Traditional Approaches to Displacement Are Not Working

In the headlines, we hear a lot about people who have been newly displaced — for example, those who have recently fled their homes in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and the Nagorno-Karabakh region contested by Azerbaijan and Armenia. We do not hear as much about those who have been displaced for long periods of, say, five or more years. But of the world’s nearly 115 million refugees and people who have been displaced within their own countries, the majority are experiencing protracted displacement.[1]

As conflicts drag on and prevent people from returning to their communities, new displacements are building on top of displacements that began years ago. Meanwhile, the traditional solutions sought for both refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) have become more elusive. Refugee-hosting countries have become increasingly reluctant to support the integration of refugees, afraid that by doing so, they will become magnets attracting ever-higher numbers. And refugee resettlement numbers themselves are never enough to help more than 1% of the world’s refugee population, even with the U.S. recently increasing its annual pledge. For the world’s more than 70 million IDPs, prospects seem equally dim, even though as citizens, they should have all the rights of their compatriots.

We need a new way of looking at solutions for refugees and IDPs. Traditional ways are simply not working. And unless we figure out a way to stop the conflicts that are forcing people from their communities and to resolve protracted displacement, we are going to keep seeing the number of displaced people rise.

Traditional Approaches Are Getting Harder

Historically, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has approached the problem of refugee displacement by working toward three optimal solutions: voluntary repatriation, local integration in the country where a refugee has sought asylum, and resettlement in a third country. These have all become more difficult to achieve.

Table 1 illustrates the dramatic increase in the sheer number of displaced people, which rose from 26 million in 2010 to 115 million in mid-2023. It also shows the decrease in the number of refugees who have achieved one of the UN refugee agency’s optimal solutions. In most years during the past six decades, less than 10% of refugees have returned to their birth countries, and in recent years, far lower percentages have returned.[2]

Table 1 — Displaced Populations and Their Statuses

 

Today, there are more than twice as many IDPs as there are refugees. This has been the case for at least the past 13 years, and yet IDPs receive less attention and international funding than refugees. This is largely because they lack the same international legal protections.

Refugees are protected by the 1951 Refugee Convention. By contrast, the normative framework for assisting IDPs — the UN’s Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, which is based on international law — is nonbinding. And while refugees have a dedicated UN agency, IDPs are the responsibility of their state. Their needs are to be met by their governments, supplemented by a coordinated cluster approach at the UN level.[5] The preferred outcomes for IDPs are different too: They can return to their communities of origin, integrate in their places of displacement, or move elsewhere in their country.

Even though IDPs are often displaced for the same reasons as those who cross international borders as refugees, their needs are different. In theory, IDPs are generally entitled to access public services and enter the formal labor market in their countries.[6] However, they are unable to do so because they lack documentation or because of discrimination or simply because they lack knowledge about how to access services in a different part of the country. In these cases, they instead must eke out a precarious existence, either in informal settlements or more commonly on the margins of large cities. As they typically remain close to the violence that displaced them, they also face serious protection needs. This is the case for more than 4 million IDPs in northwestern Syria, nearly 1 million IDPs in Darfur, and 4.5 million IDPs in Yemen.[7]

In recent years, humanitarian agencies have attempted to create new avenues for refugees and IDPs to find solutions. For refugees, there are growing opportunities for communities and individuals to sponsor refugees for resettlement to third countries, such as Canada’s long-standing private refugee sponsorship program and, more recently, the Welcome Corps program in the United States.[8] There have also been efforts lately to develop new or complementary pathways for refugees facing protracted displacement. These include expanding opportunities for migrants to legally study, work, or join family members in other countries, although so far, the number of refugees who have benefited from these efforts has been modest.

Indeed, the UN adopted the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) in 2018 to provide a framework for achieving solutions for refugees and their host countries. The agreement — while including important affirmations of the need to prevent displacement in the first place and to protect refugees in the countries where they claim asylum — is primarily focused on delivering solutions. Consider its four objectives:

1. Ease pressures on host countries.
2. Enhance refugee self-reliance.
3. Expand access to third-country solutions.
4. Support conditions in countries of origin for refugees to return safely and with dignity.[9]

Three of these objectives explicitly focus on facilitating solutions, mostly by expanding the use of existing pathways for refugees. For example, easing pressures on host countries should make local integration easier. Expanding access to third countries can involve both traditional resettlement and complementary pathways. Supporting conditions in countries of origin is intended to facilitate returns.

And yet, in the five years since the adoption of the GCR, we have not seen dramatic increases in the number of refugees reaching these outcomes.

Facilitating Solutions for Displaced People

Solutions for Refugees

States play a key role in facilitating solutions for both refugees and IDPs: They determine whether the three traditional solutions for refugees — voluntary repatriation, local integration, or resettlement to a third country — can be achieved.

Most fundamentally, conflicts have to end in order for refugees to return, and the country of origin’s government has to agree to the repatriation of refugees. Meanwhile, governments of refugee-hosting countries have to agree to allow refugees to fully integrate into their societies. This means providing opportunities to join the formal labor market and eventually a pathway to citizenship — the gold standard for local integration. Finally, governments of third countries have to allow refugees to be resettled in their countries and establish an appropriate means of processing and supporting them.

The UNHCR plays an important role in all three cases. In the past, tripartite commissions formed by UNHCR, the government of the hosting country, and the government of the country of origin have worked out plans for repatriation. In recent years, however, they have played a lesser role, a result of the unrelenting nature of certain conflicts. The UNHCR is thus increasingly in the position of urging host governments to allow the integration of refugees, especially by granting them access to public services and entry into the formal labor market. In the vast majority of cases, the UNHCR makes the initial identification of refugees in need of resettlement and refers their cases to the appropriate governments.

The UNHCR has long recognized that finding solutions for refugees is a long-term effort in which “refugees progressively move toward greater enjoyment of their rights until a comprehensive durable solution is reached.”[10] It has also identified alternative ways to achieve the optimal outcomes, including humanitarian pathways (such as evacuations for medical cases) and complementary pathways, such as mobility schemes or visas that can allow refugees to move to other countries outside of traditional resettlement programs.

But these progressive solutions are not nearly enough. Only around 2% of refugees find some sort of lasting outcome each year. Consequently, over the past decade, there has been an increased push to promote self-reliance among refugees as they await a durable solution.

Self-Reliance

Creating opportunities for refugees to become self-reliant involves “normalizing” or “stabilizing” their situation — supporting them as they work to “regain the social and economic ability to meet their essential needs and reduce dependence on assistance.”[11] When refugees depend on humanitarian assistance for long periods of time, it can have negative impacts on their self-esteem, host communities’ perceptions of them, and the international community overall.[12] Enabling refugees to become self-reliant is thus in the interest of refugees themselves, host communities, the private sector, local governments, and international humanitarian actors, including donors.

Self-reliance not only improves the lives of refugees while they have refugee status. It can also make durable solutions more likely. Refugees and IDPs who have labor skills and at least a bit of capital will likely find it easier to restart their lives if, and when, they return to their home community. And by being able to support themselves, they may be more comfortable with the prospect of local integration.

As Evan Easton-Calabria notes in her recent history of refugee self-reliance , self-reliance is not a new concept in refugee services; in fact, it has been a key feature of response since the 1920s.[13] In the past decade, however, the push for refugee self-reliance has intensified as a result of the rising numbers of refugees, increasingly protracted nature of displacement, and growing realization that the three outcomes traditionally preferred for refugees are not available to most people displaced from their home country today.

Supporting self-reliance can be a key component of local integration, although integration is a long-term process that also involves other factors, such as political participation, community engagement, and a less tangible sense of belonging.

Most refugees want to be self-sufficient, rather than dependent on uncertain and fluctuating humanitarian aid. But critics have pointed out that the emphasis on refugee self-reliance fits into Western governments’ efforts to contain refugee movements in other parts of the world — and minimize pressures for them to seek asylum in their countries.[14] According to a report from London-based think tank ODI,

“direct interventions to support self-reliance and livelihoods such as vocational training and income generating projects supported by grants and loans, the research literature reveals a panoply of small-scale uncoordinated and unsustainable interventions, mostly implemented by the humanitarian arms of aid agencies, with inadequate technical and managerial expertise, poor links to markets and short-term and unreliable funding.”[15]

Some larger-scale initiatives to support self-reliance have been developed in recent years, however. In her research, Amy G. Slaughter, a senior adviser at the Boston nonprofit RefugePoint, describes the emergence of a self-reliance program in Kenya, where refugees were generally not permitted to work in the formal sector although recent Kenyan legislation offers some possibilities for refugees to apply for work permits. Basing its approach on the case management model used in U.S. refugee resettlement, the program emphasized economic self-sufficiency. But it also assisted with health care, education, housing, and counseling. The program yielded generally positive results, although it proved labor-intensive. And, as has been argued elsewhere, even “self-reliant” refugees often live on the edge of poverty.[16]

Lastly, spearheaded by RefugePoint and the Women’s Refugee Commission, a community of practice has recently emerged around the refugee “Self-Reliance Index,” which was the result of a three-year multi-stakeholder process. The index offers specific indicators for measuring self-reliance and has been used in various refugee settings. For example, although refugees and IDPs face different challenges, self-reliance may represent an interim step toward a durable solution for IDPs.

Solutions for Internally Displaced People

While the search for innovative solutions for refugees has a long history, the quest to find solutions for IDPs began more recently and has followed a somewhat different trajectory.

First, the UNHCR recognizes different durable solutions for IDPs than it does for refugees. Solutions for IDPs are achieved when “IDPs no longer have any specific assistance and protection needs that are linked to their displacement and can enjoy their human rights without discrimination on account of their displacement,” according to the “Framework on Durable Solutions for Internally Displaced Persons,” developed by the UN’s Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC).[17] As the Joint Internal Displacement Profiling Service (JIPS) has pointed out, a durable outcome for an IDP does not mean that they no longer need assistance, but rather that they no longer have needs that are greater than those of their compatriots who have not been displaced.[18]

The “Framework for Durable Solutions” emphasizes that achieving solutions is a process that requires eight criteria: safety and security, an adequate standard of living, access to livelihoods, restoration of land and property, access to documentation, family reunification, political participation, and access to effective remedies and justice. Achieving all of these is a high bar for ending internal displacement.

In the past few years, the issue of finding solutions to internal displacement has assumed a new urgency. In 2019, UN Secretary-General António Guterres convened a High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, perhaps in response to the fact that the Global Compact on Refugees didn’t address the issue. The panel had the twin objectives of putting IDPs back on the international agenda and focusing on solutions for them.[19] This was followed in 2022 by the secretary-general’s “Action Agenda on Displacement” and the appointment of a UN special advisor on solutions to internal displacement.[20] This office has catalyzed action, at least by UN agencies who have devoted energy and resources into coming up with new ways of approaching the thorny issue of achieving durable outcomes for the world’s more than 70 million IDPs.

For example, the office created a task force on Durable Solutions for Internal Displacement (DSID), which introduced the concept of “solutions pathways.”[21] The task force argues that IDPs can be considered on a solutions pathway as the gap between IDPs and the non-displaced population narrows, and that progress toward solutions can be measured by comparing IDPs with non-displaced populations using specific criteria as specified in the IASC’s framework.

From this, it is apparent that the issue of solutions for IDPs has seen a shift in focus — from achieving durable solutions to measuring progress toward them. On the one hand, this recognizes that finding solutions is a process, and it is thus helpful to look at the interim steps toward them. It also reflects the dynamic nature of internal displacement; IDPs may move multiple times, sometimes in search of safety (for example, in El Salvador and Yemen), to join family members living elsewhere, or to study or pursue employment opportunities (as has been seen in northern Iraq).[22]

On the other hand, a focus on interim solutions, or a solutions pathway, represents a pragmatic recognition of the difficulty of achieving durable outcomes. Finding partial solutions, such as promoting self-reliance, can improve the well-being of IDPs and may support their eventual integration into the communities they are living in.

It is relatively clear what data is needed to measure progress toward durable outcomes for IDPs — or in the language of the DSID Task Force, a “solutions pathway.” But such data does not yet exist. Many datasets on internal displacement are available, but there is little consistency with respect to the information gathered. Most of the datasets are based on stock figures — for example, how many IDPs exist at a particular moment in time. Intention surveys of IDP households are rich with insights, but they are often conducted in an ad hoc manner and are rarely comparable with one another. Further, datasets with age- and sex-disaggregated data are still hard to find.

A new initiative called PROGRESS, or Periodic Global Reports on the State of Solutions to Internal Displacement, seeks to examine solutions pathways to internal displacement by analyzing existing and newly collected datasets. The initiative is spearheaded by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration. Their reasoning is that if governments and other stakeholders have the means to measure progress toward durable outcomes for IDPs, they would be in a better position to develop strategies to support interim solutions, and the task of finding solutions would appear more manageable.

The first PROGRESS report, released in November 2023, underscored the gap between IDPs and non-displaced populations.[23] It found that IDPs are less likely to have a stable income, adequate housing, and children in school, and they are more likely to face security risks and barriers to health care. The report also highlighted the importance of stable income and adequate housing for IDPs’ well-being.

In the 74 focus group discussions conducted with IDPs for the study, economic security surfaced as a central factor in IDPs’ ability to reach durable outcomes. But promoting economic security and self-reliance among IDPs requires interventions that usually are not found in the toolboxes of humanitarian actors. With this in mind, PROGRESS aspires to produce concrete recommendations for governments and actors in humanitarian aid and development to support solutions pathways. Supporting adequate housing, for example, would not only meet IDPs’ immediate need for shelter, but is also correlated with stable income. Both are indicators of self-reliance.

Conclusion

The recent focus on interim solutions, or “solutions pathways,” should not be seen as undermining the rights-based approach to reaching durable outcomes for IDPs. Rather, with IDPs often stuck in protracted limbo for many years, these efforts to support them in their quest for solutions — and to respect their rights to live in dignity and with some degree of normalcy during displacement — should be supported.

While recent efforts to assist refugees are focused on expanding avenues toward traditional solutions, the search for durable outcomes for IDPs appears to be coalescing around measuring progress on solutions pathways. For the 115 million people displaced inside and outside of their countries, achieving self-reliance could be an important interim step.

Notes

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[1] United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Mid-Year Trends 2023, October 25, 2023, https://www.unhcr.org/us/mid-year-trends. For more analysis of the challenges posed by protracted displacement, see Elizabeth Ferris and Donald Kerwin, “Protracted Displacement, the Search for Solutions: Promising Programs and Strategies,” in “Protracted Displacement, the Search for Solutions, Promising Programs and Strategies,” edited by Kerwin and Ferris, special collection, Journal on Migration and Human Security 11, no. 1 (Spring 2023), https://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-ferris-kerwin-041823/.

[2] Ninette Kelley, People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge (Geneva, CH: UNHCR and Oxford University Press, 2022), 163.

[3] “Refugee Data Finder,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, n.d., https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/download/?url=sH5pnE.

[4] For more information, see UNHCR, “Forcibly Displaced and Stateless Populations: 2023 Planning Figures,” in Global Appeal 2023 (Geneva, CH: UNHCR, 2023), https://reporting.unhcr.org/global-appeal-2023?page=10.

[5] The cluster system is a means by which international humanitarian organizations coordinate their efforts in specific sectors, such as nutrition, shelter, logistics and protection (“We Coordinate,” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), n.d., https://www.unocha.org/we-coordinate).

[6] The definition of internally displaced persons (IDPs) includes habitual residents of a country as well as citizens, although statistics are lacking on the number of IDPs who are not nationals of the state in which they are displaced.

[7] “At a Glance: Protection Impact from the Conflict, Update No. 16, 17 September 2023,” OCHA, September 18, 2023, https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/glance-protection-impact-conflict-update-no-16-17-september-2023; “Yemen Fact Sheet, April - June 2023,” OCHA, October 5, 2023, https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-fact-sheet-april-june-2023.

[8] For information on Canada’s private refugee sponsorship program, see “How Privately Sponsoring a Refugee Works,” Government of Canada, last modified January 30, 2024, https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/refugees/help-outside-canada/private-sponsorship-program.html. For more information on the U.S. Welcome Corps program, see “Sponsoring Refugees. Strengthening Communities,” Community Sponsorship Hub, n.d., https://welcomecorps.org/.

[9] “Global Compact on Refugees,” Refugees and Migrants, UNHCR, n.d., https://refugeesmigrants.un.org/refugees-compact.

[10] UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), The 10-Point Plan in Action, 2016 Update, Chapter 7: Solutions for Refugees, December 2016, https://www.refworld.org/policy/strategy/unhcr/2016/en/114089.

[11] Catherine-Lune Grayson and Angela Cotroneo, Displaced in Cities: Experiencing and Responding to Urban Internal Displacement (Geneva, CH: International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC], 2018), https://shop.icrc.org/displaced-in-cities-experiencing-and-responding-to-urban-internal-displacement-outside-camps-pdf-en.html; “Self-Reliance,” RefugePoint, n.d., https://www.refugepoint.org/our-work/self-reliance/.

[12] “Protracted Displacement,” Forced Migration Review 33 (September 2009), https://www.fmreview.org/protracted.

[13] Evan Easton-Calabria, Refugees, Self-Reliance, Development: A Critical History (Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2022).

[14] Claudena Skran and Easton-Calabria, “Old Concepts Making New History: Refugee Self-Reliance, Livelihoods and the ‘Refugee Entrepreneur,’” Journal of Refugee Studies 33, no. 1 (March 2020), https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article/33/1/1/5819371.

[15] Nicholas Crawford, Protracted Displacement: Uncertain Paths to Self-Reliance in Exile, September 30, 2015, https://odi.org/en/publications/protracted-displacement-uncertain-paths-to-self-reliance-in-exile/.

[16] Amy G. Slaughter, “Fostering Self-Reliance: A Case Study of an Agency’s Approach in Nairobi,” Journal of Refugee Studies 33, no. 1 (March 2020), https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fez060; Ferris, “When Refugee Displacement Drags On, Is Self-Reliance the Answer?,” Brookings Order from Chaos Blog, June 19, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/06/19/when-refugee-displacement-drags-on-is-self-reliance-the-answer/.

[17] United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), Framework on Durable Solutions for Internally Displaced Persons, April 5, 2010, https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/other/iasc-framework-durable-solutions-internally-displaced-persons.

[18] Laura Kivelä, Martina Caterina, Khadra Elmi, and Margharita Lundkvist-Houndoumadi, Durable Solutions Analysis Guide: A Tool to Measure Progress Towards Durable Solutions for IDPs (Geneva, CH: Joint IDP Profiling Service [JIPS], 2018), https://inform-durablesolutions-idp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Interagency-Durable-Solutions-Analysis-Guide-March2020.pdf.

[19] “Shining a Light on Internal Displacement: A Vision for the Future,” UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, United Nations, https://internaldisplacement-panel.org/.

[20] “The Secretary-General’s Action Agenda on Internal Displacement,” UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/content/action-agenda-on-internal-displacement/.

[21] Data for Solutions to Internal Displacement (DSID) Task Force, Proposal for Improving Data for Solutions to Displacement, June 2023. Note that this task force endorsed the International Recommendations on IDP Statistics (IRIS), https://egrisstats.org/recommendations/international-recommendations-on-idp-statistics-iris/. The Expert Group on Refugees, IDP and Statelessness Statistics (EGRISS) has suggested a methodology for measuring progress toward solutions by measuring the extent to which IDPs have overcome displacement-related vulnerabilities.

[22] International Organization for Migration (IOM), Access to Durable Solutions Among IDPs in Iraq: Moving in Displacement, September 9, 2019, https://iraq.iom.int/resources/access-durable-solutions-among-idps-iraq-moving-displacement.

[23] For the first PROGRESS report and plans for further research, see “Progress,” IOM, n.d., https://dtm.iom.int/progress.

 

 

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