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Women pumping water at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar. Photo: UN Women/Allison Joyce
February 7, 2019

Toward Medium-Term Solutions for Rohingya Refugees and Hosts in Bangladesh: Mapping Potential Responsibility-Sharing Contributions

Bangladesh is providing a significant global public good by hosting nearly one million Rohingya refugees, including 700,000 who fled violence carried out with “genocidal intent” in 2017. The international community has an opportunity to recognize Bangladesh’s contributions through a robust responsibility-sharing process. This brief explores the potential range of responsibility-sharing commitments in support of Bangladesh.

Cindy Huang and Kate Gough
Cover of 'How Global Businesses Can Improve Refugee Labor Market Access—and Why They Should'
October 9, 2018

How Global Businesses Can Improve Refugee Labor Market Access—and Why They Should

Many of the world’s 25 million refugees spend years struggling to provide for themselves or contribute fully to their host economies because they are legally barred from working or owning businesses. Granting refugees formal labor market access unlocks a range of benefits—for refugees, hosts, and global businesses.

Nicolas Maduro speaking at an event. Photo by Carlos Rodríguez/Andes.
August 6, 2018

The Venezuelan Migrant Crisis: Forging a Model for Regional Response

An economic, political, and humanitarian crisis has driven more than one million Venezuelans across the border into Colombia in the past year. Countries hosting Venezuelans have done so with relative welcome, keeping their borders open and offering some services and protection to migrants. But additional significant financial and other support will be required to meet the needs of both migrants and hosts.

Cindy Huang and Kate Gough
Cover of "Are Refugees Located Near Urban Job Opportunities?"
June 18, 2018

Are Refugees Located Near Urban Job Opportunities?

To help demonstrate where MNCs, regional and local businesses, and other actors are best positioned to expand economic opportunities for refugees, we created an interactive tool to map the locations of refugees, and analyzed the extent to which refugees overlap with major urban areas in 31 of the 37 developing countries hosting at least 25,000 refugees.

Cindy Huang and Jimmy Graham
Cover of "Migration Is What You Make It"
May 30, 2018

Migration Is What You Make It: Seven Policy Decisions that Turned Challenges into Opportunities

Policymakers and voters reasonably want to know what the effects of immigration are, to help them decide how much immigration there should be. But the effects of immigration are highly contingent on where, when, how, and who. We must ask a more fruitful question: how can different policy choices generate positive economic effects from immigration and avoid negative ones? Immigration is not inherently “good” or “bad.” Its effects depend on the context and the policy choices that shape it.

Michael Clemens , Cindy Huang , Jimmy Graham and Kate Gough
Cover of "Global Business and Refugee Crises: A Framework for Sustainable Engagement"
September 20, 2017

Global Business and Refugee Crises: A Framework for Sustainable Engagement

Global businesses can make unique and valuable contributions to refugee response by engaging refugees not as aid recipients, but as employees, producers, investees, and customers.

The position of global enterprises as market leaders, policy influencers, and innovators gives them distinctive capacities for engagement and advocacy that do not exist within the traditional refugee response community.

Cindy Huang
Refugee Compact Brief
April 18, 2017

Refugee Compacts: Addressing the Crisis of Protracted Displacement (Brief)

Today’s refugee crisis poses serious challenges to the international order. Conflict and crisis have pushed some 21 million people to seek refuge outside their home countries, including 5 million who have fled Syria since the civil war began in 2011. We offer three key principles and 10 recommendations for policymakers to build effective compacts for refugee-hosting nations.

Forced Displacement and Development Study Group
Refugee Compact Report
April 18, 2017

Refugee Compacts: Addressing the Crisis of Protracted Displacement

Today, an unprecedented 65 million people—including 21 million refugees—are displaced from their homes. Still, as this report points out, the challenge is manageable—if the international community is able to get its response right. This report offers key principles for closing the humanitarian-development divide and practical guidance for designing effective compacts. We encourage policymakers and implementers alike to carefully consider these recommendations to ensure that humanitarian and development dollars have a real impact on the lives of refugees and host communities.
Forced Displacement and Development Study Group
October 31, 2016

A Smart Investment: $1 Billion for Promoting Women’s and Girls’ Economic Empowerment

The US has a unique opportunity to lead in improving economic opportunities for women and girls by establishing a global vision and a corresponding fund with significant financial resources to spur change. The next US administration should allocate at least $1 billion in additional resources—equal to a little over two percent of current US overseas assistance—exclusively dedicated to advancing gender equality in developing countries, with a specific focus on improving women’s and girls’ economic opportunities and outcomes.
Megan O'Donnell , Mayra Buvinic , Cindy Huang and Charles Kenny
CGD and International Rescue Committee Logos
October 3, 2016

Refugee Compacts: An Initial Framework

The global community is facing extraordinary shifts in forced displacement. Today, more people than ever before—65 million, including 21 million refugees—are displaced by conflict. Host countries are taking on great responsibility for these displaced populations, but with insufficient support. New partners and new models are required to meet the displacement challenge. This brief outlines a compact model with critical components, including shared outcomes for refugees, host country ownership and focus on longer-term transition, best practices for program design and management, and commitment to policy reforms.

Cindy Huang and Nazanin Ash

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