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refugees
18 Apr, 2019
'Self-reliance' for refugees? Badly handled it can make matters worse
Policymakers and aid agencies in sub-Saharan Africa are increasingly encouraging...
26 Mar, 2019
Failed pilots: evaluations of blockchain interventions need transparency
In her book on humanitarian technology, K.L. Jacobsen...
12 Mar, 2018
Reflections on the Berlin conference on ‘Energy for Displaced People: A Global Plan of Action’
In January in Berlin, UN agencies, donors, NGOs and the private sector came together to ensure that the humanitarian sector contributes to the achievement of...
27 Feb, 2018
Examining human rights protections for Syrian refugees in Turkish garment supply chains
It is estimated that of the 3.4 million Syrian refugees registered in Turkey, 650,000 have found work in the manufacturing sector, which includes the thriving leather-textile-garment industry. Most of them...
20 Feb, 2018
Kenyan study sheds new light on gap between refugees and host communities
Refugees are increasingly regarded as a development issue, rather than simply a focus for humanitarian aid. This reflects the fact that 84% of the world’s refugees are in...
24 Jan, 2018
Blockchain for refugees: great hopes, deep concerns
Blockchain has been much in the news lately thanks to the speculative cryptocurrency market. It is increasingly being touted as something of a magic bullet in a whole range of disciplines, and has been put...
08 Aug, 2017
Refugia: a utopian solution to the crisis of mass displacement
And still they come. An apparently endless flotilla of rubber dinghies filled with migrants and refugees making their way across the Mediterranean to Europe. As the numbers and visibility of this migration...
07 Aug, 2017
Promoting ‘self-reliance’ for refugees: what does it really mean?
Promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees has occupied a central place in the policy arena of the international refugee regime in recent years. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)...
20 Jun, 2017
Who thrives, who struggles? Exploring the determinants of economic success among refugees
Today is the 16th United Nations' World Refugee Day, a day to recognize and honour refugees’ resilience, agency and capability.
27 Apr, 2017
How might the Turkish referendum outcome affect Turkey’s policies towards refugees and migrants?
Turkey’s referendum on a proposed constitutional amendment that would give new powers to the president was held on 16 April. According to the unofficial results, the proposal of the governing party AKP (the...
25 Apr, 2017
EU asylum policies: the power of strong regulating states
European Union asylum policies are currently one of the most controversial areas of EU policy-making. This became particularly obvious in 2015/2016 when the EU proved unable to respond adequately to the...
03 Apr, 2017
Due diligence and labour rights – migrants and refugees in the textile sector
On 8 February 2017, in Paris, the OECD announced its Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector during a Roundtable on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear...
30 Mar, 2017
Still there: volunteering at Nea Kavala refugee camp, Northern Greece
Not many people asked me why I went volunteering in Greece. The images of refugees in the camps in Greece and other parts of the Balkans, and those sleeping rough in temperatures of minus 15-20 degrees, as...
27 Mar, 2017
Humanitarianism from the ground: humanitarian aid to migrants and refugees in Mexico
‘As the freight train was passing, they kept shouting at us from the top of the wagons – “Give us the bread! Give us the bread! We are hungry!” The clamour was such that we could not do otherwise. We threw...
30 Sep, 2015
Refugee crisis: Syria's religious minorities must not be overlooked
As hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees continue to flee their homeland, there is a tendency to view all Syrian refugees as a homogeneous entity. They are not. Many stories are being told, but many more...
05 Jun, 2015
Military madness in the Med
According to the United Nations, some 60,000 people, many of them from war-torn and poorly governed countries such as Eritrea, Somalia and Syria, have travelled across the Mediterranean Sea since the...
27 Apr, 2015
Let their people drown: how EU politicians have become tragic actors in a self-inflicted migration drama
In recent months, a record number of refugees and migrants have drowned in their attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea. According to recent UN estimates, in 2014 almost 220,000 migrants crossed the...