5 Countries Study - Economic integration of refugees. Sept 2021

1. ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF REFUGEES:
LESSONS FROM FIVE HOST COUNTRIES
Md Noorunnabi Talukder
Abdullah Al Mahmud
Eashita Haque
Md Irfan Hossain
Joseph Falcone
Ubaidur Rob
27 September 2021

2. Background
• Globally, the majority of refugees are now in a
protracted refugee situation, living in exile for at least
five years and with no sign of a durable solution
• Three possibilities for durable solutions: repatriation,
local integration, and resettlement
• Repatriation remains the final goal
• Local integration gives refugees some certainty
about what to do with their lives in the meantime
• In several protracted refugee situations, there are
substantial host government support for livelihoods
and self-reliance towards local integration of
refugees

3. Objectives
• Examine the level and extent of local
integration of refugees in terms of economic
inclusion in protracted refugee situations
• Understand the refugee rights to work and
their access to labor market and potential to
establish sustainable livelihoods

4. Methodology
A. Country selection
Five countries: Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Jordan &
Malaysia
Selection criteria
• A protracted refugee situation with large
agglomerations of refugees
• Geographical diversity
• Presence of a model/framework/approach on
refugee rights to work
• Exclusion of developed countries that host
refugees

5. Methodology (Continued)
B. Desk review
• Both published and grey literature utilized
• Narrative review using a simple form of data
extraction
• Findings were compiled by countries, summarized
and synthesized
• Synthesis of evidence based on 3 thematic
focuses:
– Legal context including refugee rights to wok
– Economic opportunities for refugees
– Local integration of refugees

6. LESSONS FROM FIVE REFUGEE-
HOSTING COUNTRIES

7. Uganda
A. Legal context
• Uganda is noted for progressive legislation for refugee
integration
• Refugees are granted rights and entitlements
– Legal right to work
– Freedom of movement
– Right to have settlements
– Access to services such as education and health
• Uganda uses an open settlement policy: it allows refugees
plots of land for residence and cultivation
• Refugees living outside the settlement can live and buy
property as permissible to any foreign nationals

8. Uganda
B. Economic opportunities
• Refugees enjoy right to work in the same manner as
nationals except the government services
• Engaged in both on-farm and off-farm activities
• In rural settlements, 78% of refugees are engaged in
agricultural activities
• In urban settlements, refugees are mostly engaged in
various types of businesses
– Common businesses include trade, small shop, bars, restaurants,
selling clothes or textiles, tailoring, hair dressing, milling,
transportation, money transfers
• Urban refugees have the higher income and lower
dependency levels (9% receive assistance from aid agencies)

9. Uganda
provides a
unique
context for
investigating
local
integration
as a durable
solution
C. Refugee integration in Uganda:
• Legal structures have shaped, and continue
to shape the possibilities for local integration
• A wide array of rights of refugees recognized
• Refugees are not held in camps
• Allowed to work and access to capital/fund
• Inside the settlement, refugees are given
plots of land for residence and cultivation
• Shared services– both refugees and host
communities can access shared public services,
instead of parallel services
• Refugees are entitled to identity card, birth
and death registration

10. Ethiopia
A. Legal context
• Ethiopia implements strict encampment policies that
limit refugee movement and access to labor markets
• Refugees can leave the camp with a permit
• Right to work has not been open to refugees
• Refugees are entitled to engage in informal income
generating activities only
• No formal policy for urban refugees’ access to services
such as education, water or healthcare
• Ethiopia pursued restrictive labor policies for refugees
until 2017
• Recently measures have been taken to extend refugee
rights and relax camp-based approach

11. Ethiopia
B. Economic opportunities
• In the camp, refugees mostly survive on humanitarian
assistance
• Engaged in small ruminants trade and informal business
within the camp or in host markets
• Some engage in ‘incentive work’ for local NGOs and UN
agencies
• In urban areas, informal enterprises is a major source of
income
• Refugees also work as casual day laborers, electricians,
welders and mechanics
• Skilled refugees are employed informally by formal
organizations, as nurses in private clinics, teachers in local
schools and as translators

12. Historically,
Ethiopia
adopted an
encampment
policy, not
permitting
refuges legal
right to work
Recently, local
integration of
refugees has
become a
possibility
C. Refugee integration in Ethiopia:
• Informal work is permitted in practice
• Allowed to live outside the camp under
conditions of
- Out-of-camp policy
- Specialist healthcare needs
- Serious protection concerns
• Refugees settled in urban areas become
progressively integrated
• Recently, a process to adopt a framework on
local integration of refugees started
- Provision of work permits to qualifying refugees
- Fixed percentage of jobs within industrial parks
- Refugee mobility
- Access to irrigable land
- Integration of refugees who lived 20 years or more

13. Kenya
A. Legal context
• Refugee policy favored local integration until 1990s but later
shifted to encampment policy due to large number of arriving
refugees
• Camp residents can travel with a movement pass issued for
– Medical needs
– Higher educational requirements
– Protection concerns
• Refugee Act 2006 conferred progressive rights to refugees
– Issuance of a refugee identity card
– Protection from arbitrary arrest
– Same rights to employment as other non-nationals
• New refugee bill of 2017 focuses on greater provision for self-
reliance, including the potential for refugees to access land and
work permits

14. Kenya
B. Economic opportunities
• In the camp, refugees work for humanitarian agencies
• Hired as ‘incentive workers’ with a rate of well below the
minimum wage
• Trade is big business within the camp (refugee traders can source
for and sell goods, usually at lower rates)
• Some are engaged in casual work, or as laundry workers,
salespersons, tailors, weavers, mechanics and soap makers, or
in construction
• In urban areas, casual labors, porters, construction workers,
restaurant/hotel workers, tailors, hairdressers are common
income generating activities for refugees
• Petty trade (selling food, fruits and vegetables, water, handicrafts, and
clothes) and domestic workers are two common female activities

15. In Kenya,
urban
refugees in
Nairobi are
considered
to have
achieved a
form of de
facto
integration
C. Refugee integration in Kenya:
• Refugees are primarily engaged in economic
activities in informal sector
• Refugees can obtain work permits
• A few refugees are successful entrepreneurs
• Urban refugees enjoy much higher levels of
integration than camp refugees
- Not confined to camps
- Self-sufficient and have similar standards of living
to their hosts
- Have access to public services
- Socially networked into the host community
• Integration of camp refugees is hard to realize
due to
- Kenya’s policy of encampment
- Remote location of camps

16. Jordan
A. Legal context
• Since 2016, Jordanian government has allowed both urban
refugees and camp refugees a legal right to work
• Allows refugees to have one-year renewable work permits
in certain occupations open to non-Jordanians/migrant
workers
• Allows refugees employment opportunities in agriculture,
construction, services, wholesale trade, and manufacturing
• Agricultural cooperatives allow free-of-charge work permits
for refugees
• Allows refugees to establish own home-based businesses
in food processing, tailoring, and handicrafts

17. Jordan
B. Economic opportunities
Jordan undertook innovative approaches to facilitate
Syrian refugees’ access to formal labor market
• Small economic projects to enable access to available
economic opportunities through career guidance, intensive
coaching, training, apprenticeships and sensitizing on
market and finance
• Incentive-based volunteering to create short-term
employment in the camp and help refugees gain work
experience (cash for work)
• Livelihood assistance programs to provide financial literacy
and awareness trainings and provide support for business
set-up by arranging permits, small start-up grants and
credits (promoting entrepreneurship)

18. Jordan has
gained the
reputation
for its
initiatives on
labor force
integration
of refugees
as a durable
solution
C. Refugee integration in Jordan:
• Jordan facilitated Syrian refugees’ access to
the formal labor market
• Key strategies for labor force integration of
refugees include
‒ Formalization of employment by providing work
permits
‒ Employing refugees in special economic zones to
boost economy by attracting foreign investments
‒ Training and skills building for both employment
and business
• Refugee labor integration does not harm
Jordan’s labor force, because refugees and
citizens are not competing for the same jobs
• Syrian refugees comprise one-fifth of total
non-Jordanian workforce

19. Malaysia
A. Legal context
• Not a signatory to UN Convention on Refugees
• No legal or administrative framework for dealing with
refugees
• On humanitarian grounds, generally allows asylum
seekers and refugees to stay in the country
• Once registered, refugees are allowed to live in local
communities
• UNHCR card is the identity document used by Rohingya
refugees
• Refugees do not enjoy a legal status, their entitlement
to public services is minimal

20. Malaysia
B. Economic opportunities
• Refugees often blended into the category of
undocumented or illegal workers
• In early 1990s, 6-month non-renewable work permits
given to Rohingya refugees
• Many refugees and asylum seekers are engaged in
informal employment, particularly 3D jobs
• Overall, 58% of registered Rohingyas economically active
• Malaysia implemented a few work permit schemes for
refugees
– Restricted employment opportunities, only in manufacturing or
plantation industries with no choice of employment themselves
– Initiatives were small and ad hoc

21. Malaysian
policy does not
support de jure
integration
Refugees can
only informally
be integrated
into the
economy and
community
C. Refugee integration in Malaysia :
• Many refugees spend years, decades and
even generations living in limbo, lacking the
prospect of a formal durable solution
• However, many refugees have achieved some
degree of de facto integration. Most Rohingya
refugees
- Work in the informal sector
- Rent accommodation
- Access healthcare at government facilities
- Pray at Malaysian mosques
• Integration of refugees is difficult due to the
absence of strong political will of Malaysian
government

22. SUMMARY AND
CONCLUSION

23. Refugee rights to work in five host
countries
Typology Definition Countries
Right to work
in action
Where the right to work is enforced. International standards
are incorporated into a fully functioning domestic policy
without reservation.
None
Right to work
in progress
Where there is a national policy permitting refugee right to
work but it is not entirely enacted and legal constraints
remain.
Uganda
Restricted
right to work
Where there are severe legislative restrictions on formal
refugee work that may exclude certain groups.
Jordan
Kenya
No right but
allowed in
practice
Where there is no existing national policy that respects
refugees’ right to work or the national policy prohibits
refugees from working, but there are no punitive legal
restrictions on most informal work.
Ethiopia
No right and
restricted in
practice
Where there is no existing national policy that respects
refugees’ right to work or the national policy prohibits
refugees from working and this is heavily policed
Malaysia

24. Conclusion
• The local integration of refugees starts with a legal
process, whereby refugees are granted a progressively
wider range of rights and entitlements.
• Refugees can be considered “integrated” with host
economies when they have access to work permits and
business opportunities, are able to secure livelihoods,
and become less reliant on humanitarian assistance.
• However, legal opportunities for refugees to work vary
significantly across host countries.
• Opportunities for refugees to work are subject to the
political will, national policies and initiatives of host
countries.

25. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
This presentation is based on a research report of a project
designed and implemented by the Population Council.
We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of two individual
donors, Jerry Cunningham and Diane Cunningham, for their
financial support to carry out the project.

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