The Refugee Crisis is one of the worlds most intractable problems. 60 Million People have fled their homes, a third of them also fleeing their own country. But my guest today says the problem is fixable and we can do it easily. Hes The Economist professor sir paul collier. The solution, he argues, is to give refugeesjobs and in doing so, he suggests everyone will benefit. But if the answer is so simple, why hasnt it been done before . Paul collier, welcome to hardtalk. Thanks for inviting me on. Now, you have said of the syrian Refugee Crisis that it is entirely manageable, it is fixable, we can do it easily, and yet we are talking about millions of desperate people on the move why do you say it is so fixable . Because it is. The reason weve got a mess is two things. One is weve got an International System which is hopelessly broken. Weve got a system built in 1950 that is completely unfit for 21st century problems. And weve never changed it. So weve got a broken system which was then confronted by a potentially perfectly manageable crisis the syrian Refugee Crisis and what the responses were were then a bunch of political Headless Chickens who went through three phases. One, heartlessness, where theyjust ignored the problem. The refugees flooded into the neighbouring countries jordan, turkey and lebanon and those three countries were left to bear the burden. So that was the phase of heartlessness. Then, very briefly, for about five months, we went to the phase of headlessness, and the door was opened, inadvertently, it now turns out. And a small proportion of those refugees moved to europe, a small proportion. Were still talking millions. Were not, were talking less than a million Syrian Refugees moved to europe. There are 10 million displaced refugees. Most refugees, a large majority stayed put in the regional havens. They are not natural migrants. Of course, there were other migrants, though, who joined the wave of syrians. Of course, of course, migrants and refugees are very different categories of people. But i interrupted you that was the headless phase. And then, very rapidly, that door got slammed, and now were back in the heartless phase ship them back to turkey, right . And you have said that if there had been your words a timely application of the heart and the head, we could have achieved a very different scenario. And you went on to say, there needs have been no deaths through drowning, no exodus of the skilled to germany, and perhaps even no brexit. Yes im afraid all those are true. Lets start with the drownings, right . The drownings were entirely avoidable. If europe had wanted to open its doors to Syrian Refugees, if, then the sensible thing to do was to provide a safe means of transport from the haven countries, right . The message Swim To Europe was not an intelligent message. It made it inevitable that what we would get would be the south American People smugglers coming in, the big criminal businesses, who then sold places on little boats. People drowned. Not only did people drown, but because those places were so expensive, the average syrian a years income was not enough to buy a place on a boat. So that tells you who moved. Ok, but to take on your point about, if we had applied the head and the heart, how are you saying that we should have done that . Yeah, so lets start with. Go back to 2011, when the syrian Refugee Crisis started. People are displaced. As i said, the refugees are not migrants. They are people who have had to. Theyre actually people who have chosen to stay in their country. They flee out of fear fear of disorder, in some other scenarios fear of famine. And so you get across the board. Weve got to write this book, refuge, because alex and i, my co author, were brought intojordan by The Government. This is alexander betts. Yeah, yeah, we were brought into jordan because the jordanian government said, help, weve got a million refugees, its a small country, pretty poor, what on earth do we do . We were then taken to the main refugee camp. Alex, my co author, director of the refugee studies centre, he knew about refugees. Im an economist who works on poor countries. Im not really familiar with refugees. What i saw in zaatari really deeply shocked me. These were people who were being warehoused, their lives were on hold. Theyve got free food and free shelter, thats the model of the camp, so thats the model weve run for over 60 years feed them for free, clothe them for free, house them for free. And thats it schooling, no, work, no. These people have been infantilised. There was a light bulb moment for you. There really was. We went to this camp, as i say, alex was familiar, i wasnt, i was shocked, i was deeply moved. I was talking to refugees in their homes, im talking to a 16 year old kid, are you at school . No, no school. What do you do . Housework. Whats the house . Its a portakabin, you know, a container. Brothers and sisters, oh, yeah, ive got an 18 year old brother. What does he do . Oh, hes gone back to syria. 18 year old brother back in syria, whats he doing in syria . You guess, you know . So that was the camp. And then our somewhat bored jordanian government hosts said, you know, actually, once we are here, weve got time to show you something that is really cool, we are pretty proud of, and nothing to do with refugees. Its the king hussein Industrial Zone that weve just equipped, £100 million spent on it, 15 minutes away. Great big Industrial Zone connected to the grid and everything empty, empty. Because jordanians didnt want to go there to work. So forfour years, a big empty Industrial Zone which could have employed everybody in that camp was sitting empty, and nearly 100,000 Syrian Refugees were sitting idly in a camp, and nobody had connected it. Now, there is a reason why. Ok, but before you come onto it, we should explain that thejordanian government had approached you because you had a record, you are an oxford academic, but you had worked for The World Bank, you had advised David Cameron, you had advised, recently advised still advising, i think chancellor angela merkel, so you had a history of giving advice and being listened to by governments. I try and give practical under the radar screen advice that governments can use. Im an economist, and so i work on poorer countries, usually much poorer than jordan. But i try to come up with practical things that governments can do. So you are behind policies that David Cameron has come up with as a result of your book the bottom billion and plundering. The plundered planet, yeah, so. So you say to thejordanians, they take you to this £100 million virtually empty enterprise zone. And so we say, can we put two and two together . Can we create some jobs in the camps . Whatjordan was really anxious about, the reason they havent let refugees work was pretty obvious, that they couldnt provide enough jobs for their own citizens, let alone for refugees. So they saw letting refugees work as a threat. So what we suggested was, actually, youve got a big empty Industrial Zone, why is it empty . Because jordanians dont want to work there and firms dont want to come. Why dont you use the fact that youve got all these refugees as an opportunity to get you on the map, to getjordan noticed as a place where industry can come and bring jobs . We put that to the jordanian government, and it was like a light bulb, was their light bulb moment. Refugees could be an opportunity for our own economic development. And so theyve developed whats called Thejordanian Model now. And that involved, first, we went to brussels, and we persuaded the European Commission to change its trade policy towards jordan. The European Community had got Trade Barriers againstjordan. Well, nobody is going to produce goods to sell in europe if theres Trade Barriers. So the European Commission agreed, ok, well give you ten years open, free market access. That was a big change. Then i used my previous connections with The World Bank and said, where are you . You are missing in action. And they said, of course we are missing in action, jordan is an upper middle income country, were not allowed to work injordan, the board wont let us. So what did you ask them to do . I said, ask the board, take a project on refugees to the board. They said refugees are nothing to do with The World Bank if its refugee, its unhcr. Unhcr has a monopoly, has had a monopoly on refugees for the last 60 years, but it is a purely humanitarian agency. But if youre going to get people jobs, where are those jobs coming from . Who are the companies in whose interest it is to go to what arguably is a temporary setup, somewhere in another country . Weve been doing that for decades, its called globalisation. Germany has created Thousands Upon thousands, probably millions ofjobs in turkey. But we are talking about conversations that you first had two years ago, and it was launched a year ago what companies are now offering jobs in jordan . Weve now got 39,000 jobs already created, right . This is realjobs. Youve got 39,000 refugees working injordan who wouldnt have otherwise. That wouldnt have otherwise been working. And this is because of International Companies saying. We can do it, yes. The whole thing only got launched last year, and already theres stuff happening. Last september, the king ofjordan, king abdullah, said on cbs that jordan has always been a place that opens its arms to refugees, but now, and he made the point, a 20 increase in our population, such is the scale of the Refugee Crisis, the huge burden on our country, we are in dire straits, and he talked about what refugees were doing. Most were in towns looking for work, driving up rents, 160,000 syrian kids injordans schools, unemployment skyrocketing, our Health Sector saturated, our schools going through difficult times. And he made the point about how difficult it is. This doesnt solve that. In a way, this goes against that, doesnt it, if youre employing more syrians . Not at all, because part of the deal is that the jobs come for both syrians and jordanians. So the ratio that we are working to is for every 70 jobs for refugees, 30 forjordanians, and so its a win win. So the Companies Come in, they create new employment opportunities, new firms in the zones, and those jobs are shared. That model, Thejordanian Model, has already been copied in africa. The government of ethiopia is doing it now in their Industrial Zones. So your argument that there have been 30,000 plus newjobs created, there have been, what, 15,000 Jobs Forjordanians . Yes, yes, yes, these are doable things, right . And dont forget, this is starting cold from a new idea, where no institution is used to doing it. If wed had this system in place, if the global Refugee System had been changed years ago, as it needed to be changed, if wed had a system that was fit for purpose, this would have been easy because what we need. But youve still got a problem, though, because youve got a neighbouring country, and your argument is, lets keep refugees local, because they ultimately want to go back. But they have children, they need health services. The pressure on services, and the scale of this, whether it isjordan or lebanon or turkey, we are talking about a massive influx of people that is really overwhelming the local population. Thats why weve got aid programmes. The world bank, in october, did go to the board, it did approve 300 million loan tojordan on soft terms to provide jobs in the Industrial Zones for refugees and jordanians, the first loan it had ever done on refugees in 60 years, and at the same time approved soft money for lebanon to provide schooling for children, for refugee children. So we can use International Aid money both forjobs and for the social services that are being stretched to breaking point. Ok, so your argument is extend the rights of the refugees in a way, not just shelter and food, keep those, but put alongside it a right to work. Of course, and a right to decent social services, to education and suchlike. But the moment you do that, you have effectively incentivised them to stay, because the argument that they should remain local is that they will go home. But if you effectively create a new parallel life, where it is still going to be years, and they have invested perhaps in a business, why would they then go home . Well, most people, actually, want to go home. Dont forget, these people, that is mostly what they dream of, going home. Conflicts do end, and you can think of this as actually incubating the jobs that can move back to the post conflict society. When syria gets back to peace, which it will, the firms that are operating in jordan, if there were workforce, a lot of their workforce wants to go back to syria, they can set up an operation in syria. One of the miracles of capitalism is that its not a zero sum game. If its profitable injordan, it can stay injordan. If a chunk of your workforce is already skilled and trained and wants to go home to syria, you can set up an operation in syria. So give us an example of a company that is employing people now in jordan that wasnt before. One of the things that happening is who needs refuge coming out of syria . Notjust Syrian People syrian businesses. And so now syrian businesses are moving to the zones, werent allowed to do before there was no protection for syrian businesses. And they moved tojordan. So businesses that were operating in syria are moving tojordan because of the enterprise zones. If you were being bombed to bits in aleppo, you might think its a good idea to move. But is that injordans interests . Of course it is theyre getting jobs for their own people as well. As i say, capitalism is not zero sum. If you set up a succesful firm injordan, why would you ever close it . Even if you can then restart the operation back in syria. Earlier this month, we had the mayor of a town in lebanon, the mayor of naameh, called charbel matar, saying, we have to stand with our own people first before we stand with the syrians, and he was saying that as he was issuing a decree to order businesses owned or operated by syrians to close, which was in keeping with the law. Yeah, i mean, thats tragic, isnt it . So its no good lecturing The Government ofjordan, saying, you mustnt do that. Its no good preaching weve got to make it in The Government of lebanons interests to do things that are helpful to refugees, as well as to their own population. But their population is 11. 5 million, theyve got more than 1 million Syrian Refugees. I mean those are just numbers that are unsustainable, even with your model, surely. I think thats probably right, i think lebanon is kind of off the map, right . When you get to that stage, you need. Actually, before you get to that stage, you need some sort of threshold which says, now other countries have got to bear some of the burden. What about Something Like what you called the Headless Policy Of Chancellor angela merkel, allowing in many refugees in a Strong Economy . Why has that, in your terms, not worked . Why would that not be successful . Well, i think, first of all, it was a noble gesture, so im still working with the chancellor this was a noble thing to do, but it wasnt a thought through thing. It was done very quick decision, wasnt thought through. Youre working very closely with her at the moment, you speak to her, you tell her it was a mistake and she says what . Shes reversed the policy i dont need to tell her it was a mistake, shes reversed the policy. Has she acknowledged to you that it was a mistake . Of course not politicians dont use words like mistakes, do they . But she changed the policy, right . 180 degrees. Something like less than 5 of the syrian population is in europe, but something between a third and a half of all syrians with University Educations are now in europe. And your argument that its a tragedy is because, ultimately, theyre needed back in syria. Theyre the very people who will be needed to rebuild the country. I do a lot of work on post conflict countries. The real bottleneck is skilled people. But so german policy, you advise, should be to encourage them to stop them staying. It depends how long it is before they can go back. At some stage, its obviously sensible to think that people are there for life. But at the moment, yes, its too soon to settle people for life. They should be basically prepared with the skills that they can go back. Germany is the ultimate successful model of high skill, high training, high credentials, high minimum wage job market. So syrians, even those with a university education, are utterly unsuited for the jobs that germany has, unfortunately. It would be far easier for germany to create jobs for refugees injordan than it is in germany. So those refugees, Syrian Refugees in germany, would be better off injordan . Theyd have a job. Theyd be the elite theyd have a job, yeah. Even now, youd send them back . Im not in the business of sending people back. The german government. But that is the logic of your position. The german government, i would remind you, is actually sending people back, thats the model now. I believe its sensible for europe to take some. One of our principles is solidarity, everybody, every country has a duty of rescue, and that duty of rescue is partly to provide haven. You talk about politicians acting as Headless Chickens, you also talked about an International System that was broken in part, because its dependent on the unhcr, which you say is effectively working to laws that were devised just after 1950. We have a situation now where the president , the new american president , is talking about cutting funding, a 28 budget cut to diplomacy and foreign aid, and that would include the money that goes to the unhcr, and America Funds more than a quarter of the unhcr. Given how critical you are of it, do you see that, actually, as perhaps not such a bad thing . I think unhcr needs to change. We talk a lot with unhcr, and one of their responses to our argument is, we are not a job agency. Well, that is true, unhcr isnt a job agency, but unfortunately what refugees most need is a job agency. So either unhcr changes staffing, skills up, and actually becomes capable of operating in the economic space, getting business to createjobs. Or . Or we bring in other agencies that are already doing that The World Bank, undp. The tragedy of the last 60 years is unhcr has had a monopoly, and its a humanitarian only mandate. And so its what, contributed to the problem . Yes, its perpetuated a problem that shouldnt have been a problem by now. You know, World Numbers of displaced and refugees are at a post 1950 peak. But richard gowan, whos a un expert at the European Council on foreign relations, talked about the cuts, saying they would cause chaos and leave a gaping hole that other big donors would struggle to fill. Its the wrong hole to fill. The camps, the free food, the free shelter that is the wrong hole to fill. The whole we need to fill, which is at the moment a glaringly empty hole, is jobs. Tragically, at the moment, most politicians are reacting in really dysfunctional ways. The narrative has become, weve got to keep refugees out, they are a danger. When you talk to people about refugees now, instead of their instinct being compassion, the instinct is fear. The big asset that refugees should have is automatically triggering the compassion of the vast bulk of humanity. Paul collier, thank you for coming on hardtalk. Thank you. Hello. As weve been finding out recently, spring can bring such a variety of weather and sometimes we try to cram it all into one day. That was the case on thursday. At its best, glorious. 15 degrees and plenty of sunshine, thank you very much, in fife. Elsewhere, quite a bit of cloud. Eventually the cloud was thick enough for there to be some showery bits and pieces of rain. As we start friday they are tending to transfer away from the eastern side of the British Isles and move over towards the west. So perhaps youd think my next phrase will be about frost. That was the way of it on thursday morning, but with more in the way of cloud around i suspect friday we will start in positive territory in many parts of the British Isles. The thicker cloud, drifting from east to west, is very much tied in with his weakening weather front, but its still got enough about it in the first part of the day to be producing a scattering of showery bursts of rain. Not much more than that it. If you are still desperate for rain, as many are in central and southern parts of the British Isles, this is not the feature for you. It will dampen the ground, but not much more than that. Generally speaking, a lot of dry weather. Not much of a breeze. So the temperatures may not be much better than 8 10 degrees, but somewhere on the south coast perhaps we will get about 14 15. Wherever you are, given the absence of a breeze, not bad. However, we turn on the fan towards the bank holiday weekend. Breezy fair windy across some western parts. We see that manifesting itself first thing on saturday. There will be some rain in the forecast, but this is not the day either. Saturday looking to be a half decent day. A scattering of showers. Its on into sunday where we start to think about that combination of wet and windy weather for some. I have to say straightaway that theres still some uncertainty about exactly where that low pressure is going to throw the rain in from south western approaches. Wales and the South West Look favourite at the moment. Check on the forecast over the next couple of days if youve got some serious plans. With the breeze in the south east i think the north West Of Scotland fares nicely. Ahead of the rain we can push the temperatures up to 17 18 in the south. Eventually the rain clears away for monday, leaving areas fairly cloudy but dry. Im Sharanjit Leyl in singapore. The headlines Kimjong Un Is not insane. So says the us Secretary Of State Rex Tillerson as he prepares to chair a Un Security Council meeting on north korea. A chilling discovery at a Police Station in manila Human Rights Officers find more than ten undocumented prisoners in a secret lock up cell. Im alpa patel in london. Also in the programme slaughtered for their skins. 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