Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
This case study is part of the “Let Them Work” initiative by Refugees International (RI) and the Center for Global Development (CGD). It outlines the barriers Venezuelans face in Peru to economic inclusion, the impacts of these barriers, and the steps that the Government of Peru, international organizations, donors, and the private sector could take to overcome them.
This policy paper, part of the “Let Them Work” initiative, outlines how the Government of Peru, donors, international organizations, and NGOs can address and overcome these barriers and promote economic inclusion.
Jimmy Graham is a former CGD research assistant who is now a consultant on CGD and Refugees International's Let Them Work initiative.
This case study is part of the “Let Them Work” initiative by Refugees International (RI) and the Center for Global Development (CGD). It outlines the barriers Venezuelans face in Colombia to economic inclusion, the impacts of these barriers, and the steps that the Government of Colombia, international organizations, donors, and the private sector could take to overcome them.
This policy paper, part of the “Let Them Work” initiative, outlines the impact of COVID-19 on Colombians and Venezuelans alike, exploring the barriers both face to accessing the labor market. It then identifies practical ways in which the Government of Colombia, donors, international organizations, and NGOs, can overcome these barriers.
Today, 1.4 million refugees urgently await resettlement. Unlike the rest of the world’s 26 million refugees, they have been designated by the United Nations (UN) as having vulnerabilities that cannot be addressed in their host countries. They are therefore waiting to be moved from the country hosting them to a third country willing to grant them permanent settlement. But less than a tenth of these people will be resettled this year; people are joining the queue faster than they leave it. The global community is failing in its duty to ensure their safety.
Refugees living in low- and middle-income countries are especially vulnerable to the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on data from eight hosting countries before COVID-19, we find that refugees are 60 percent more likely than host populations to be working in highly impacted sectors, such as accommodation and food services, manufacturing, and retail.
External financial assistance is, and will remain, essential. But both donors and host countries need to do more to facilitate the transition from humanitarian relief to longer-term development assistance and trade measures could help.
The time to act is now. There is a finite window of opportunity to embed medium-term approaches before international attention wanes further and donor fatigue results in even greater funding shortfalls.
While Bangladesh and Myanmar have recently attempted small-scale repatriation, these efforts have failed as refugees refused to go back, fearing for their safety. Conditions in Myanmar’s Rakhine State continue to deteriorate, and UN agencies have been denied full access to areas of return. Despite this, planning so far has been short-term and focused on aid rather than medium-term economic, environmental, and human development approaches.
While the ultimate goal remains safe, voluntary, and dignified repatriation of the refugees back to Myanmar, realistic scenarios for repatriation show significant numbers of Rohingya will remain in Bangladesh for more than 10 years. Consequently, there is growing interest in trying to move beyond the existing short-term aid-based solutions to inclusive, medium-term approaches that include economic, environmental, and human development in the region.
Bangladesh is hosting more than a million Rohingya refugees, and businesses have a critical role to play in improving the situation for them and their Bangladeshi host communities. We have identified four viable areas for business investment and procurement in Cox’s Bazar, the historically under-developed region that is hosting the Rohingya refugees.
Bangladesh provides a significant global public good by hosting over one million Rohingya refugees. Most are living in camps in Cox’s Bazar district, where resources and livelihoods are strained. The refugee situation is likely to be protracted, and medium-term planning is critical.
To contribute to a growing base of knowledge and expertise on opportunities to reverse the specific effects of forest loss and degradation—and to improve the conditions of host populations and refugees in Cox’s Bazar—BRAC, the Center for Global Development, and The Nature Conservancy convened workshops with global and national experts and stakeholders in September 2018 in Cox’s Bazar.
There are now one million Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar, comprising about 30 percent of the population. This increase, coupled with immediate needs for fuelwood and shelter, has diminished livelihoods due to deforestation and loss of access to land; soil and slope erosion; fuelwood scarcity and associated risks to safety of people collecting fuelwood; increased encroachment and forest degradation; declining water quality, groundwater reserve depletion, and air pollution; decreasing soil quality; and climate vulnerability.
With this year’s Women Deliver Conference underway in Vancouver, we assess critical gaps in sexual and reproductive health and rights care in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) face severe economic challenges. Which policy and programmatic approaches will be most effective in supporting IDPs to overcome these challenges and make progress toward self-reliance depends in part on the urban-rural composition of IDP populations. By analysing the existing known locations of IDPs in developing countries, we show that there is large variation in urban-rural IDP compositions across countries.
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