15/12/2012

Refugee Livelihood and the Humanitarian Innovation project

 The Forced Migration Current Awareness blog has brought to our attention the Humanitarian Innovation Project (HIP) website where we found the following excerpts: 

“It is unacceptable that many refugees are left indefinitely dependent on international assistance, deprived of the right to work or freedom of movement. By developing a bottom-up approach to humanitarian innovation, the Humanitarian Innovation Projects aims to support sustainable, market-based solutions that build upon refugees’ own skills, aspirations and entrepreneurship” declared Alexander Betts, director of the Humanitarian Innovation Project. 
(...) The Humanitarian Innovation project’s focus is on innovation relating to refugee livelihoods. One of the greatest challenges in refugee protection and assistance is the situation of long-term dependency created by the absence of freedom of movement or the right to work by refugees in many refugee camps, or the lack of opportunities available to even those with the right to work or those working in the informal sector. Despite growing academic work on refugee livelihoods, there has been little coherent methodology for capturing and evaluating existing practices, looking outwards to identify alternative approaches to livelihood development, and piloting alternative ways to develop greater self-sufficiency for refugees. 
(...) Different host countries have different regulatory structures relating to refugee livelihoods. Many – such as Kenya or Thailand – place strong restrictions on refugees’ right to work. Others – such as Uganda – allow refugees the right to work and give them relatively higher levels of freedom of movement. Yet, even where regulatory barriers exist, there is vibrant economic activity in the informal sector within all refugee communities, much of which is highly innovative and adaptive to the economic, legal, and social restrictions faced by refugees.
For more informations on the HIP visit the blog of the Humanitarian Innovation Project.  

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