As you know, the United Nations is conducting the global compact exercise, both for refugees and for migration. I understand that there's some difficulty getting consensus on the global compact on refugees. Migration seems to be going somewhat more smoothly.
I think the difficulty in achieving consensus on refugees is that there are very different views among the governments of the world, and the UN intergovernmental negotiation system is usually a race to the bottom. I'm sure it will be a worthwhile compact, but it won't be enough. That's why the council wants to come in with recommendations that will build on it and try to raise the level of the objectives.
The council has travelled a great deal in the course of our work. We've been to Tanzania and Addis Ababa; I was in northern Uganda a few months ago, in Colombia during the summer, in the eastern Mediterranean, and in Berlin.
By the way, if budgets allow, may I respectfully say that it would be extremely useful if this committee could travel as well and see for yourselves what's out there—not only the refugees, but also the host communities and what the attitudes are that we're dealing with.
In Berlin, for example, we met with the business community, with NGOs, with refugees themselves, and with spokespeople from government. The views are very disparate, but it's important for us to listen to them.
Coming to your question, I have two observations from what we've seen.
First, the host countries—Uganda in the case of South Sudan, Jordan in the case of Syria, Colombia in the case of Venezuela—are coping, some better than others. Uganda and Colombia are remarkably generous in the way they're receiving and accommodating refugees, but the other category consists of countries in which it's not going so well. I'm thinking here of some countries in Europe in particular where attitudes are not positive and there's a great deal of resistance, and where there's a concern that refugees are going to undermine culture, threaten security, or take jobs.
The World Refugee Council has recommendations that we hope can deal with that problem. Here are just two quick examples. In Jordan, in order to encourage refugees to remain in Jordan and in order to assist the government of Jordan with its political problem with the number of refugees from Syria, the European Union entered into an agreement by which it lowered the tariff on Jordanian goods being exported to Europe on the condition that the Jordanian government issue work permits to Syrian refugees. That's a win-win for everybody, and it's helping out.
The other thing that is going on is that the international financial institutions are starting to make concessional financing available to host countries to assist them, and that's helping too. In answer to your question, though, attitudes are variable, and I think what's required is some leadership. I think Canada is well positioned to provide it.