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1. Opportunities and Challenges of Emerging Technologies for the Refugee System

Author:
Raya Pakzad
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Efforts are being made to use information and communications technologies to improve accountability in providing refugee aid. However, there remains a pressing need for increased accountability and transparency when designing and deploying humanitarian technologies. This paper outlines the challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies, such as machine learning and blockchain, in the refugee system. The paper concludes by recommending the creation of quantifiable metrics for sharing information across both public and private initiatives; the creation of the equivalent of a “Hippocratic oath” for technologists working in the humanitarian field; the development of predictive early-warning systems for human rights abuses; and greater accountability among funders and technologists to ensure the sustainability and real-world value of humanitarian apps and other digital platforms.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Refugee Issues, Digital Economy, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. The Global Refugee Regime and UN System-wide Reforms

Author:
Sarah Miller
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This paper considers how responsibility for ensuring refugee protection and access to solutions can be shared more reliably across the United Nations’ system, by examining entry points beyond traditional humanitarian actors (including peace and security actors in the United Nations), as well as the role states can play in supporting a broader response from the UN system. It draws upon a range of literature and concepts, including the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, offering a mapping and analysis of the proposed UN reforms within the humanitarian, development, financial, and peace and security sectors. It then considers how these reforms might be relevant to responsibility sharing in displacement situations and lays out some of the broader challenges to greater responsibility sharing. Finally, the paper provides recommendations for how to more fully engage these other actors — within the United Nations and beyond — to improve the prevention of, response to and resolution of displacement.
Topic:
Security, United Nations, Refugee Issues, Displacement, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Innovations in Responsibility Sharing for Refugees

Author:
Tristan Harley
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
In recent years, significant global attention — much of it through the negotiations of the 2016 New York Declaration and the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees — has been focused on developing more effective and equitable methods for sharing responsibility for refugees. States, international organizations, civil society organizations and academics have also put forward proposals and programs, alongside and in response to these negotiations. This paper examines and compares these initiatives, analyzing their strengths and limitations. It calls for a clearer understanding of the meaning and application of responsibility sharing for the protection of refugees and for further examination as to how the refugee regime interacts with other areas of international governance. It also highlights opportunities associated with incorporating refugees within broader development or human mobility initiatives, while it reiterates the need to preserve the principal humanitarian purpose of refugee protection and the provision of durable solutions through effective responsibility sharing. It proposes transitioning refugee financing and refugee resettlement away from voluntary, ad hoc contributions and toward more concrete legal and financial commitments, while accounting for states’ differing capacities and resources. One approach to implementing these changes is to bring together the actors who are most capable, most responsible and most vulnerable, within a mini-multilateral framework.
Topic:
Migration, Refugee Issues, Displacement, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Data Protection and Digital Agency for Refugees

Author:
Dragana Kaurin
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
For the millions of refugees fleeing conflict and persecution every year, access to information about their rights and control over their personal data are crucial for their ability to assess risk and navigate the asylum process. While asylum seekers are required to provide significant amounts of personal information on their journey to safety, they are rarely fully informed of their data rights by UN agencies or local border control and law enforcement staff tasked with obtaining and processing their personal information. Despite recent improvements in data protection mechanisms in the European Union, refugees’ informed consent for the collection and use of their personal data is rarely sought. Using examples drawn from interviews with refugees who have arrived in Europe since 2013, and an analysis of the impacts of the 2016 EU-Turkey deal on migration, this paper analyzes how the vast amount of data collected from refugees is gathered, stored and shared today, and considers the additional risks this collection process poses to an already vulnerable population navigating a perilous information-decision gap.
Topic:
United Nations, Refugee Issues, European Union, Asylum, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Asia

5. The Role of Technology in Addressing the Global Migration Crisis

Author:
Jonathan Kent
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The World Refugee Council and the Aspen Ministers Forum co-hosted this working meeting to explore the integration of technology into the governance and lives of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). One of the first of its kind, this multi-stakeholder event brought together representatives from the private sector and civil society as well as researchers and former political leaders to explore the challenges and opportunities in the use of technology and its potential to transform the global refugee system. This workshop’s participants discussed technology’s potential to mobilize political will and increase accountability, facilitate greater responsibility sharing, assist in mobilizing new funding sources and improve the efficiency of existing ones, as well as technology’s risks to the refugee system and individuals and how the risks can be mitigated. They also discussed how refugees and IDPs can be included in the development of these technologies and how major technological communities and hubs can transform themselves to reflect the diversity of these populations. Creating a foundation of shared understandings about how technology fits into the refugee and IDP field is the first step toward designing a more strategic and long-term vision.
Topic:
Migration, Science and Technology, Refugee Issues, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Meaningfully Engaging Youth in the Governance of the Global Refugee System

Author:
Bushra Ebadi
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Young people aged 15 to 35 comprise one-third of the world’s population, yet they are largely absent from decision-making fora and, as such, unaccounted for in policy making, programming and laws. The disenfranchisement of displaced youth is a particular problem, because it further marginalizes young people who have already experienced persecution and been forcibly displaced. This paper aims to demonstrate the importance of including displaced youth in governance and decision making, to identify key barriers to engagement that displaced youth face, and to highlight effective strategies for engaging youth. Comprehensive financial, legal, social and governance reforms are needed in order to facilitate and support the meaningful engagement of youth in the refugee and IDP systems. Without these reforms and partnerships between youth and other diverse stakeholders, it will be difficult to achieve sustainable solutions for forcibly displaced populations and the communities that host them.
Topic:
Migration, Refugee Issues, Displacement, Youth Movement, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Asia, South America, North America, and Global Focus

7. Refugees and the City: The Twenty-first-century Front Line

Author:
Robert Muggah and Adriana Erthal Abdenur
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Today, more than 60 percent of all refugees and 80 percent of all internally displaced persons are living in urban areas. While cities are periodically overwhelmed by sudden mass influxes of forced migrants, they are remarkably effective at absorbing populations on the move. With some exceptions, the international community — the UN Refugee Agency, in particular — has been slow to empower cities to assume a greater role in protecting, assisting and promoting durable solutions for refugees, asylum claimants and other groups of concern. New compacts on migration and refugees only tangentially address cities’ pivotal role in shaping the experience of forced migrants. Instead, cities are developing solutions on their own. This paper assesses the characteristics of the urban displacement crisis and identifies challenges and opportunities confronting cities, challenging myths associated with the “refugee burden” and offering preliminary recommendations for stepping up international, national and municipal cooperation.
Topic:
Migration, United Nations, Refugee Issues, Urban, and Asylum
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. From Rhetoric to Reality: Achieving Gender Equality for Refugee Women and Girls

Author:
Eileen Pittaway and Linda Bartolomei
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This paper addresses the international refugee regime’s failure, despite significant international law and policy developed over the past 30 years, to address the protection needs of refugee women and girls and to promote gender equality in policy and service provision. This failure results in serious human rights abuses and squanders the enormous potential and social capital that women and girls can bring to achieving solutions. Refugee women and girls continue to suffer endemic sexual violence and discrimination and to be marginalized, their voices and capacities ignored. The current negotiation of a global compact on refugees by UN member states, led by the UN Refugee Agency, provides an opportunity to look at the reasons for this failure and its implications for women and girls, men and boys, youth, families and communities, in host countries and countries of asylum. The issue is both humanitarian and political, and includes the contentious debate about whether refugees are “burdens” or “responsibilities,” an argument mainly between the governments of the Global South, who host the majority of refugees, and those of the Global North, who provide resources. These tensions, and ideological positions held by stakeholders, all adversely impact refugee women and girls. The increased movement of refugees and the scarcity of resources have decreased the protection available for all refugees and made the plight of women and girls even more acute. The authors outline seven key barriers to refugee women and girls’ achieving gender equality in policy and practice. They explore the ways in which each barrier exacerbates and compounds the others, and recommend approaches to bring about the structural and operational changes urgently needed.
Topic:
Gender Issues, United Nations, Refugee Issues, Gender Based Violence, and Sexual Violence
Political Geography:
Global South

9. Xenophobia toward Refugees and Other Forced Migrants

Author:
Sarah Miller
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Generally speaking, those who study forced migration and those who advocate for solutions to forced migration spend little time studying xenophobia. This paper has aimed to address that gap by examining xenophobia in the context of refugees, first by considering definitions of xenophobia vis-à-vis other terms, including racism and nativism, and next by looking at the roots of xenophobia, which include not only political, social and economic grievances and uncertainty but also competition for scarce resources and the belief that one’s own nation-state or group is superior to others. The paper then reviews some expressions of xenophobic rhetoric and actions, and their impacts, before considering key issues and challenges in overcoming xenophobia. Looking at successful attempts in combatting xenophobia provides lessons for those engaged in research and advocacy. Recommended actions include holding governments more accountable for their failures to protect people’s rights; identifying and fighting against policies that incentivize xenophobic behaviour; recognizing that pro-migrant programming can backfire; identifying political actors who promulgate xenophobia and choosing interventions carefully; and seeking greater collaboration and creativity among different actors working to combat xenophobia. The use of localized approaches emerges from the literature as particularly important. The backdrop of the UN Refugee Agency’s global compacts on refugees and for migration makes the moment ripe for further discussion on how to reduce xenophobia and increase responsibility sharing in refugee situations. Likewise, the prominence of political regimes that draw on xenophobic rhetoric and even encourage xenophobic actions means that finding new ways to reduce xenophobia is more important than ever.
Topic:
Migration, United Nations, Refugee Issues, and Xenophobia
Political Geography:
Global Focus

10. Spotlight on Yemen's Forgotten War and Humanitarian Disaster: Preventing the Next Syrian Refugee Crisis

Author:
Jacqueline Lopour
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Humanitarian crises across the world are the worst since World War II, and the situation is only going to get worse. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), almost 60 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced from their homes — that is approximately one in every 123 people on the planet (UNHCR 2016a). The problem is growing, as the number of those displaced is over 60 percent greater than the previous decade. As a result, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has announced the first ever World Humanitarian Summit to be held May 23-24, 2016. The world’s attention is focused on the Syrian refugee crisis, which has displaced 11 million people. But in doing so, the global community has lost sight of an equally severe humanitarian and displacement crisis — the situation in Yemen. Yemen now has more people in need of aid than any other country in the world, according to the UNOCHA Global Humanitarian Overview 2016. An estimated 21.2 million people in Yemen — 82 percent of the population — requires humanitarian aid, and this number is steadily growing (UNOCHA 2016a).
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Development, Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, War, and Refugee Issues
Political Geography:
Yemen and Global Focus