UNHCR wishes to hear from any consultants or consultancy teams with an
interest in undertaking a scoping study on urban displacement (including
refugees, IDPs and returnees) that is to be co-sponsored by Cities
Alliance, a global coalition of cities and their development partners
committed to effective and equitable urban planning. The study is to be
completed by November 2009.
Some background to this project is provided in the presentation below
given by a senior UNHCR staff member to a Cities Alliance meeting held
earlier this year.
While the Terms of Reference for the study are still being drafted, the
notes reproduced below provide some preliminary guidance to potential
consultants, who, if they wish to be considered for this project, should
send their CVs to [log in to unmask]
Urban displacement scoping study: overall objective
The overall objective of the study is to provide an analytical synthesis
of available knowledge on the phenomenon of urban displacement. The
study will be used to inform the work of UNHCR and Cities Alliance and
to facilitate the establishment of an effective working partnership
between the two organizations. The study will be used as a background
document for the December 2009 meeting of the High Commissioner's
Dialogue on Protection Challenges. Based on secondary sources, the study
will be global in nature and adopt an age, gender and
diversity-sensitive perspective.
Definitions, scale and scope
This section of the study will define and deconstruct the notion of
'urban displacement', paying particular attention to the different
groups of people covered by this concept. It will also examine the
difficulty of drawing a clear distinction between people who have been
displaced to urban areas as a result of complex emergencies and natural
disasters and those who have moved to towns and cities as part of the
broader pattern of rural-to-urban migration. This section of the study
will seek to estimate the global, regional and national scale of urban
displacement, identifying those cities which have particularly large
numbers of displaced people, both in absolute terms and in relation to
other members of the urban population.
Arrival, settlement and impact
This section of the study will examine the arrival and settlement
patterns of displaced people in urban areas, examining the causes of
their displacement, the reasons why they decided to move to a town or
city, their choice of location and accommodation, their social networks,
coping mechanisms and livelihoods strategies. This section of the study
will also examine the extent to which displaced people remain in the
urban environment once the causes of their displacement have been
resolved. Another major objective of this section of the study will be
to examine the impact of urban displacement on the social, economic,
political and material fabric of the urban environment, focusing on the
way in which the arrival and continued presence of displaced populations
affects the local population, the labour, land and property markets, the
price and availability of basic commodities, the physical
infrastructure, as well public services in areas such as public health,
sanitation, water supply, education and environmental management.
Risks, rights and protection
This section of the study will identify and examine the specific risks,
protection problems and human rights violations experienced by the urban
displaced, as well as the households, neighbourhoods and communities
with whom they live. Looking separately at refugees, displaced people
and returnees, this section of the study will examine the legal rights
which they enjoy and the legal restrictions that are imposed upon them.
It will synthesize the available evidence with respect to issues such as
documentation, detention, eviction, forced removal and deportation;
crime, policing and punishment, including domestic violence and other
forms of sexual and gender-based violence; as well as economic
exploitation, including child labour, sex work and human trafficking.
Governmental, development and humanitarian responses
This section of the study will examine and assess the way in which
governmental, development and humanitarian actors have individually and
collectively reacted to the phenomenon of urban displacement and have
take due account of this phenomenon in the process of urban planning,
administration, poverty reduction, emergency preparedness and response.
This section of the study will present examples of effective and
ineffective practice in these respects and identify those dimensions of
urban displacement on which more research, analysis and improved
coordination is required. The final section will also make
recommendations for future collaboration between UNHCR and Cities
Alliance in relation to such issues.
================================================================
The Cities Alliance Consultative Group Meeting 22 January 2009, Barcelona
Presentation by Judy Cheng-Hopkins, Assistant High Commissioner
(Operations), UNHCR
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great privilege for me to address this meeting of The Cities
Alliance Consultative Group. Thank you for your kind invitation to be
here this afternoon.
I would like to begin my brief presentation with a question. What images
come into your mind when you hear the word ‘refugees’ or ‘displaced
people’?
Perhaps the first picture that comes to mind is that of vast and
isolated camps, where people who have been uprooted by violence and
armed conflict are huddled together in tents and makeshift shelters.
Another common image invoked by the word ‘refugee’ is that of
humanitarian agencies and aid workers, struggling to respond to massive
human displacements and to ensure that uprooted people are provided with
food, water, health care and other basic needs.
Such perceptions are not entirely inaccurate. Many refugees and
displaced people continue to live in camps, where they benefit from the
services and facilities provided by humanitarian organizations such as
UNHCR.
At the same time, I would like to suggest that these popular images of
the refugee issue are increasingly at odds with reality. For the fact of
the matter is that a growing proportion of the world’s displaced people
are to be found not in camps and in rural areas, but in towns and cities
across the globe.
And this trend is raising some important challenges and dilemmas for a
wide range of different stakeholders, including national and municipal
authorities, development actors, humanitarian agencies, NGOs and
community-based organizations.
Allow me to use the next few minutes to elaborate upon those statements.
As members of the Consultative Group are very much aware, many capital
cities and large towns in the global South have witnessed dramatic
population increases in recent years. This is a continuing trend. It has
been estimated, for example, that within two decades, half of the
population in Sub-Saharan Africa, the world’s most rural region, will be
living in urban areas.
A great deal of attention has been given to the causes of urbanization
in the developing world, much of it focused on the economic and
environmental pressures that induce people to leave the countryside, the
apparent opportunities and attractions of life in the city and the
increasingly dense social networks that connect rural and urban areas.
These are certainly important considerations if we are to understand the
urbanization process. But there is another dimension of that process
which, I would like to suggest, has been sorely neglected. And that is
the way in which humanitarian crises, natural disasters, mass
displacement and forced migration have contributed to the growth of
towns and cities in many parts of Africa, Asia, the Americas and Middle
East.
In this respect, I think the numbers tell their own story. The Sudanese
capital of Khartoum, for example, is home to more than 1.5 million
displaced people, while the population of the southern city of Juba is
currently being swelled by the return of hundreds of thousands of
refugees from a number of neighbouring countries.
Bogotá in Colombia and Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire both accommodate around
half a million displaced persons, a very significant proportion of the
people who have been uprooted by the armed conflicts in those countries.
More than a million Sudanese citizens are believed to have made their
way to the Egyptian capital of Cairo. And while refugees in Kenya are
officially obliged to live in camps, at least 25,000 are known to have
settled in Nairobi, where they are heavily concentrated in the
neighbourhood of Eastleigh, commonly referred to as ‘Little Mogadishu’.
And most recently some 2 million Iraqis found refuge in Syria and
Jordan, mostly in and around the capitals.
It is not very difficult to explain such figures. Like other people who
are on the move, refugees, displaced people and returning refugees are
attracted to urban areas because of the perceived availability and
better quality of basic services and income-generating opportunities
which they offer.
In addition, many displaced people move to towns and cities because of
the many restrictions of life in a camp and their desire to live in
proximity to other members of their family and community, the
anticipated anonymity of life in an urban area and the hope of
eventually migrating to another country or continent. In effect the pull
of the bright lights of the city affects refugees as well.
There is every indication that this trend will continue in the future,
not least because the process of climate change and the growing
incidence of natural disasters will threaten the lives and livelihoods
of growing numbers of people who are currently eking out a living in
ecologically-fragile and economically-marginalized rural areas.
In that respect, the phenomenon of urban displacement is not only here
to stay, but also seems certain to grow in both scope and scale. Let us
look briefly at the consequences of this scenario.
While they may move to the city in the expectation of finding greater
security and better opportunities, the reality of life for many urban
refugees, displaced people and former refugees is a very different matter.
Many are confronted with unemployment, exploitation and destitution.
They are often obliged to live in overcrowded slums and shanty towns
with no security of tenure, rudimentary water and sanitation facilities
and very limited access to basic services such as education and health.
As outsiders and new arrivals, they may be the targets of organized
crime, xenophobic violence, forced evictions and expulsions, as well as
harassment and extortion by the security services, government officials
and community leaders.
Needless to say, the phenomenon of urban displacement also has multiple
and negative consequences for the resident population. When people flee
to a town or city to escape from an armed conflict or a natural disaster
they invariably place significant pressures on scarce resources and
overstretched facilities.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Would you venture to guess what the two top expenses of urban refugees
are? Would you believe: rents and bribes? In any urban environment,
hosting large numbers of displaced populations, rents go up. Residential
areas become increasingly overcrowded. Schools and clinics are
overburdened. The infrastructure and physical environment is degraded.
And the price of food, already at an all-time high as a result of recent
developments in global and national commodity markets, soars even
further. As a result, tensions simmer and conflicts eventually erupt,
both at the level of the household and in the wider community.
UN-HABITAT recently published an excellent report titled Harmonious
Cities. I was particularly struck by a passage in that report which
states (and I quote):
A society cannot claim to be harmonious if large sections of its
population are deprived of basic needs. A city cannot be harmonious if
some groups concentrate resources and opportunities while others remain
impoverished and marginalized… A harmonious city promotes unity within
diversity.
The message that I would like to leave with you this afternoon is that
the quest to establish harmonious, prosperous and secure cities cannot
and must not ignore the phenomenon of urban displacement. And in that
respect we must learn and work together.
If I can speak on behalf of UNHCR and the broader humanitarian
community, I have to acknowledge that we have a great deal of learning
to do.
Too many of the underlying assumptions, the analytical tools and the
operational approaches that guide our work are based on the outmoded
notion that refugees and displaced people belong in camps, where their
needs are best and most easily met through the provision of direct and
dedicated humanitarian services.
We have not yet thought through the full challenge of operating in
cities, where displaced populations are intermingled with other urban
residents and where the activities of humanitarian agencies must
evidently be supportive of – rather than separate from – those of the
authorities and development actors.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I believe that there are some important, growing and yet unrealized
synergies between those of you whose work focuses on the issues of
urban development and poverty reduction, and those of us whose primary
concern is that of displacement and humanitarian action.
I am confident that this meeting of The Cities Alliance will open the
way for a new and constructive dialogue between us. Indeed, we will be
convening a major meeting on urban displacement towards the end of this
year, and hope that some of you will be able to join us for that event.
Thank you very much for your attention.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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