The reintegration of refugees depends on the socio-economic recovery of their home countries. However, our efforts are limited and cannot address the enormous rehabilitation and development needs of post-conflict societies like Cambodia. Unless there is the commitment, capacity and resources to tackle these diverse and difficult challenges, refugee solutions will remain at best fragile, at worst elusive. Finally, the need for an integrated approach. Cambodia demonstrated the critical importance of placing refugee issues within a larger strategy of peace-making and human rights.
Humanitarian action can buy time and space for political action.
It can consolidate peace, for instance through the return of refugees. But it cannot be a substitute for political action. In Asia, we learned to forsake old assumptions and fashion new concepts. We learned to mix action with imagination. Most importantly of all, we learned to work with a wide range of governmental and non-governmental partners.