This expert study shows how refugee aid and development enterprises should be linked in order to truly help the 16 million refugees today, the tens of millions of displaced persons, and the hundreds of millions affected by the presence of uprooted people. Practitioners and scholars evaluate contemporary programs in Africa, Central America, and Asia. They analyze current theories and policies governing refugee aid and development operations. Students, teachers, and professionals concerned about growing welfare problems in the world will benefit from this overview and from the empirical and theoretical perspectives that are provided.
This book explores the economic lives of refugees. It looks at what shapes the production, consumption, finance, and exchange activities of refugees, to explain variation in economic outcomes for refugees themselves.
Exploring the evolution of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), this book fills a lacuna in literature on the agency. UNRWA and Palestinian Refugees employs recent fieldwork in order to analyse challenges in programmes and service delivery, protection, camp governance, community participation, and camp improvement and reconstruction. The chapters examine the way UNRWA is adapting to a changing social, political and economic context, mostly within urban settings – a paradigmatic shift from understanding the Agency’s role as simply a provider of relief and services to one comprehensively supporting the human development of Palestinian refugees. Examining the refugee debate using new disciplines and research frameworks, this collection aims to emphasise the centrality of the Palestinian refugee issue for Middle East peace-making and to contribute a better understanding of a unique agency. This book will be a useful aid for students and researchers with an interest in Middle East Studies, Politics, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
With a focus on the residents of three refugee camps, “Gabiam’s nuanced study of Syria’s Palestinian community is an engaging and informative read” (Journal of Palestine Studies). The Politics of Suffering examines the confluence of international aid, humanitarian relief, and economic development within the space of the Palestinian refugee camp. Nell Gabiam describes the interactions between UNRWA, the United Nations agency charged with providing assistance to Palestinians since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and residents of three camps in Syria. Over time, UNRWA’s management of the camps reveals a shift from an emphasis on humanitarian aid to promotion of self-sufficiency and integration of refugees within their host society. Gabiam’s analysis captures two forces in tension within the camps: politics of suffering that serves to keep alive the discourse around the Palestinian right of return; and politics of citizenship expressed through development projects that seek to close the divide between the camp and the city. Gabiam also offers compelling insights into the plight of Palestinians before and during the Syrian war, which has led to devastation in the camps and massive displacement of their populations.
Over fifty years ago governments established the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to protect the world's refugees. The UNHCR was created to be a human rights and advocacy organization. But governments also created the agency to promote regional and international stability and to serve the interests of states. Consequently, the UNHCR has always trod a perilous path between its mandate to protect refugees and asylum seekers and the demands placed upon it by states to be a relevant actor in world politics. This is the first independent history of the UNHCR. Gil Loescher, one of the world's leading experts on refugee affairs, draws upon decades of personal experience and research to examine the origins and evolution of the UNHCR as well as to identify many of the major challenges facing the organization in the years ahead. A key focus is to examine the extent to which the evolution of the UNHCR has been framed by the crucial events of international politics during the past half century and how, in turn, the actions of the eight past High Commissioners have helped shape the course of world history. Each chapter tells the story of an individual High Commissioner and examines the unique contributions made to the development of the Office. The history of the last fifty years shows how the UNHCR has initiated and capitalized on international political developments to progressively expand its scope and authority as an important actor in world politics. The book argues that the UNHCR has overstretched itself in recent decades and has strayed from its central human rights protection role. The protection of refugees remains a litmus test of the international community's commitment to defend human rights and to uphold liberal democratic values. Loescher offers a series of bold policy recommendations aimed at making the agency a more effective and accountable advocate for the millions of refugees in the world today.
Senegal, like all African countries, needs better and more jobs for its growing population. The main message of Digital Senegal for Inclusive Growth is that broader use of productivity-enhancing technologies by households and enterprises can generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. Adoption of better technologies can support both Senegal’s short-term objective of economic recovery and its vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. But this is not automatic. This book leverages a novel survey instrument that measures adoption of technologies at the firm level. Results from this survey show that there is a large average technological gap in Senegal relative to firms in Brazil, in the range of 36 and 30 percent for extensive (whether firms use it at all) and intensive (the most frequently applied) uses of better technologies such as for business administration. Except for a small number of firms, enterprises still mostly use manual, analog technologies to perform general and sector specific business functions. Micro-size informal enterprises lag even further. The benefits from technology adoption are significant. Digital technologies are an enabler of economy-wide productivity and jobs growth by catalyzing adoption of complementary technologies, including many not accessible without digital infrastructure. For households, mobile internet coverage is associated with 14 percent higher total consumption, as well as a 10 percent lower extreme poverty rate—and jobs with higher earnings. Firms with better technologies have higher levels of productivity, generate more jobs, and increase the share of lower-skilled workers on their payroll, on average: an increase in technological sophistication across general business functions that the firm uses most intensively, such as using standard software rather than writing by hand for business administration, is associated with a 14 percent higher jobs growth rate. For these and other inclusive growth benefits to be realized, Senegal should focus on ensuring availability of affordable digital infrastructure and implementing targeted incentives to promote use by firms of better technologies as well as policies to narrow deepening digital divides across enterprises and households.
This series reflects the multidisciplinary nature of the field and includes within its scope international law, anthropology, medicine, geopolitics, social psychology and economics.
UN Global Compacts is a concise introduction to the key concepts, issues, and actors in global migration governance and presents a comprehensive analysis of the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, the Global Compact on Refugees, and the Global Compact for Migration. The book places the declaration and compacts within their historical context, traces the evolution of global migration governance, and evaluates the implementation of the compacts. Ultimately, the global compacts were the result of three wider shifts in global governance from hard to soft law, from rights to aid, and from Cold War politics to nationalism. The book is an important contribution to international relations and migration studies and provides essential information on the NY declaration and the global compacts, in addition to an examination of the: • Negotiating blocs and strategies • Populist backlash to the Global Compact for Migration • Responsibility sharing for refugee protection • Human rights of migrants • Principle of non-refoulement • Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework • UNHCR, IOM, and the UN Network on Migration The book will be of interest to practitioners, students, and scholars of international cooperation, global governance, migrants, and refugees, and will be essential reading for graduate and undergraduate courses on international law, international organizations, and migration.
People in danger have received protection in communities beyond their own from the earliest times of recorded history. The causes — war, conflict, violence, persecution, natural disasters, and climate change — are as familiar to readers of the news as to students of the past. It is 70 years since nations in the wake of World War II drew up the landmark 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. People Forced to Flee marks this milestone. It is the latest in a long line of publications, stretching back to 1993, that were previously entitled The State of the World's Refugees. The book traces the historic path that led to the 1951 Convention, showing how history was made, by taking the centuries-old ideals of safety and solutions for refugees, to global practice. It maps its progress during which international protection has reached a much broader group of people than initially envisaged. It examines international responses to forced displacement within borders as well as beyond them, and the protection principles that apply to both. It reviews where they have been used with consistency and success, and where they have not. At times, the strength and resolve of the international community seems strong, yet solutions and meaningful solidarity are often elusive. Taking stock today - at this important anniversary – is all the more crucial as the world faces increasing forced displacement. Most is experienced in low- and middle-income countries and persists for generations. People forced to flee face barriers to improving their lives, contributing to the communities in which they live and realizing solutions. Everywhere, an effective response depends on the commitment to international cooperation set down in the 1951 Convention: a vision often compromised by efforts to minimize responsibilities. There is growing recognition that doing better is a global imperative. Humanitarian and development action has the potential to be transformational, especially when grounded in the local context. People Forced to Flee examines how and where increased development investments in education, health and economic inclusion are helping to improve socioeconomic opportunities both for forcibly displaced persons and their hosts. In 2018, the international community reached a Global Compact on Refugees for more equitable and sustainable responses. It is receiving deeper support. People Forced to Flee looks at whether that is enough for what could – and should – help define the next 70 years.
