Humanitarian crises pose a formidable development challenge. Whether caused by conflict, natural disaster, climate-related events, or some combination of the… Read more three, crises have been steadily increasing in frequency, severity, and complexity. While the nature and incidences of these crises vary significantly, they affect millions of people, particularly the most vulnerable. Some populations are displaced from their communities or countries as a result of crises; others stay where they are, by choice or necessity, and must navigate unpredictable and dangerous environments. Forced displacement is becoming more common and more protracted. In December 2015, The majority remains within their country (IDMC 2016). In this context, this paper seeks to enhance the knowledge of policy makers and donors on the role of financial services mitigating humanitarian crises by synthesizing existing empirical evidence as well as operational lessons from programmatic evaluations. Where evidence is strong enough, the paper recommends actions that policy makers and donors can take to improve the provision of financial services to crisis-affected populations. The paper also identifies future research and policy priorities. The proposals outlined in this paper, which was funded by the State and Peace-Building Fund within the World Bank Group, directly supports our broader objective of promoting diversified, efficient, and inclusive financial systems at the global and country levels. Continued collaboration across sectors, institutions, and borders is the only way that the global development community will be able to address the immense challenge of forced displacement in a sustainable manner. The detailed analysis in this paper will provide invaluable guidance to the World Bank Group’s country operations as well as to our development partners. Read less ...

Spending and investment by South Sudanese refugees displaced to the West Nile region of Uganda is beginning to drive growth. Increases… Read more in the number of businesses and overall revenue in local refugee settlements demonstrate the growing contribution of these individuals to emerging local markets. At the same time, an influx of humanitarian actors are providing in-kind food assistance and direct delivery of livelihood support, strategies which undercuts the development of key markets needed to support refugee and host community livelihoods over the coming years. There is consistent evidence that West Nile’s marketplaces have the capacity to support cash transfers, which generate local revenue and increase refugee business investments. But current commitments to a greater use of cash transfers are just a starting point. Aid agencies must support demand-driven livelihoods opportunities and growth in weak markets, working with local businesses and market institutions to improve refugee and host community households’ ability to earn an income. To advance these efforts, the Department for International Development (DFID) has funded Mercy Corps, Palladium, and DanChurchAid (DCA) to implement the ReHope project. Taking a market systems development approach, the project’s strategy involves channelling coupons for partial subsidies on improved seeds through local agro-dealers, improving agro-dealers’ ability to access quality inputs from national seed companies, promoting land sharing between refugees and host communities, and working with produce trading companies to attract them to the area and assist in developing agent networks. By leveraging the power of markets, these strategies aim to generate durable income opportunities in refugee areas and greater value for money on aid investments. In the first growing season, willingness of refugee farmers to invest in seeds was strong, with 76% of coupon recipients following through to purchase inputs. Partner agro-dealers also expanded their businesses in the refugee settlements and reported a growth in sales of unsubsidized inputs. Based on these initial project findings, this brief calls for a continued transition away from in-kind aid to an approach that emphasizes partnerships with local businesses, reductions of subsidies and demand-driven, market-based, livelihoods support. This shift requires a combination of market systems development and humanitarian expertise, longer term funding strategies to strengthen local markets, and investments to understand long-run program impacts on markets and households. Read less ...

The paper examines the impact of internal displacement in Colombia between 1998 and 2005 on wages in destination municipalities. The… Read more analysis suggests that influxes of IDPs lead to a short-run negative impact on wages, i.e. a one percent increase in population due to internal displacement leads to an overall reduction in wages of 1.4 percent in the short-run. The author examines the wage effects by skill level and by gender, and finds that the decrease in wages is more pronounced for women, i.e. a one percent increase in population due to internal displacement decreases wages for low-skilled women by 2.2 percent, and for high-skilled women by 1.7 percent. The analysis shows that in the long run (over five years) there is no overall impact on wages, probably due to labor reallocation in receiving municipalities, i.e. following inflows of IDPs there is an increase in outmigration of local residents. However, the negative impact on wages persists for low-skilled women, who are less mobile, coupled with the fact that IDP women adapt well to new labor markets. Read less ...

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to refugee livelihoods. Interventions must be adapted to the local context. Factors such as whether… Read more refugees reside among the local population or stay in camps, whether they live in urban centres or rural ar- eas, fundamentally change the way livelihood interventions should be designed. A joint effort by UNHCR and ILO, this guide provides a framework for assessment to help practitioners determine the right combination of interventions to arrive at a holistic livelihoods approach that is well adapted to the local context and labour market. In doing so, it applies the “Making Markets Work for the Poor” approach (also known as M4P or market systems development) to the specific context of refugees. M4P provides a useful framework for understanding market systems in which refugees can make a living and offers guidance for identifying interventions aimed at strengthening these systems. We hope this guide provides a programmatic example of how to build the nexus between humanitarian and development actions, and paves the way for more marketoriented approaches to refugee livelihood programmes which ultimately will contribute to the development of the comprehensive refugee response approach, the global compact for refugees, and the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 on decent work and economic growth. Read less ...

Measuring self-reliance is challenging as it cuts across sectors and agencies. It attempts to gauge the total impact on a… Read more household of various inputs, regardless of their source. And it attempts to do so longitudinally, measuring change from the baseline assessment to the achievement of self-reliance, and beyond to ensure sustainability. A group of fifteen agencies formed a community of practice in 2016 to tackle these challenges. A global mapping exercise of self-reliance measurement tools turned up excellent tools for targeting assistance to refugees in need, including the Vulnerability Assessment Framework created by UN agencies and the World Bank for Syrian refugees in Jordan. It also turned up excellent tools for measuring integration among refugees accepted permanently for resettlement or local integration (e.g. UNHCR’s Integration Index for Colombian refugees in Ecuador) and in situations of reintegration following repatriation (e.g. the Multi-Dimensional Integration Index used in Afghanistan). The mapping failed to uncover examples of self-reliance indices in contexts where refugees lack permanent residency, other than those created by RefugePoint and Women’s Refugee Commission, the joint convenors of the community. Also lacking were attempts at universalising measurements begun as a localised effort. Broad recognition emerged from the community, however, of the need for such universal measurements in today’s refugee context. Read less ...

Although self-reliance has been promoted as a major assistance strategy for refugees in recent years, there have been limited attempts to rigorously… Read more measure it. This has practical and academic implications, as studies on refugee self-reliance use varying and often imprecise indicators, meaning it is impossible to compare the success of refugee self-reliance across contexts and strategies. Instead, most humanitarian work is measured according to specific sectoral outputs or outcomes over the course of a six-month or one-year project cycle. While selfreliance is often highlighted as a priority, few, if any, agencies are held to this goal, and this is in large part because self-reliance is not measured. Noting this gap, RefugePoint and the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) convened a global Community of Practice of over 15 organisations1 to collectively engage with this issue. Read less ...

This report investigates what money and financial transactions can reveal about the journeys and experiences of forced migration. The research… Read more on the financial journey of refugees examines money as a key node of the displacement experience and highlights the transactions and the power dynamics that unfold among refugees as well as between refugees and formal or informal authorities. The report contains several key findings regarding the financial portfolios of refugees, financial relationships on the move, humanitarian assistance as part of refugees’ financial portfolios, and identity on the move. The Financial Journeys of Refugees is a qualitative study that unfolded between July 2016 and April 2017 at multiple sites in Greece, Jordan, and Turkey. The findings are based on interviews with 120 refugees and 33 key informants as well as observations conducted at refugee camps and shelters, informal refugee settlements, money transfer offices, and other locations. It is an Institute for Human Security (IHS) working paper. Find resources related to this publication on the IHS website here. Read less ...

The Syrian refugee crisis has galvanized attention to one of the world’s foremost challenges: forced displacement. The total number of… Read more refugees and internally displaced persons, now at over 65 million, continues to grow as violent conflict spikes.This report, Forcibly Displaced: Toward a Development Approach Supporting Refugees, the Internally Displaced, and Their Hosts, produced in close partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), attempts to sort fact from fiction to better understand the scope of the challenge and encourage new thinking from a socioeconomic perspective. The report depicts the reality of forced displacement as a developing world crisis with implications for sustainable growth: 95 percent of the displaced live in developing countries and over half are in displacement for more than four years. To help the displaced, the report suggests ways to rebuild their lives with dignity through development support, focusing on their vulnerabilities such as loss of assets and lack of legal rights and opportunities. It also examines how to help host communities that need to manage the sudden arrival of large numbers of displaced people, under pressure to expand services, create jobs and address long-standing development issues. Critical to this response is collective action. As work on a new Global Compact on Responsibility Sharing for Refugees progresses, the report underscores the importance of humanitarian and development communities working together in complementary ways to support countries throughout the crisis―from strengthening resilience and preparedness at the onset to creating lasting solutions. Read less ...

There is a growing recognition that the ultra poor are generally not integrated into the current anti poverty programmes. In… Read more this paper, we estimate the long run impacts of a credit plus grant approach, a combination of microcredit, training and some grants, mostly in the form of consumption stipend, on the livelihoods of the ultra poor. Using longitudinal panel data (2012-2016), we show that the intervention increased labour supply, income, and food consumption. We also document a large positive effect on productive assets. The effects on most of the outcomes of interest have been found to be increasing over time. For instance, the programme increased productive asset values by 142 per cent and 259 per cent in the short run (after two years of the intervention) and long run (after four years of the intervention), respectively. Similarly, per capita real income increased by 37 per cent in the long run against 35 per cent in the short run. We also document positive effects on non food expenditure and savings behaviour. Cost-benefit analysis shows that the average benefits of the programme are 6.65 times larger than its costs. These findings indicate that microcredit can sustainably reduce ultra poverty if some additional supports are combined with it. Read less ...

Since its inception in Bangladesh in 2002, the Graduation Approach has received much attention, including in mainstream media outlets. Beyond… Read more this positive media acclaim, momentum has gathered behind graduation as an important social policy instrument. There has been a proliferation in the implementation of new graduation-inspired programmes. Primarily, graduation has been advanced as an effective means to combat extreme poverty and embodies part of the ‘big push’ to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 1: “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”. It is one of the most thoroughly evaluated poverty reduction programmes ever, and its putative results are resoundingly positive, which helps explain the surge in interest. However, the increased enthusiasm and visibility enjoyed by the Graduation Approach has not been free from controversy. Significant concerns linger—centring on targeting efficacy and equity and what happens post-graduation (i.e. after households exit the programme)—and impact results have been vehemently contested. Nevertheless, the buzz continues to grow, and thus graduation-type programmes merit further examination. Given this groundswell of interest, this special issue of Policy in Focus attempts to capture the diversity of views that exist in the debate. The articles feature a veritable smorgasbord of perspectives, ranging from those of committed proponents and enthusiastic new implementers, to the cautiously optimistic who reason that graduation could be a valid component of wider social protection systems, to outright contestation. Today, the Graduation Approach has arguably arrived at an inflection point. The debate on its role and effectiveness remains to be settled. There might be increased take-up, or it might recede into obscurity— it may even possibly be repurposed into other hybrid programmatic forms. Whatever its destination, we hope that this publication contributes to promoting a better understanding of this significant policy development and stimulating the debate even further. Read less ...