Migration Policy Institute Podcasts

More than 1.7 million people have fled Ukraine so far, and the United Nations expects more than 4 million others will leave the country and need protection and assistance in the coming months. Those fleeing to neighboring countries, mostly women and children, have been met with an impressive voluntary and government mobilization to answer immediate needs. Similarly, European Union (EU) policymakers are organizing an unprecedented response, unanimously approving the first-ever activation of the Temporary Protection Directive that will provide immediate protection and rights, reduce pressures on national asylum systems, and enhance responsibility sharing. Questions remain, however, about how the directive will work in practice and how quickly it will be rolled out, in particular as European asylum agencies and migration authorities face a range of operational issues for the first time. They will need to set up a new process to register people, but also organize which agencies (including EU ones) and which fund