Oliver Bakewell, Javans Okhonjo Wanga Whether people are migrating freely in the hope of improving their quality of life or fleeing as refugees to save their lives in the face of persecution, conflict and violence, the movement of people across the world creates both enormous challenges and great opportunities for societies in every continent. The complex set of drivers shaping people’s movements and the large array of stakeholders involved as
Hussein Abdullahi Mahmoud, Padmini Iyer, Louisa Brain, Maissoun Hussein This paper explores mobility and migration in the context of strategies of adaptation to dynamic environmental changes in Tana River County of coastal Kenya. The study has three objectives. First, it critically considers the extent to which migration represents a strategy for adapting to environmental change and ecological degradation. For example, for whom and under what circumstances does moving serve as
People in South Sudan have experienced decades of forced displacement and cross-border mobility, resulting in families split across the country and neighbouring Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. As of 2021, more than four million South Sudanese citizens were displaced either internally or internationally. Over the past four years, over 500,000 refugees and over 1.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) have returned to their habitual residence. This policy brief discusses long-standing
Felicity A. Okoth Four years after the adoption of the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) at the UN General Assembly, the environment in which donors, UN agencies and governments in the Horn of Africa (HoA) are expected to translate commitments into action has remained unstable. New and intensified challenges, including those linked to the Covid-19 pandemic and the increasingly
The Research and Evidence Facility (REF) was established in May 2016 to conduct research relevant to the formulation and implementation of EU Trust Fund activities in the Horn of Africa. It was created to collate and produce evidence and policy relevant knowledge on themes related to the Fund’s activities. Themes to be researched include the drivers of migration, dynamics of cross-border economies and centre/periphery relations, the features and limitations of
This blog series is related to the REF’s ongoing study on climate change and migration in the Horn of Africa. This research study is being carried out in Ethiopia (Somali Region), Kenya (Tana River County) and Somaliland (Togdheer and Maroodijeex regions). The study investigates how people use migration as a strategy for adapting to environmental change and how people’s circumstances and profiles influence their migration decisions. The study also explores
This policy brief presents the findings and recommendations from a study, on disability inclusion for refugees in Ethiopia. The study examines the experiences, protection needs, barriers to, and opportunities for providing protection for refugees living with disabilities in Ethiopia, and ways to institutionalise better practices of inclusion. Persons with disabilities are often programmatically ‘invisible’ in refugee assistance programmes due to a lack of data and a range of individual, institutional,
Abebaw Minaye Gezie, Padmini Iyer In the Horn of Africa (HoA), investments in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and other employability programmes are typically predicated on the assumption that these activities will: a) provide alternatives to migration and reduce young people’s incentives to follow irregular migratory routes; and b) reduce young people’s incentives to become involved with violent groups, thus contributing to conflict prevention and stability in the
Caitlin Sturridge outlines the growing evidence for understanding mobility as a relatively unremarkable part of everyday life, development and change.
When people are reflecting on watershed moments in their lives that ultimately made them who they are today, you often find the poem by Robert Frost: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference. The choice to take the road less traveled is often exalted but for many young people coming from displacement-affected settings, taking the road less