Angel Abbaticchio, 杏吧原创 University

Executive Summary

Though the global refugee regime was developed more than 70 years ago to find solutions for refugees, progress on truly sustainable solutions remains scarce. The international community recognizes the need to strengthen the humanitarian-development (HD) nexus or, in other words, to promote closer collaboration between humanitarian and development programming, to find solutions for refugees. African states have paid attention to the HD nexus since the 1960s, demonstrating that efforts to merge humanitarian assistance with development are far from new. However, HD approaches practiced in Africa began to fade in the 1980s and 1990s due to prolonged displacement, a rise in refugee numbers, and the pressures of economic liberalization and structural adjustment.

While renewed attention to the HD nexus and its latest manifestation 鈥� self-reliance 鈥� is recognized as vital to finding solutions for refugees, dwindling international support and cooperation has made it difficult to find solutions. This paper examines the self-reliance model in the Kalobeyei Integrated Socio-Economic Development Programme in Kenya to assess whether or not the HD nexus is leading to solutions for refugees. I argue that state interests continue to dominate the global refugee regime and its functioning in Kenya. Consequently, the rights, dignity, and well-being of refugees 鈥� the majority of which are hosted in the global South 鈥� continue to deteriorate, and it is increasingly difficult to find permanent solutions to their plight. As HD approaches are increasingly understood as important for finding solutions, these approaches including the self-reliance model in Kalobeyei must be centered on refugees鈥� rights rather than state interests. I propose that addressing the power asymmetry within the refugee regime and the corresponding lack of inclusivity of refugees and host communities in the development and implementation of programs and policies, is crucial to realizing solutions.

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DOI

Citation

Abbaticchio, A. (2020). Is the Humanitarian-Development Nexus Leading to Solutions for Refugees? Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN).

Salma Essam El Refaei, PhD Student, Department of Political Science, 杏吧原创 University

Executive Summary

In the recent years, collaborative partnerships between research centres in the Global North and the Global South became one of the central spaces for producing knowledge on refugee issues.

In this literature review, Salma Essam El Refaei, a PhD student at 杏吧原创 University, analyzed the Forced Migration field to study how these partnerships evolve, as well as their findings and impact to locate possible solutions to the challenges that research partnerships and networks face.

Research shows that partnerships can be effectively transformative, if research partners approach the collaboration as a means towards producing knowledge. It is also important for research partners to engage self-critically in an evaluation of what they are contributing to the partnership and simultaneously assess how they might be compromising the equality of the research collaboration, given the power asymmetries between the Global North and the Global South.

This entails being transparent, inclusive and reflective. It means that both partners need to be aware of the dangers of 鈥榚mpowerment鈥� and how power inequalities are subliminally reproduced through language, culture and logistics. It also is imperative to avoid framing and engaging with the southern partner as the gate keeper to subversive knowledge or the spokesperson to refugees in the Global South.

Transformative research partnerships need to constantly assess the extent to which they are ethical, mindful, and aware of the power inequalities they are reproducing. They need to reflect on the extent to which they are contributing to the betterment of living conditions for the refugee populations they are studying or working with. Finally, it is important that research partnerships remain flexible, creative and refugee oriented.

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Citation听

El Refaei, S.E. (2020). Global Rsearch Partnerships: Beyond the North-South Divide? A Literature Review. Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN). .

Dina Taha, PhD Candidate, York University

Executive Summary

This literature review highlights migration and refugee research engaged with intersectionality as a critical framework that challenges homogenizing experiences and categories in the global refugee context. Intersectionality seeks to enable the analysis of multiple experiences, recognize multiple and fluid identities that are context dependent, and demonstrate how such identities intersect to create disadvantages as well as privileges for different individuals. An intersectionality framework has the potential reveal the systematic discrimination in refugee and migration policies and systems, point to disparities in accessing durable solutions, highlight oppression as well as emancipation due to refugee-ness, and challenge rigid labels and categories. After recognizing the gender blindness in the 1951 Refugee Convention, a growing number of international and domestic policies began paying more attention to refugee women and gender-based violence. One prominent example is the UNHCR鈥檚 Age, Gender and Diversity policy, which aims to consider the implications of policies and programs for male and female refugees of different ages and from different social groups. Feminist scholarship has offered important insights into the lived experiences of refugee women. Critical literature within refugee studies has questioned the ability of the 鈥渞efugee鈥� label and other categories to capture the complex social realities of the people on the move, instead engaging with how refugees self-identify and define their own situations. Decolonial approaches explore new methodologies (such as community-based participatory research) and the power dynamics inherent in North-South research partnerships that often reproduce hierarchies. Overall, an intersectional approach highlights that 鈥渞efugees鈥� are a diverse group and refugee experiences are shaped by multiple identities such as gender, race, national origin, class, age, (dis)ability and sexual orientation. Refugee policies and programs must be flexible to take into account this diversity of experiences instead of applying a singular universal approach for all refugees.

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Recommended Citation

Taha, D. (2019). Intersectionality and Other Critical Approaches in Refugee Research: An Annotated Bibliography. Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN).

Merve Erdilmen, PhD Student, Department of Political Science, McGill University

Executive Summary

This paper provides a brief review of the literature on the link between humanitarian and development approaches to durable solutions for refugees. By shedding light on the meaning, scope, and timing of durable solutions; strengths and shortcomings of traditional durable solutions; the emergence of alternative solutions; intersectional approaches to durable solutions; and the roles of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, as well as refugees themselves in the pursuit of durable solutions as they relate to the humanitarian-development nexus, the paper aims at examining the gaps in the literature and avenues for future studies and policies. The paper has three main findings. First, while the literature on the humanitarian-development nexus as it relates to durable solutions has received remarkable interest from scholars and policymakers, the links between the humanitarian approach to emergencies, durable solutions for refugees, and development lenses on the solutions are not always clearly examined in the literature. Second, the extensive literature on the durable solutions to displacement appears to focus mostly on experiences of flight and displacement and remains limited in exploring the struggle for solutions. Finally, most of the work on durable solutions studies solutions in the Global North, which is the destination only for a small proportion of refugee populations, rendering the focus on the pursuit of solutions within the Global South limited. There is a need for a deeper understanding of which 鈥渟olutions鈥� work in which contexts, recognizing the difficulty of reaching general conclusions about processes that are shaped by context-specific histories, cultures, socioeconomic conditions and experiences. It is also important to articulate the gap between refugees鈥� everyday practices and the policies of international organizations that contribute to solutions, the meaning of achieving a solution, and the perspectives that guide the conversation on the humanitarian-development nexus as it relates to durable solutions for refugees. The fundamental questions like solutions for who, by whom, how, and when deserve more attention, especially within the context of the Global South.

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Citation

Erdilmen, M. (2019). Durable Solutions and the Humanitarian-Development Nexus: A Literature Review. Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN).

Midori Kaga, PhD Candidate, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa

Delphine Nakache, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa

Executive Summary

Attempts to bridge the Humanitarian-Development (HD) nexus are not new, but in recent years this idea has received renewed interest in light of the failure of traditional approaches to adequately respond to and manage complex, protracted crises. While these major policy shifts take place at the global and national levels (for example, see the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, the Grand Bargain, the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees, or the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP)), few studies have considered the implications that an HD approach could have on one of the core mandates of humanitarian assistance: protection. This literature review therefore examines the potential protection implications of an HD approach to complex, emergency situations. It discusses current gaps and areas for future research that were identified in our review of the literature. Highlighting both the risks and benefits that this approach could have towards the protection outcomes for affected persons, we find that these outcomes largely depend on who is involved and whose interests are prioritized in decision-making processes in an HD approach. Consequently, this approach raises additional questions that lead us to an unresolved and ongoing debate within the humanitarian sector around its role in non-traditional humanitarian situations. This debate centres around whether the humanitarian sector should maintain a needs-based approach or shift towards a rights-based approach, which in turn raises important questions about when (and which of) the humanitarian principles are relevant and what protection really means, particularly when the perspectives of other stakeholders 鈥� such as affected persons 鈥� are taken into consideration. These issues remain unresolved and become complicated by the addition of multiple actors (humanitarian, development, civilian, private, affected persons etc.) with different roles, interests and mandates in an HD approach. We therefore propose that both the humanitarian and development sectors engage with the concepts, objectives and principles behind this debate head-on, in order to strengthen our understanding of what they mean practically. As HD approaches are likely to become the new way of addressing complex crises, finding clarity on how humanitarian and development actors can work together through shared principles and objectives is critical to ensure that affected persons are adequately protected.

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Citation

Kada, M., Nakache, D. (2019).Protection and the Humanitarian-Development Nexus: A Literature Review. Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN).