The Editor's Briefing | The National

The UN's 193 member states unanimously elected the new head of its refugee agency, with the term of the incumbent Filippo Grandi ending on December 31. For the first time, a former refugee will take the helm of UNHCR. As a former refugee myself, this was a moving moment. A man whose life was upended due to a dictatorship and who was exiled has now been elected by the countries of the world to one of the most senior international roles. And he, like me, happens to be from Iraq. Iraq’s former president Barham Salih becomes only the second non-European to lead the organisation since its founding in 1950.

While international bureaucrats may not mean much to most people, this is another signal of a changing world. With record levels of displacement – there are 42.5 million registered refugees among 117 million people displaced globally – and major cuts in the funding of humanitarian organisations, Mr Salih has his work cut out for him. But he has a reputation for rising to the challenge. I first interviewed him two decades ago when he was Iraq's minister of planning, tasked with trying to engage the UN in helping the country's reconstruction after years of sanctions and the US-led 2003 war. It feels like his political life has come full circle, serving refugees after being a refugee, representing the UN to countries in conflict or post conflict after receiving well-meaning UN officials for years in a troubled Iraq.

I have interviewed him several times since, including on stage at the American University in Iraq, which he founded in his home city of Sulaymaniyah and where we both served on the board. So I may be biased, but I do think this is a positive moment in an otherwise unsettling global migration story.

Too many refugees are demonised or excluded from the opportunities that former refugees like Mr Salih and myself have been lucky enough to benefit from. Here’s hoping for a turning point.