to act as sources of involuntary or voluntary migration. It is therefore important to search for solutions that recognise migrants, refugees and asylum seekers as ‘part of society’ and that make them ‘structural’ rather than ‘external’ in health systems as well as other areas.