Evaluating Protection Policies for Urban Refugees

Project Background

Forced displacement is increasingly a phenomenon that influences life in urban areas as well as in refugee camps. While there is no accurate population data, even under the most cautious estimates now show that a majority of the world’s displaced people reside in urban areas. Some of the challenges faced by displaced populations in urban areas are similar to those based in camps, while others are very different Displaced populations in urban settings, for example, often enjoy greater freedom of movement and better access to economic opportunities than those in camps. At the same time, they often reside in disadvantaged parts of cities and may face mobility constraints, they compete with other populations for jobs and services, and may face discrimination or legal barriers. In addition, given that urban displaced populations can be dispersed across large areas, identifying their needs, engaging with them, and providing external interventions can be more challenging. In this work, ISDC seeks to assess the impacts of policy changes on urban-based refugees and how those are different to those outcomes and policy changes themselves differ to those faced by camp-based refugees.

Project Objectives

In this project, ISDC will use quasi-experimental methods in order to understand the impact of key policy changes and associated outcomes on refugees living in urban areas using existing UNHCR micro-data. In this work, we will assess the extent to which a range of policy changes (e.g., liberalisation or deliberalisation of asylum application processes; access to jobs; or provision of assistance) influence the protection threats faced by urban refugees, positively or negatively, and to contextualise these through comparison with camp-based refugees. The work is designed to understand, both, what can improve protection outcomes of urban refugees and to understand which policies might best support refugees in urban settings.

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