H.E. Ms. Noriko Yoshida-Representative, UNHCR Pakistan.

Protracted Afghan refugee situation and its solutions It's been forty years since civil war first broke out in Afghanistan. Since that time, the people of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan demonstrated unparalleled generosity to three generations of Afghan refugees. As UNHCR Representative, I oversee UNHCR's protection and assistance programme in Pakistan - a country that hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world and the largest in Asia - and I have so often witnessed the generosity of the Pakistani people and government.

Countless refugee children have been provided with quality education, refugee families able to access health care, and Pakistani and Afghan neighbours have forged lasting friendships. As developed nations are closing their doors and borders to refugees, Pakistan and Iran have opened theirs to provide asylum to 88 per cent of all Afghan refugees globally.

With this in mind, the international community has a duty to share this responsibility and ease the pressure on host communities, while promoting a stable future for Afghanistan and its people. Since 2002, over 4.4 million Afghan refugees have returned home from Pakistan. Today, 1.4 million registered refugees remain in the country.

At this juncture, increased investment must be made in development initiatives, and we must continue to support the peace process.

This requires sustained commitment, not just from the champions over the last 40 years, but new partners in the international arena. Only then can large numbers of Afghans return home to a future of peace and prosperity. In 2018, the Global Compact on Refugees was adopted by the UN General Assembly to guide and facilitate our collaborative commitments as a community of nations.

Its four objectives consist of easing pressure on countries hosting refugees; enhancing opportunities for refugees to become self-reliant; expanding refugees' access to third-country solutions such as resettlement and other pathways; and supporting conditions in refugees' countries of origin so that they may be able to voluntarily return in safety and dignity In December 2019, the Global Refugee Forum provided a platform for UN Member States to pledge, in bold new ways, how they will address the Afghan refugee situation. Pakistan was one of the co-conveners of the Global Refugee Forum.

It presented a unique opportunity to accelerate actions by governments, the private sector, international institutions and organizations as well...