The demands placed on the humanitarian community in emergencies are enormously challenging. These are compounded by the fact that the IT and telecommunications infrastructure – critical for efficiently carrying out life-saving operations, though often taken for granted at headquarter level…
For women refugees, work is frequently a double-edged sword. To meet basic needs, even within a camp, displaced women must often work to feed and educate their children, and displacement can create new opportunities for them to earn money and…
It is estimated that 4.3 million people globally were affected by forced evictions in 2007-08. In the developing world especially, there is a hope that grassroots mobilisation can serve as a means for marginalised groups to address such challenges. Dar…
Among humanitarians and students of international law, Fridtjof Nansen is mainly remembered as the first High Commissioner for Refugees whose ‘Nansen passport’ provided a degree of international protection to scores of paperless refugees. A wider public knows him as the…
Thirty years ago ICARA 1 (International Conference on Assistance to Refugees in Africa, 1981) and ICARA 2 (1984) highlighted the ‘burden’ that refugees place on their hosts: imposing additional costs on already hard-pressed public and social welfare budgets, arresting economic…
Cultural orientation (CO) programmes operate in over 40 countries to facilitate the resettlement of refugees in the United States (US). These programmes focus on employment, housing, education, health, money management, travel, hygiene and the role of the resettlement agency. Previous…
NGOs that provide support in the Global South for refugees and asylum seekers in the refugee status determination process (RSD) or with respect to asylum claims usually host both domestic and foreign attorneys in their offices. What, then, should their…
Since internal displacement takes place within the boundaries of a state, its prevention and the protection of internally displaced persons (IDPs) are first and foremost a duty of the concerned state. However, other states not confronted with displacement on their…
الأرقام تتحدث عن نفسها. فمنذ ديسمبر/ كانون الأول 2011، نزح أكثر من 26 مليون شخص قسراً من منازلهم بسبب النزاع المسلح وتردّي الاوضاع الأمنية، بينما بحث الملايين عن اللجوء إلى خارج البلاد. أما الكوارث الطبيعية فقد هجَّرت قرابة 15 مليون…
في عام 1993 وفي سياق أزمة التهجير الكبيرة التي عاشتها يوغوسلافيا السابقة، تحدثت ساداكو أوغاتا، المفوض السامي للأمم المتحدة للاجئين للمرة الأولى عن "حق البقاء". وكانت ساداكو وقتها تخاطب مفوضية الأمم المتحدة لحقوق الإنسان وتحدثت بكل صراحة وجرأة عن حق…