Population displacement and conflict are among the most significant contemporary problems facing the Horn of Africa. Political instability, economic deprivation, changing population dynamics, resource scarcity, and complex influences that travel back and forth between diaspora and home communities all combine to create an environment of flux, in which people are moving, sometimes out of choice but often in the absence of any positive choice, in search of a better life. Movement of refugees and irregular migrants towards Europe is extremely risky and is attracting a great deal of political attention. In 2015, it is estimated that over 1 million people entered Europe from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Of these, it is estimated that 67,523 originated from the Horn of Africa (UNHCR figures).
As large as the numbers of refugees and irregular migrants entering Europe are, they are dwarfed by the numbers of people on the move within the Horn of Africa region. The vast majority of movement is undertaken for reasons related more to choice than force – people moving to take advantage of improved job prospects or educational opportunities, for instance, or as part of a livelihood strategy that is inherently mobile, such as pastoralism. Reliable data concerning the scale of mobility within the Horn of Africa is lacking. This is partly due to the fact that different databases track different kinds of flows – international movements within and out of the continent are tracked by such data sources as the World Bank’s Global Bilateral Migration Database and DEMIG C2C (Country to Country) Database (see also Ratha et al. 2011) – but internal movements are much more difficult to track. Some of the reasons for this are that the causes of internal movements are categorised differently by different analysts, and therefore may be included or excluded from databases, as well as the fact that a great deal of movement is irregular in the sense that it does not pass through legal channels and is therefore not officially counted, and that some migration is misreported (usually underreported, but in some cases overreported) for political reasons by countries concerned.
However UNHCR estimates that there are 3.1 million refugees in the region, and another
6.26 million IDPs. Most of the region’s displaced move across what are often short distances, often not crossing borders (and therefore undetected by many of the sources noted above) without either the intention or the realistic prospect of moving further outside the region towards Europe or another destination (Flahaux and De Haas, 2016). Many of the region’s displaced can be expected to remain in conditions of political and economic insecurity for decades. Mass displacement itself can be a trigger for further instability, creating a spiral in which people become trapped in a particular geographic location or condition of economic vulnerability.
In this Literature Review, we consider the state of research on migration, displacement and conflict in the Horn of Africa. We also consider the landscape of actors currently working on migration and conflict in the Horn, to identify areas that the efforts of the Research and Evidence Facility would be best placed to pursue over the coming two years.
Our literature review first considers the major population displacement and conflict hotspots within the region, and examines the types of mobility and displacement that have emanated from them. We then consider the following thematic areas:
- Border Economies and Livelihoods, considering the ways in which migration takes place within and across border areas, and the extent to which dynamics within these areas contributes towards conflict and irregular migration. In this section we also consider rural-urban livelihoods and the ways in which migration influences them.
- Population, age and gender. Each of these, individually and taken together, influences conflict and migration outcomes. We consider the issues and highlight key research available.
- Dynamics of conflict and displacement, including an analysis of war economies, displacement and response strategies, and human trafficking and smuggling. We also consider evidence related to governance and conflict prevention and dynamics of forced displacement and irregular migration. In this section we are principally interested in the ways that conflict and irregular migration work to exacerbate one another. We are also interested in the impacts of efforts to support peacebuilding and respond to the needs of the displaced.
- The Migration-Displacement Nexus and the need for evidence to inform questions about when and under what conditions development support may result in changes in the levels of irregular migration and displacement.
- Finally, we turn the lens onto migration management practices, to document research on the legal and regulatory environment surrounding migration and mobility, the challenges to managing migration, the increasingly securitised nature of migration management, the governance of migration management at the sub- national level. We outline the array of actors engaged in migration management and the kinds of support they provide as well as the challenges and analytic questions that are worthy of attention in future research.
Our research suggests that there are five major themes of research in which we could provide much needed research expertise, and these form the core of the Research Agenda for the Research and Evidence Facility of the EU Trust Fund for Africa. The themes are:
- Interactions between rural-urban, regional and international mobility
- Experiences and impacts of voluntary, involuntary and diasporic return to countries of origin, including reintegration of ex-combatants.
- Impacts of development changes on people’s movement choices and patterns of mobility, including consideration of the effectiveness of employment generation schemes (particularly targeted at youth) and evidence concerning the so-called ‘Brain Drain.’
- Dynamics of cross-border economies and centre/periphery relations, including local tensions and conflicts and protection needs of displaced persons living in border areas.
- Features and limitations of migration management systems and the role of regional collaboration
These themes are described in some detail at the end of this Review, but are also elaborated in more specific detail in the REF’s Proposed Research Agenda (See REF 2017).
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Image source: Charlotte Morgan/Department for International Development