Opinion | I’ve Been the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees for a Decade. This Is the Crisis I See.

I became the United Nations high commissioner for refugees in January 2016, when violence in Syria was in full spate. That conflict, which began in 2011 and lasted until the ouster of Bashar al-Assad’s regime one year ago, killed hundreds of thousands and sent millions fleeing for their lives.

This summer I stood on the border between Lebanon and Syria and heard trucks and buses sound their horns in celebration as they carried people back to villages, towns and cities. More than a million Syrians have returned from abroad since last December. If the fragile peace holds, more will follow.

The lesson ought to be obvious: Syrian refugee numbers fell not because of draconian border policies, patrols on land or at sea, or xenophobic rhetoric. They fell because the fighting finally stopped.

Yet to judge from the backlash in several countries against refugees, asylum-seekers, migrants — in some cases, simply foreigners — this lesson is not being absorbed. Instead, many governments are choosing tighter borders, higher fences, bigger deterrents and cuts to foreign aid.

As I prepare to step down after a decade as high commissioner for refugees, I see not only conflicts and emergencies affecting every region of the world, but also a crisis of global leadership, a failure of imagination and ambition, and a proliferation of populist rhetoric that is numbing us to the plight of others.

Ordinary people have genuine concerns about the abuse of asylum systems, the security of their borders and the capacity of their public services. One cannot dismiss or trivialize such worries. And compassion fatigue is hardly surprising: It is difficult to keep track of all the world’s crises when many go unresolved while new ones erupt.

But we seem to be in a race to the bottom, where even moderate politicians compete to announce the harshest (and often ineffective) policies rather than attempt to solve the issues. Brutal simplicity may be easier to sell than complex, long-term, multilateral engagement, but the latter produces more effective results.

The international community should invest in asylum systems, to make them faster, more efficient and better able to return people who do not need the help. Governments have an obligation to control their borders, but they also have a shared responsibility to protect those fleeing for their lives. It is a responsibility that many states willingly agreed to a few years after World War II. A responsibility that does not impinge on sovereignty, but is an expression of it.

There is much more to do beyond focusing on borders. More than 70 percent of refugees live in middle- and low-income countries, including some of the world’s poorest nations. Relatively few move toward wealthier countries, and then only when there is no alternative where they are — no work, no school, no hope. Nobody wants to risk their life on a packed and leaking boat, or a desert road or jungle path harassed by traffickers, armed groups and myriad other dangers.

We must provide much greater support for states that host refugees, particularly those with few resources like Chad, Uganda, Lebanon, Bangladesh and others. Ensuring that these countries can offer jobs, education, housing and other rights to refugees is not free, but it is a good investment. It gives refugees hope and a measure of stability. It enables them to become social and economic contributors. It equips them with the means to help rebuild their countries when they return home.

This approach — where humanitarian aid meets development meets peacemaking — is about pragmatic self-interest as much as principle. The disorderly movement of millions of desperate people can be viewed as a security issue, given the pressure on borders it creates. And, frankly, it can be addressed at little cost compared with the huge amounts spent on defense.

I began my humanitarian career more than 40 years ago in refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border. In the years since, I have worked in refugee crises in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Great Lakes region of Africa, with Palestinian refugees and many others. I have seen terrible suffering, but there was always a bulwark against inhumanity: the aid workers on the front lines, and the international consensus to support and protect those in need.

My time at the U.N. High Commission for Refugees is ending as the agency reaches its 75th anniversary. Next July, the Refugee Convention itself will also turn 75. Its critics say that this cornerstone of international law is no longer suited to a world of mass travel and multiple conflicts. Wrong. Flexible, pragmatic and widely applicable, it is entirely suited to such a world — it’s the legal translation of the human obligation to protect people fleeing persecution, violence and war, enshrined for centuries in all cultural traditions.

Today, some 117 million people have been forced to flee their homes, either to safer parts of their own country or across an international border. The tools to help them survive, rebuild and eventually return home already exist. But they require time, cooperation, trust and a desire to invest in peace rather than war.

Filippo Grandi is the United Nations high commissioner for refugees.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.

Related Content