Assistant Secretary Noyes Travels to Switzerland 

Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Julieta Valls Noyes will travel to Geneva, Switzerland December 12-15, 2023.

In Geneva, Assistant Secretary Noyes will join the U.S. delegation at the Global Refugee Forum (GRF), the largest international gathering on refugees, held every four years.  The 2023 GRF is co-convened by Colombia, France, Japan, Jordan, and Uganda, and co-hosted by the Government of Switzerland and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. 

At the GRF, the Assistant Secretary will participate in high-level meetings with senior government officials, as well as non-governmental and international organization partners, on topics including refugee employment and entrepreneurship, private sector engagement, and solutions for Rohingya refugees.  She will chair a high-level event on the MIRPS Support Platform, a donor coordination and awareness-raising forum to foster regional solutions to forced displacement, bolstering efforts by governments in Central America and Mexico. The Assistant Secretary will chair a Senior Officials’ meeting of the Resettlement Diplomacy Network, a multilateral initiative launched by the United States in 2022 to drive strategic diplomatic engagement on global refugee resettlement and protection.  Finally, Assistant Secretary Noyes will participate in a U.S.-hosted dinner with the World Economic Forum calling on humanitarian and development organizations, donors, development finance institutions, foundations, investors, and others to mobilize $10 billion in capital to establish or grow 1,000 businesses in fragile or frontier markets by 2030.