EU Ambassador to Pakistan visits Afghan refugee village

EU Ambassador to Pakistan visits Afghan refugee village

Haripur, 14 September 2022 (TDI): EU Ambassador to Pakistan visits Afghan refugee village in Haripur on Wednesday. She was there in the capacity of  Chair of the Support Platform for the Solutions Strategy for Afghan Refugees (SSAR) Core Group.

🇪🇺 Visiting an Afghan refugee village in Haripur 🇵🇰 today as chair of #SSARCoreGroup
📌 Important hear from the community about the impact of decades of displacement on their lives, their hopes💫 for the future and what is needed to help them pursue durable solutions#TeamEurope pic.twitter.com/zRlgosVHnm

— EUPakistan (@EUPakistan) September 14, 2022

Ambassador Kionka heard from the refugee communities about the impact of decades of displacement on their lives. She discussed their hopes for the future and what is needed to help these communities pursue durable solutions for a better future.

The EU Ambassador was accompanied by Paola Pampaloni, Deputy Managing Director European Union for the Asia Pacific region. Along with Ambassador Kionka, they heard the needs, dreams, and hopes of the refugee communities.

After 4 decades, Afghans in Pakistan are eager to build their communities & support their children to become teachers, doctors & engineers.

The visit was organized by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Pakistan.

Ambassador Kionka expressed her views through a tweet and wrote, “I myself am a child of refugees. Today’s visit was educational, inspiring and poignant: hope for a better future is a universal human quality.”

Also Read: Foreign Minister Pakistan on Afghan Refugees 

SSAR Support Platform

The Support Platform for the Solutions Strategy for Afghan Refugees (SSAR) was established in 2019 to underpin collective global efforts to build on a solutions approach.

Its creation is grounded in the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees that received wide support from the UN General Assembly. The Support Platform is led by Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, with UNHCR’s support as a secretariat.

In this time of humanitarian crisis, the Support Platform is more relevant than ever and will remain the key framework for comprehensive and coordinated support to the Afghanistan situation, including for those displaced inside Afghanistan and those who cross borders.

The Global Compact on Refugees highlights the importance of leadership and engagement by groups of States willing to mobilize contributions in aid of the work of Support Platforms. This is the basis for the creation of a Core Group for the SSAR Support Platform.

The current members of the Core Group are: European Union (as Chair), Asian Development Bank, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United Nations Development Programme, United States of America, and the World Bank.