Refugees and internally displaced persons do not choose to leave their homes – they are forced to, due to natural and man-made disasters, conflict and persecution, and of course, climate change. Forced displacement continues to surge past historic levels, topping at an alarming 120 million in 2024.

For this episode of Goalmakers, it was a great honor to be able to sit and have a conversation with Kelly T. Clements, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees. She graciously took a break from the UN General Assembly in New York to join me over Zoom.

Kelly and I were able to dive into the factors causing forced displacement, as well as the challenges of resettlement, how host countries are assisting, how UNHCR is leveraging technology, and examples of hope and perseverance.

Kelly has been working on refugee and displacement issues throughout her 25-year career, including a secondment from the US Government to UNHCR in Bangladesh in the 1990s.

In fact, she was previously Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, or PRM, from 2010 to 2015, with responsibility for humanitarian issues in Asia and the Middle East. She previously led PRM's Office of Policy and Resource Planning, where she oversaw the Bureau's strategic planning, policy development and financial resources to protect and assist refugees, conflict victims, and vulnerable migrants worldwide. She also served as Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon during 2014.

Suffice it to say, she has a wealth of understanding and knowledge about refugees and IDPs.

Any one of us could be forcibly displaced.

I invite you to take a moment to image that you are just forced from your home, your town or city, what would you do – where would you go?

...I hope you enjoy this episode, and remember, to bring about positive change and assist refugees, think globally and act locally.

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Digital upskilling ... digital inclusion.

These are important concepts when one understands the need for economic opportunity for new job seekers and existing business owners in low- to middle-income countries.

Whether from a university in Ghana, or a village in Haryana, it is paramount for people in today’s business ecosystems to have comfort with, and knowledge of, digital technologies to be successful.

Microsoft understands this and has embarked on an ambitious mission to empower not only the emerging new generation of skilled workers across the globe, but also companies, government agencies, and nonprofits who support economic development in low- to middle-income countries.

This may sound like a lofty goal, yet Microsoft is achieving amazing results.

To find out more about how they do this, I was able to have an informative conversation with a woman who is at the heart of it all, Naria Santa Lucia, General Manager of Digital Inclusion at Microsoft Philanthropies.

Naria talked about the vast number of interrelated programs, products, and services Microsoft offers nonprofits, job seekers, and, well, just about anyone who would like to learn more about technology.

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This is a very special episode of Goalmakers – well, all episodes of Goalmakers are special, of course, because of the incredible people we get to interview – yet this one stands apart.

Let me explain. This session chronicles a very important chapter in our history books because it narrates the heroic efforts of a team of passionate individuals that came together to conquer a huge challenge – how to get key persons out of Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in the summer of 2021.

For this episode, I was privileged to be able to sit with the founders of Operation Snow Leopard, and an organizational consultant and veteran who are also part of the OSL team.

This is a story of David and Goliath, goliath being the incredible challenge of how to extricate persons from the grips of the Taliban state.

Data, paperwork, physical extraction routes, safehouses, secrecy, resettlement, more data, more paperwork, more challenges of where to settle persons...

This is a story of passion and perseverance. This is a story about the love of freedom and doing what’s right.

This is also a narrative of how myriads of disparate data needs were centralized and a professional-grade manifest database was created by Salesforce and Google to set a new standard that can be used for future evacuation efforts for a variety of situations.

And OSL’s mission is not complete, and they need more partnerships and support.

And I was very happy to hear how their membership with Global Washington helped facilitate several important connections and collaborations.

I hope you enjoy hearing about Operation Snow Leopard as much as I enjoyed interviewing this diverse, warm, smart, and welcoming group.

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