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We live in a deeply connected world, and if we want stability and prosperity in our connected world, we have to look after the weakest links as well as the strongest parts.
— David Miliband
British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary
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I recently heard from a woman in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo who said, 'until I met the IRC, I didn't know that rape was a crime… I didn't know rape was even a word…' that was immensely powerful.
— David Miliband
British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary
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If you don't give people legal routes to hope, they will find illegal routes and put themselves in the hands of criminals. That's the reality. We have record numbers of refugees and displaced people, and so for criminal gangs this is a business which is at scale.
— David Miliband
British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary
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When you empower people economically, your social programmes go further. The idea that there is a stark separation between a social program that's sustainable and economic program that's a luxury doesn't fit the reality. When you join economic empowerment to social protection, you get double the benefit.
— David Miliband
British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary
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The displacement that people face is now over generations not just years. The old model was to keep people alive until they go home. That model is broken, less than 3% of the world's refugees went home last year.
— David Miliband
British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary
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In 2013, the International Rescue Committee were looking for a new CEO, and at the interview panel I said that I was applying for the job firstly because I thought some of the questions at the intersection of foreign policy and humanitarian aid were some of the most difficult questions in global public policy. How do you get aid into Syria? How do you educate kids in Afghanistan? How do you tackle sexual violence in the Congo? Those are difficult questions, and I like difficult questions.
— David Miliband
British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary
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Empowerment means we are able to sustain hope in a situation that may – to many outsiders – look hopeless.
— David Miliband
British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary
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The gap between the situation of people caught in conflict and the rest of us is growing, not narrowing. The gap is not going to be narrowed by trying to change the words on paper, we have to live up to them.
— David Miliband
British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary
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When you empower people economically, your social programmes go further. When you join economic empowerment to social protection, you get double the benefit and thus there is a very hard-headed reason to support livelihoods not just lives.
— David Miliband
British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary
"
The displacement that people face is now over generations not just years. The old model was to keep people alive until they go home. That model is broken, less than 3% of the world's refugees went home last year.
— David Miliband
British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary