Addressing the challenges of the forcibly displaced and their host communities in the ESCWA region

This project will address the long-term development challenges associated with the forced displacement that is a result, particularly, of the Syrian conflict, but also of other conflicts that have occurred or are on-going in the ESCWA region. In doing so, the project will support a track-II style process led by ESCWA with intellectual inputs. The project will review human capital interventions for the forcibly displaced and their hosts; which novel intervention options exist to strengthen resilience for the forcibly displaced and their hosts; and assess forced displacement in the Syrian crisis more generally. The project focuses on all countries in the ESCWA region, in particular Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, and examines interventions, projects and programs that have been implemented since the onset of the Syrian crisis in 2011. The project will employ a mixed method approach, including a systematic review style approach to select interventions to be included in the study; a series of semi-structured interviews with key program staff, beneficiaries, field officers, program designers and others; quantitative analyses of available micro-data and other primary data made available to us; and in-depth desk research and document review. The project will use ISDC’s “sequence and loop” approach, which sees the research team begin the research process using desk research and program reviews to develop hypotheses and findings that can then be explored in detail during the qualitative data collection and as the consultations with stakeholders in the track-II process make progress.