UNITED NATIONS, May 23 (Xinhua) -- A senior UN official on Thursday underscored the importance of development when it comes to the issue of displacement in Africa.
Speaking at a media roundtable conference on Africa, Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Africa Bience Gawanas said, "I will be really one of those who advocate increasing investment in development, so that people will have basic service and necessities like access to education, to health care and to water and sanitation."
We will make sure that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) benefit people in Africa, and especially those forcibly displaced people, Gawanas said.
Wafaa Saeed, deputy director of the Operations and Advocacy Division of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that "we need to make life better, in order to make people to return to their home."
By June 2018, Africa hosted 6.2 million refugees and asylum-seekers representing one third of the the world's refugee populations, and 15.5 million internally displaced persons.
The Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA), in collaboration with the African Union Commision, OCHA and other agencies, is organizing the next edition of the African Dialogue Series.
