The realisation that a rethinking and reorientation is needed away from care and maintenance towards more developmental approaches in refugee assistance is by no means a recent one. In practice, however, efforts to leverage development programmes aimed at increasing self-reliance of communities affected by forced displacement have so far met with only partial success.

Calls for the inclusion of refugees in national systems and development frameworks have become stronger with protractedness as the almost unexceptional norm, with increasing and more complex mixed migration flows directly affecting also some of the largest refugee donor countries, and with failure to effectively govern and end forced migration due to the ever-shrinking solutions space.

This research project takes a critical approach to examining the dynamics of the development discourse in forced migration, analysing the drivers and interests at play, looking beyond shifting responsibilities and aid flows, and assessing policy effects on communities affected by forced displacement. The project analyses these impacts by looking at the example of education asking to what extent developmental policy approaches have influenced and been effective in creating more equitable education opportunities for refugee and host community children and youth. It takes particular interest in the data and funding dimensions in processes of translating global policy to the national level.