Conflict-Induced Migration and the Refugee Crisis: Global and Local Perspectives from Peacebuilding and Development

Introduction

The conflict-induced displacement of millions in less than two years has revealed many significant cracks in international legal and economic systems. The resistance of the problem to more traditional methods of international cooperation suggests that the most viable solutions will come from deeper analysis and a focus on addressing problems at all levels. On 31 October 2015 The New York Times reported,

There are more displaced people and refugees now than at any other time in recorded history … They are unofficial ambassadors of failed states, unending wars, intractable conflicts. The most striking thing about the current migration crisis, however, is how much bigger it could still get. (Nordland 2015)

What this quote fails to address, however — and what this special issue of JPD hopes to investigate — are the underlying causes of such ‘intractable conflicts’ as well as possible long-term sustainable solutions that account for the narratives of all stakeholders, not just those of receiving states. Large-scale sources of recent displacement include Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia, countries that have experienced high and/or prolonged conflicts exacerbating poverty and food insecurity. Although the ‘European Migrant Crisis’ drew headlines when it hit Europe, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey were already sheltering 3.6 million refugees, and current infrastructures simply do not exist to support more, which highlights a continued disconnect between the presumed needs of the Global North and those of the Global South. Ultimately, this global refugee crisis has emphasised the need for an ‘all hands on deck’ approach, locally coordinated and vertically integrated, often recommended by peacebuilding and development scholars and practitioners.

The global community, including UN agencies, policy-makers, civil society, international organisations, and the private sector are reflecting on how to tackle these issues — including where and how to draw lines, or build walls on the one hand, and how to rethink the decisions around aid on the other, toward more preventive and sustainable solutions. The situation is made more difficult because these decisions are burdened by a large, unclear, and ageing lexicon of politically polarising terms such as ‘forced’ versus ‘voluntary’ migration, immigration, asylum, human security, and humanitarian space. Even more problematic are the ways that the crisis has led to the politicisation of human suffering. For example, 2016 saw the first Refugee Olympic Team compete in the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil under the Olympic Flag. Ten athletes from South Sudan, Ethiopia, Syria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo helped shine a light on the ‘global refugee crisis’ (Martin 2016). Some, however, criticised their inclusion as a mere marketing stunt by the International Olympic Committee. What is certainly clear is that the problem is not going away and needs evidence-based actionable steps generated by diverse experts on a host of issues from at-risk youth to participatory urban planning, sensitivity to the impact of trauma, and resource management. As governments and organisations calculate the costs over decades, profound questions arise about whether different models and greater investments are needed to ensure the stability and development of states globally in the face of massive population shifts.

Key Themes in Conflict-Induced Migration

This special issue explores the proliferating refugee phenomenon from multiple perspectives including the analysis of triggers and risk factors, exploring tested solutions to vulnerability and misery, policy reform options, engagement with durable solutions, and longer term outcomes from mass migrations as refugees move, move on, stay, and return home in diverse contexts. Drawing on a range of peacebuilding and development theories and concepts including human needs, human security, and transitional justice, the articles and briefings provide a range of practical approaches to learning from and improving engagement strategies with refugees at various stages in their ‘life cycle’ from internally displaced in urban centres to those in refugee camps to refugees who have been resettled and integrated to various degrees in Northern countries.

Conflict-induced migration has many drivers — violence, war, environmental degradation, deprivation, fear, identity politics, and economic insecurity. Human needs (Burton 1990; Galtung 1979; 2005; Lundy & Adebayo 2016) and human security (Hanlon & Christie 2016; Lederach 1995; Schnabel 2008; Sen 2001) indicators such as economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political help frame the issues and possible resolutions to conflict-induced migration for those who stay, those who are forced to flee, those who receive those who left, and those that try to return. The following questions helped us select articles and briefings in this issue, although the authors raise additional levels of complexity and challenges that mount with the growing crises.

•	Are refugees welcomed (Harden et al. 2015), tolerated, or openly discriminated against (Baumeister & Vohs 2007; Brief et al. 2005; Esses et al. 1998)?
•	Are host communities expected to shoulder added burdens placed upon their resources (OECD 2012), or are the refugees portrayed as labour and cultural dividends (Ahmed et al. 2016)?
•	What are refugees’ rights (Goodwin-Gill & McAdam 2007) and how can they rebuild their agency from positions of isolation or vulnerability (Freedman 2015)?
•	When should the international community intervene, and, if they do so, how (Dowty & Loescher 1996; Hammerstad 2014)?
•	What policies and practices — past, present, or being debated — offer viable routes for addressing migration and refugee crises in ways that support sustained peace and inclusive development on the one hand, and help prevent these crises in the future, on the other?
•	What are we learning about appropriate timelines, approaches, and models for offering protection and integration to displaced populations — bearing in mind associated implications such as psychological, legal, human rights, political, and economic, for different stakeholders?
•	How do vulnerable populations from positions of displacement/emplacement work to build peace at community and sub-national levels and how are they having an impact at national and international levels?
•	What are the issues, challenges, obstacles, and opportunities related to the inclusion of displaced populations in peacebuilding processes?

Although the scale of displacement in 2015–2016 saw increased attention in Western capitals, countries in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere have been facing the challenges posed to peacebuilding and development by refugee and migrant flows for years (Berry et al. 2016). Indeed, as several of the authors in this special issue note, migration is not a new phenomenon, and the political, social, and economic challenges that refugees and migrants face vary with time and space, even as certain common themes can be identified. As befits the journal’s mandate, the articles, briefings, and policy dialogue in this issue focus primarily on the experiences of those affected by conflict-induced migration (see also Martin & Tirman 2009; Nyberg-Sørensen et al. 2002; United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA] 2004), whether they are from the perspective of displaced persons, communities, or the practitioners and policy-makers faced with easing distress and promoting resilience among often vulnerable populations.

First, Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso considers durable solutions (repatriation, local integration, or resettlement) when she admonishes the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for not sufficiently addressing the unique and diverse challenges refugee women face in Africa as they try to rebuild a future taken from them by conflict. By reassessing these three solutions for diverse groups of African women, she shows the struggles from the inside of what she calls the intersectionality of disadvantage. Using the cases of Liberia and Nigeria, Yacob-Haliso argues that women need special consideration emanating from disadvantages related to personal and structural factors such as the loss of traditional gender roles, psychosocial trauma of return when faced with perpetrators and a lack of adequate resources to support a household, and as the least likely to be provided direct access to interventions. When safety and livelihood are primary concerns, contributions to peacebuilding and development are an afterthought. According to Yacob-Haliso, pull factors including the return of security, employment, and other opportunities increase the chance for successful and durable peace and development.

Drawing on John Paul Lederach’s peacebuilding concept of nested communities, Jeffrey Pugh also underscores the critical importance of local networks and relationships in external intervention strategies. Although at times host communities are overlooked by conflict management and development practitioners intervening to work with migrant and refugee populations, Pugh’s examination of two different programmes working with migrant youth in the border region of Ecuador shows that while conflict resolution training courses helped reduce violence in the border community, the programme that consciously engaged with local networks and institutions had a longer term impact.

Several of the articles emphasise the importance of recognising migrant and refugee agency. Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm argues that ‘migrant populations are often keenly interested in addressing human rights violations and have the skills, resources, and connections that enable them to advance their agendas’. In other words, Wiebelhaus-Brahm shows the ability to create and mobilise agency even among the disenfranchised. In discussing the cases of Argentina, Haiti, Sri Lanka, and Liberia, he suggests four factors that shape the ‘willingness and ability’ of diasporas to have an impact on transitional justice efforts in their home countries, one of which, ‘characteristics of the members of the diaspora’, links to Etsegenet Endale’s briefing on the many roles that Ethiopian refugees who have settled in the United States can play in peacebuilding and development when they foster their human and social capital.

Lydia Wanja Gitau and Paul Rhodes also explore the theme of refugee agency as they question the impact of UNHCR practices on the mental health of refugees. They suggest that refugee dependency fostered by reliance on handouts undermines agency and can lead to negative psychosocial consequences. Like Pugh, the authors also underscore the importance of community networks and the mobilisation of social resources in helping refugees repair their social fabric and rebuild the trust needed for successful peacebuilding and development during and after refugee camp life.

Several of the articles examine policies (or lack thereof) instituted by governments facing incoming refugees, migrants, or internally displaced persons (IDPs). Susanne Schmeidl and Srinjoy Bose explore the role of migrant youth in peacebuilding and development activities. However, in contrast to Pugh’s article that looks more specifically at which types of programmatic interventions are more successful in a border region, Schmeidl and Bose identify the challenges facing internally displaced Afghan youth in several urban settings. The authors underscore the importance of education and employment – common themes across the articles in this issue – as well as the institutional challenges, such as the difficulty of obtaining identification documents.

Carl Dahlman’s case study on the Balkans illustrates ‘how the European Union developed the exclusionary practices of temporary protection and protection at a distance’ that we see at play in current rhetoric and (in)action regarding the most recent flows of refugees to Europe. This article, along with that of Yacob-Haliso, underscores the role of the international community and the legal structure created by state interests in bounding the possible ‘durable solutions’ available to refugee populations. Dahlman outlines the external border enforcement policies put in place by EU countries designed ‘to preserve state sovereignty over immigration rather than fulfilling state obligations toward refugees’. Here it is clear that there is a need for the global mobilisation of resources, goodwill, and knowledge to better understand these complex links between basic human needs (i.e., development) and human security (i.e., peacebuilding).

Many of the briefings in this issue focus on the host communities in so-called ‘third countries’, where refugees and asylum seekers are resettled. The lessons from these articles and briefings provide insight into the short- and long-term issues of adaptation into host communities such as generational, educational, linguistic, and socio-cultural challenges and how they can be overcome through policy reform and resource support for both the host communities and newcomers. Marcelle Burgre and Susan F. Hirsch underscore the diverse socio-economic and political circumstances of refugees in Malta and remind us that peacebuilding and development interventions may need to occur within migrant networks themselves, and not only between migrant and host communities. Problematising taken-for-granted categories in the migrant and refugee literature is a common thread throughout many of these articles including Yacob-Haliso’s argument that not all refugee women experience displacement in the same ways, sometimes refusing to be even considered refugees at all.

Warren Haffar makes a case for the integration of conflict transformation and urban planning strategies, particularly participatory governance and planning within host communities, to help find durable solutions to the refugee crisis. Similar to Yacob-Haliso’s thesis, he argues that in order for these solutions to be effective, both refugees and host communities must be active participants in long-term integration planning. Birthe Reimers’ briefing on the use of Photovoice in a refugee host community provides a concrete example of the positive impact of such strategies. The briefing by Sherrill Hayes discusses the role of educational systems in refugee integration and Etgesenet Endale argues that resettled refugees can engage with their homeland’s development in more diverse ways than just sending remittances. Together, this collection of briefings highlights the diversity of migrant and refugee populations (as well as host communities) and the need for inclusive, participatory approaches that incorporate the varying needs of host communities and those who are part of the often undifferentiated (by pundits, policy-makers, and politicians) migrant and refugee populations.

Lastly, in their policy dialogue Dragica Mikavica and Chrissie Monaghan emphasise the need for peacebuilding and development practitioners to engage with younger populations of refugees and IDPs. Like the pieces by Schmeidl and Bose and Pugh, the authors examine an often overlooked population. Specifically, Mikavica and Monaghan encourage peacebuilding and development actors to engage with the United Nations’ Children and Armed Conflict (CAC) agenda, which includes extensive data that can be used to help prevent and end grave violations of human rights and interrupt patterns of violence that often lead to displacement of persons while also advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

As a whole, the articles and briefings in this special issue provide insight into the complexity and diversity of the migrant and refugee experience. While many questions remain, the authors point to a variety of lessons learned from peacebuilding and development that policy-makers would be wise to heed. Policy-makers and practitioners should remember that migrants’ and refugees’ experiences vary widely depending on the reasons for their displacement, their level of education, their countries of origin, and the institutional structures of their host country. Further, peacebuilding and development actors must consider the long-term impact of short-term decisions. Lessons from urban planning, conflict transformation, transitional justice, and trauma counselling all suggest that without including refugees and migrants as well as their hosts in planning processes, ‘durable solutions’ remain elusive. Interventions that address the push and pull factors for migration, from lack of education to conflict to unemployment should reject a one-size-fits-all approach and embed their programmes in local networks that strengthen existing capacity and enhance social connections.

The UN Secretary-General’s May 2016 report on the large-scale movement of refugees and migrants as well as the September 2016 General Assembly summit indicate the high level of international concern regarding large movements of refugees and migrants. However, for any new international framework to promote peacebuilding and development, state actors must go beyond lowest common denominator political agreements to ensure that everyday citizens in host communities as well as various migrant and refugee groups themselves feel their concerns are represented as well. As the Brexit debate in the UK and the U.S. presidential campaign rhetoric have reminded international audiences, the idea of putting up walls and separating from the world is often appealing to those in uncertain economic circumstances.

Although the articles in this issue focus primarily on the experiences of refugees, migrants, and their host communities, a need remains to address the structural and conflict-induced root causes of migration.

We hope the articles in this issue help develop the concept of migration as a dynamic process that involves many individuals, institutions, and communities over a prolonged period of time. This process requires consideration of psychological, interpersonal, community, and state-institutional factors to develop evidence-based solutions to one of the world’s most challenging issues. These articles suggest that without addressing the economic concerns of migrant populations (internally displaced or refugees) and their host communities (urban centres, refugee camp neighbours, or foreign countries) and building relationships within and between migrant populations, their hosts, and the state and non-state actors left behind, the problems associated with large-scale movements of people will remain intractable.