Refugee Nation is a 2015 proposal to create a new sovereign state to voluntarily resettle the world's

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

population to solve refugee crises. According to

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

estimates, there were about 82 million refugees and internally displaced people in the world at the time of the proposal.

Proposal

Refugee Nation was launched in June 2015 by Jason Buzi and received extensive media coverage in July 2015, beginning with an article in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

''. In his proposal, Buzi offers a number of alternatives for creating a nation of refugees. These include: # Buying uninhabited islands from a country such as the Philippines or Indonesia. # A country with a lot of habitable but unused land giving away or selling this land for the purpose of establishing a refugee nation. One example given is Finland. # A small island nation which is sparsely populated agreeing to become a refugee nation. Current citizens would receive significant financial benefits. # New islands to be created in international waters as a homeland for refugees.

Funding

Funding for Refugee Nation is proposed to be by governments, NGOs, the

or private donations. Jason Buzi, a successful

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...

real estate investor, had previously earned positive press as the benefactor behind 2014's Hidden Cash multi-city project. With Refugee Nation, Buzi has drafted the initial proposal, established an online presence
www.refugeenation.org
, and gained exposure for his plan through a PR agency. In October 2015, Refugee Nation launched a

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and Alternative Finance, alternative finance, to fund projects "withou ...

campaign with the aim of raising billions of dollars to buy land or islands as a permanent home for the world's refugees.

Symbols proposed for the nation

Syrian refugee Yara Said designed a red-orange flag, resembling the life vests of Mediterranean refugees; fellow Syrian refugee Moutaz Arian created an anthem. Although neither of those could be allowed by the International Olympic Committee for the use by the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 Summer Olympics, some of the supporters used the flag unofficially. Yara Said described the flag as "if you’ve worn a lifejacket as a refugee, you will feel something when you see this flag...It’s a powerful memory." In June 2021, an

emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis; , ) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of modern emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from type ...

of the flag was made available on

WhatsApp WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger) is an American social media, instant messaging (IM), and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make vo ...

for Android and

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

. File:Flag of Yara Said (Refugee Nation).svg, Yara Said's refugee flag design File:REFUGIADOS DO CONGO SE UNEM PARA TORCER PELOS JUDOCAS DA EQUIPE DE REFUGIADOS (28896234185).jpg, Unofficial use of the Refugee Nation flag at the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events i ...

Other related proposals

Less than two months after the proposal received wide media coverage,

Naguib Sawiris Naguib Onsi Sawiris ( ; ; born 15 June 1954) is an Egyptian businessman. Sawiris is chairman of Weather Investments's parent company, and the former chairman and CEO of Orascom Telecom Holding and Orascom Investment Holding S.A.E. Early li ...

, an Egyptian billionaire, offered to buy a

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

island to house refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict.

References

External links