Never-ending displacement has become the norm and the so-called durable solutions of return, local integration and resettlement are out of reach for most forced migrants. Yet, most refugee hosting governments and international organisations are still using the language of ‘solutions’ while people all over the world are stuck in displacement without a solution in sight. At the same time, people living with displacement continue to get on with their lives and develop their own solutions albeit with limitations on access to rights and resources. Durable solutions must always be understood in the particular context of where displacement takes place and in this webinar we situated the discourse of durable solutions in four different situations of displacement.
The upcoming webinar is one of a series on durable solutions organised by CENDEP. It is FREE and registration will be required via Eventbrite to access Zoom meeting link
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/durable-solutions-webinar-tickets-140271089605
Presentations
Title: Self-reliance and refugee economics in Uganda
By: Hilde Refstie and Eria Serwajja
Uganda has a long history of dealing with refugees and internally displaced people. It represents a paradigmatic case where local IDP and refugee approaches to displacement have been scaled up to global levels, and global policies have turned into specific local outcomes for the displaced people. In this section, we look at the history of IDP and refugee response in Uganda to examine how discussions have developed from restricting IDP and refugee movement to opening up for more interaction between people and places. While currently promoted as a ‘refugee paradise’, we show how policy frameworks and practices in Uganda emphasize self-reliance over local integration and what this means for IDPs and refugees who make use of opportunities that exist both within and outside formal policy frameworks in their search for durable solutions.
Dr Hilde Refstie is Associate Professor in Human Geography at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Her academic work is centered around two main themes; Urban governance, citizenship and marginalized groups in the city, and forced migration in conflicts and disasters. She has worked in Uganda, Malawi, and India with research at the interface between academia and practice using participatory methods and action research. A list of her work and publications can be found at https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/hilde.refstie
Dr Eria Serwajja is a Lecturer at the Development Studies Department of Makerere University, Uganda. He has conducted extensive research on forced migration, extractive industries, land tenure in conflict and post-conflict areas. Eria holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, an Mphil Degree in Development Studies from NTNU in Norway.
Title: 'I may stop being a refugee, but I always be a foreigner here': Exploring geopolitics and experiences of durable solutions in Latin America
By: Marcia Vera-Espinoza
Latin America has been praised as a region with a long tradition of refugee protection, as well a progressive refugee framework that expands from the international, to the regional and national levels (Jubilut, Vera Espinoza, Mezzanotti 2021). The Cartagena Declaration of 1984, the main regional document of refugee protection, emphasises the importance of durable solutions, particularly voluntary repatriation, but also local integration and self-sufficiency, and recommends granting refugees social, economic and cultural rights. The implementation and preference for specific durable solutions has changed over time, in relation to political will and the protection needs identified at the regional level. Today, Latin America faces the massive displacement of more than 5 million Venezuelans citizens, 80% of who have settled in the region (R4V 2020), changing not only the spaces of refugee protection, but also the scope in the search for durable solutions. On the ground, the search for the end of displacement has its own temporalities and uncertainties. This paper explores how the discourse and practice around durable solutions has changed in Latin America over the last 50 years, understanding that “durable solutions are political solutions” (Stein, 1986, 267), and that refugees themselves experience, resist and reshape these 'solutions' in diverse and unsettled ways.
Dr Marcia Vera Espinoza is a Lecturer in Human Geography at Queen Mary University of London. She is co-founder member of the research group CAMINAR (Comparative Analysis on International Migration and Displacement in the Americas). Her research interests are in the study of migration and refugee dynamics, experiences of inclusion, and migration governance in Latin America. Before joining QMUL, Marcia was an associate researcher in the ERC funded project ´Prospects for International Migration Governance´ (MIGPROSP) and taught at the University of Sheffield (2015-2018). Her recent publications include the co-edited books 'The Dynamics of Regional Migration Governance' (Edward Elgar, 2019) and 'Latin America and Refugee Protection: regimes, logics and challenges.' (Berghahn Books, June 2021).
Title: Displacement Limbo: Reflections on approaches to durable solutions for IDPs in Georgia and Ukraine
By: Olga Ivanova, Julia Kharasvili and Sean Loughna
Georgia and Ukraine represent two distinct situations of internal displacement in the independent countries of the former Soviet Union. Georgia has seen multiple displacement from Abkhazia and Ossetia since the early 1990s. Ukraine is currently home to the world’s ninth largest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) which started in March 2014. While the cases are often compared, and in this paper, we focus on the discourses of durable solutions, and how the cases, despite et their fundamental differences, can help to understand the political meanings of displacement.
In the case of Georgia, the emphasis has been on return to Abkhazia and South Ossetia represents the goal of the national IDP strategy, only gradually and partially have other solutions been on the agenda. In Ukraine, the need to find ‘durable solutions’ emerged strongly in the public of discourse of some International Governmental and Non-Governmental Organisations NGOs in 2019. But government policies and legislation related to integration of IDPs date back to 2015 and in contrast to Georgia, the only durable solution that is discussed as viable in any meaningful way is local integration.
Land and housing have been key dimensions through which solutions are discussed in both countries, and can help to understand the failed policies on durable solutions and the continuing impoverishment of displaced in both countries.
Olga Ivanova is a Head of the charity fund Stabilization Support Services (Ukraine), a manager and an activist. She holds an MA in Management from the Kyiv National Linguistic University (2006); and is a Peace Research graduate from the International Summer School at University of Oslo and Peace Research Institute of Oslo (2019). She is a Board member of the Ukrainian Swedish Institute Alumni Network. Since 2016, she has managed humanitarian and international development projects in Ukraine, mainly with a focus on IDP integration and protection. She has implemented the project All-Ukrainian Network of Liaison Officers on IDP issues (2015-2020), in partnership with the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine. In 2020, she pioneered the concept of IDP councils, which search for durable solution at the local level. She is a co-author of the anti-discrimination board game "IDP Adventure" (2017) and a contributor to the book "From Migration and Integration Challenges to Good Practices: Practitioners’ Perspectives", Swedish Institute’s 2018 Summer Academy for Young Professionals.
Julia Kharashvili is the Chairperson of IDP Women Association “Consent” in Georgia – a NGO working on protection of rights of IDP and conflict affected women. Professional physicist, after the war in Abkhazia (1992-93) and displacement, along with her colleagues, she founded the NGO to support internally displaced women. In 1995, she joined UN Volunteers team in Georgia, working on confidence building measures in post-conflict situation, and later worked on the UNDP project “New Approach to IDP Assistance”. During 2008 war, she joined the government for two years to organize assistance to the newly displaced, as Deputy Director of International Relations Department in the Ministry of IDPs from Occupied territories, Accommodation and refugees. As a Chair of IDPWA “Consent”, conducts active advocacy campaigns for IDP and conflict affected women’s rights as in Georgia, as well as in international sphere. She has coordinated implementation of more than 60 projects in sphere of rights of IDPs and women affected by the conflict. In 2014- 2015, as a member of High Level Advisory Group, Julia participated in the Global Study on the impact of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325. Since 2017 cooperates with Global Network of Women-Peacebuilders.
Dr Sean Loughna is a political economist with over 20 years’ experience in research, writing and teaching in relation to forced migration, particularly on livelihoods and socioeconomic issues. He holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford, with a thesis that examined the political economy of IDPs in Colombia, and a Master’s Degree in Economics and International Relations from the University of St Andrews. Over a combined period of 16 years, he was employed as a researcher and/or lecturer at the University of Oxford, the University of Applied Sciences Alice Solomon in Berlin and the National Technical University of Ukraine "Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”. Most recently, he was employed as a Senior Expert for Research and Analysis in projects for the EU Delegations in Tbilisi and Ankara from (2014-16); and as an Advisor to the Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories and IDPs of Ukraine (2016-19). Currently he is employed by IOM as a Consultant on IDP Profiling and Socioeconomic Research. He was the co-editor of two editions of UNHCR’s flagship publication The State of the World’s Refugees (OUP 2000 & 2006). He has also written numerous book chapters, articles and working papers in relation to refugees and IDPs issues in the EU, Colombia, Georgia, Guatemala, Turkey and Ukraine.
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