Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg announced at the U.N. Private Sector Forum at U.N. headquarters in New York over the weekend that the social media giant will help provide access to United Nations refugee camps around the world.
"Connectivity will help refugees better access support from the aid community and maintain their links to family and loved ones," Mark held. "And Facebook is in a unique position to help maintain this lifeline."
Facebook's plan to unite refugees with loved ones seems to accord with the goals of a partnership the company has forged with "One Campaign" - a global nonprofit advocacy group fighting extreme poverty and hunger. The partnership will aid a goal U.N. partner nations pushed forward last week as part of their Agenda for Sustainable Development to provide Internet access to the entire planet by 2020.
Mark and U2 front man and ONE founder Bono have called for improved support for the global connectivity from the private sector. They even shared to The New York Times the challenges of actually accomplishing the goal.
"Today over half the people on this planet don't have access," Mark and Bono penned via the publication. "That is not good for anyone -- not for the disempowered and disconnected, and not for the other half, whose commerce and security depend on having stable societies." They even claimed that the access to the Internet is a key pathway to increased "global cooperation" and "equality."
The total number of people forcibly displaced from their homelands due to persecution, violence or human rights violations has already surpassed 50 million, a first since World War II. A large portion of those people are temporarily staying in more than 100 U.N. refugee camps, The Huffington Post shared.
The number of refugees is continually and alarmingly rising due to the conflict in Syria which makes life there a daily hell. As a matter of fact, about four million people have already fled into adjacent countries in what the U.N. declares is the hugest crisis in a quarter-century and millions more have been displaced within the state.
