Refugee crisis requires a global response, and Asia's powerhouses must reach out to the needy

In one day, the photograph of a drowned Syrian child washed up on Europe's shores went viral and provoked discussion on the Syrian crisis in corners of the world that previously gave little coverage to this ongoing conflict. What we are seeing unfold is not a "European" or "migrant" crisis; it is about refugees - people fleeing from persecution who are in desperate need of protection - and it requires a global response, including from wealthy countries here in Asia.

For the first time in my 15-year career as a lawyer and policy expert in the UK asylum field, I have both been surprised and encouraged by the response from the British public. People from all walks of life have been moved by the recent crisis in the Mediterranean and have mobilised to show an outpouring of support in the past couple of weeks.

This is not unique to the UK. From Austria to Spain, citizens are standing in solidarity with refugees and have even been at the very frontline to receive them and directly offer humanitarian aid.

European governments are starting to take note. While the commitment that the UK will take only 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years is woefully inadequate, 1.4 million citizens have signed a petition to Prime Minister David Cameron calling for more to be done to help refugees. When the government of Iceland initially stated it would offer a paltry quota of 50 Syrian refugees, 10,000 Icelanders offered to open their homes in response.

Germany is taking in thousands of refugees and Chancellor Angela Merkel has already committed €6 billion (HK$52.5 billion) for support services in 2016. France is calling for EU member states to make a greater collective effort ahead of an emergency meeting scheduled in Brussels next week. On Wednesday, the European Union proposed a plan to redistribute 160,000 refugees across the region. After all, this is Europe's worst refugee crisis since the second world war. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker noted that "Europe today is an island of hope for the people in the Middle East fleeing war and oppression. This is something to be proud of, not something to fear."

What is missing from these discussions is how other wealthy economies around the world can share responsibility. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which was ironically founded to assist displaced Europeans after the second world war, is calling for global leadership on not only the refugee crisis in Europe but on the matter of the 50 million people displaced across the world. According to the agency, in 2014, global displacement was at an "all-time high", pointing out that developing countries hosted 86 per cent of the world's refugees and 25 per cent are in the least developed ones.