Planning for a sustainable policy for the Ukrainian refugee emergency: What happens at the war’s end?

As the world struggles to comprehend, let alone accommodate, the extraordinary numbers of individuals fleeing the war in Ukraine, we ask how can states best mobilize to receive them?

While grassroots efforts to welcome migrants into private homes are remarkable gestures of solidarity, how long can Poland and even better-resourced countries, like Italy, sustain the flow? Further, the European Union’s temporary protection directive ensures a unified approach to rights and efficient border crossings, but what will it mean for Ukrainians to live indefinitely in a state of insecurity? And finally, countries like Canada – which is home to the world’s second largest Ukrainian diaspora -- are welcoming refugees with open arms, but are they pulling refugees too far away from the homeland to which they want to eventually return?

Join CERC Migration for an urgent conversation on what policies will best sustain Ukrainian refugees for the long term. Discussion includes:

• The limits to the grassroots aid in Poland, Maggie Perzyna, CERC Migration, Ryerson University
• Security: the one thing EU’s emergency response can’t give, Zeynep Sahin-Mencutek, Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies
• How far can Italy go? Maurizio Ambrosini, University of Milan
• What are the lessons learned from Canada’s past humanitarian response to Syrian and Afghan refugees? Audrey Macklin, University of Toronto

Chair: Anna Triandafyllidou, CERC Migration, Ryerson University