Comment by kpil | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kpil | Hacker News Reader

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I think lately his illness, but I think he peaked in popularity just before he stated his belief that it is multiple times (100 times?) more efficient to help refugees from the Middle East and Africa in their home countries or local region rather than he to help them in Sweden.

This was a position held only by the nationalistic (and at least partially racist) political party Sverigedemokraterna, but I think he simply looked at the numbers and saw that the cost for refugees in Sweden is at least 5 (10?) times higher than UNHCR's total budget, while helping only 1-2% of the number of refugees compared to what UNHCR administers.

If I remember correctly, he might have mentioned that at a big fundraiser supporting immigration which was a truth no one wanted to hear, as the "story" as told by media at the time conveyed that the middle east and Africa is inhabitable in general, without exception.

He was remarkably absent in the news after that, almost like an embarrassed silence, but I guess he probably was diagnosed with his illness less than 6 months after that, so I might have been over-interpreting the coincidence.

I might add that Sweden is a very small country with a very strong group-mentality in regards to political ideas and opinions ( and other areas, like fashion).

Political triangulation would have arrived at almost unrestricted immigration at the time.

I agree wholeheartedly. He made this "mistake" of stating correct facts in a broken debate that is emotional. And like clockwork the Swedish "establishment" shut him out of the spotlight.

... and yet here we have the main political editor of the largest Swedish tabloid (aka main representative of the people who feel rather than think):

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/8dn4A/lamnar-oss-nar-vi-...

wherein she basically reclaims his legacy for her own use. This is.. rich.

That was almost like 1984. Surrealistic to come from someone that have dismissed "numbers" and "statistics" (with quotes) as irrelevant distractions from the emotional narrative.

How about let him speak for himself?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13596940

Those articles are spin written as damage control by a leftist journalist with a political agenda and a think tank, respectively, and does not let the man speak himself.

He did speak for himself. "We can help people everywhere" is his literal words. He said outright he don't think migration needs to be stopped.

So stop pretending he meant anything else.

This is pretty inaccurate. He didn't say we should stop accepting immigrants or significantly cut the immigration.

http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/kulturdebatt/kristofer-ahlstrom...

https://motargument.se/2015/10/06/myt-hans-rosling-ger-stod-...

Rosling's real argument was that we should fix the accounting behind it all, and to also give more foreign aid.

> he stated his belief that it is multiple times (100 times?) more efficient to help refugees from the Middle East and Africa in their home countries or local region rather than he to help them in Sweden.

Does anyone have a citation for this, I'm not able to find anything on google.

I don't know your Swedish skills, but here is a follow up interview: https://www.svd.se/man-hade-kunnat-salja-asylratten-for-20-0...

He quotes 10 SEK / day compared to 500 SEK per day.

He is a bit defensive and says that he his not arguing against helping people in Sweden, just that Sweden as a consequence is NOT spending the money elsewhere.

Unfortunately my Swedish skills are nonexistent....so was that basically a direct quote, 10 SEK / day to house a refugee in a camp vs 500 SEK / day to accommodate them in Sweden?

It's pretty shocking that no one seems to have done any kind of a financial analysis on helping refugees in their local region vs helping them after migrating to western countries, you'd think that would be one of the first steps.

I think 'implementation details' are important though. What was Rosling's vision for Sweden in particular or the UN in general to do massively more help right there in the Levant? Don't refugees flee because of direct threats to their life an/or because their lifelihood got obliterated? Wouldn't 'help them in their home country' basically mean a ground invasion as a first step?

A safe zone, most likely in a neighboring country would definitely be a pre-requisite.

Not really.

It is no problem to help financing the already existing UNHCR funded missions in Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, Ethiopia, Jordan, etc that all are close neighbors to conflict zones.

Perhaps surprisingly, as it is not following the narrative conveyed by media, it is also possible to help internal refugees for instance in Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan and even parts of Syria.

http://reporting.unhcr.org/node/2530

My point is, would it really be as simple as just financing these missions, i.e. is money actually the limiting factor? I was under the impression that (a) the political situation in these locations and (b) actual boots on the ground to secure these places are what's limiting the efforts. Furthermore, this doesn't seem to take the economic situation under consideration. Say you've set up a well run refugee camp in Jordan, with all the safety and comforts needed for a few hundred thousand Syrians or so. Now what? Syria will take many years to be a safe home for them again, if ever considering that Assad seems to be fully regaining control (which again is due to a lack of concerted military intervention as far as I see it). Most Syrian refugees certainly want a way to join the economy again, and Europe still seems their best bet - so a well run camp may smoothen the process, but I'd argue they'd still show up in European countries sooner or later, with roughly the same funds needed.

That's a good point, if you're going to set up the camps, you also better have a plan to liberate the country so the people can eventually return.

Yes, UNHCR is short on money.

UNHCR also funds alternatives to refugee camps, and could spend much more money on integration, schools, healthcare in those sites.

The syrian refugees probably have a much higher chance of joining the economy in any country in the Middle East compared to Sweden, since the outlook for them is very bleak getting a job in one of the most demanding and competitive job markets in the world.

The drivers to get to northern Europe is more likely the social welfare systems, free healthcare, and free education for children, rather than jobs.

> The drivers to get to northern Europe is more likely the social welfare systems, free healthcare, and free education for children, rather than jobs.

So how do you solve that as a humanitarian mission? Set up a permanent camp with its own welfare economy, sort of like a 'humanitarian special economic zone'?

You can look at GiveWell's analysis, or look at the work done by GiveDirectly and Watsi.

One of the challenges with charity, though, is that you don't just want to spend the $10 optimally -- you also need to go back and tell your donors what you did with the $10, and convince them that they should give you $20 next year.

I'm not able to find any comparison numbers, I wonder if that's something they actually analyze.

That kind of analysis has been done and occasionally is done again in Sweden by proponents of 'local help' versus immigration. Unfortunately those who do this type of analysis are immediately stamped with a 'racist' stamp in Sweden - or, if 'racist' does not work because the author happens to be an immigrant him- or herself (e.g. Tino Sanandaji [1], an Iranian-Swedish economist who publishes on these subjects) terms like 'husblatte' (translates more or less to 'Uncle Tom') are used - and the research is deemed tainted by a large majority of politicians and media. This is unfortunate as it makes it close to impossible to base policy on objective information on these subjects. Cracks are starting to appear in the façade of 'correctness' but this process is slow and problematic.

Meanwhile a single fact should be enough to convince the naysayers: the fact that the expected extra costs (that is, above the already budgeted costs) for migration into Sweden [2 - Swedish] is double the total budget of UNHCR [3], the UN commission responsible for helping refugees all over the world. For that money Sweden took in about 163.000 people (refugees and economic migrants who pose as such). UNHCR is responsible for 60 million refugees. Part of the increased costs for migration into Sweden are taken from the budget for international help and co-operation so the effect is even stronger that way.

   [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tino_Sanandaji
   [2] http://www.svt.se/nyheter/ekonomi/migrationen-kostar-mer-an-hela-forsvaret
   [3] http://www.unhcr.org/partners/donors/558a639f9/contributions-unhcr-budget-year-2015-31-december-2015.html

I wonder if part of the reason why there is so little analysis of such a mainstream and expensive problem is that it could be career suicide to get the wrong answers in your study.

Yes, that is a large part of the problem. A single 'wrong' move can be career-ending.

> For that money Sweden took in about 163.000 people (refugees and economic migrants who pose as such). UNHCR is responsible for 60 million refugees.

This comparison is meaningless without comparing what help they get and standard of living

I'm a native Swede. What he says in that interview is

"We have failed to help where the amount of refugees are highest, in the areas of Syria, Iraq, etc. There we contribute through UNHCR with 10-15 SEK per day, whereas the cost in Sweden is 500 SEK per refugee. And we want people who come here to have a decent life, so I have nothing against that, but..."

And so on.

As you might see it is unclear whether he means Sweden/Swedes only gives 10-15 SEK per day to UNHCR, or whether he's saying a refugee in those camps does cost 10-15 SEK per day. Whatever he meant, as soon as he said this, he was "forgotten" in Swedish media because it was the same kind of point that our more protectionistic and border-friendly party aka racist-party, at least if you ask some people, was trying to make.

And really, it would be no surprise that living in a camp in Lebanon would be cheaper than living in Sweden on welfare. Especially since we're not building enough and municipalities are outbidding private capital to get housing for refugees.

I was just going to answer your question regarding the quote, but I got a bit involved in descibing the Swedish state of affairs ;) Rosling was only trying to show people the most effective way of helping other people. And I do assume he based his arguments on facts, as it was how he usually did things.

Interesting, thanks for the translation as well as your perspective!

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