International Development Committee Inquiry: The FCDO's approach to displaced people

Written evidence submission from the Institute of Development Studies

About the Institute of Development Studies: The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) is a global research and learning organisation for equitable and sustainable change. IDS is ranked first in the world for development studies by the QS University Rankings, with the University of Sussex, for 8 years in a row.

This submission draws on evidence and expertise from Dr Dolf te Lintelo, Research Fellow at IDS, whose work over the last 7-8 years across various research projects, including under the FCDO-funded BASIC programme, has examined urban protracted displacement, especially in the context of the Syrian refugee crisis in the Middle East.

Urban displacement

Globally, most forcibly displaced people now live in urban settings, and typically not in camps. Therefore, these displaced people live side by side with existing urban populations, including the poorest. In cities and towns, both the existing poor population and the displaced who now live there share some similar experiences of displacement (e.g. relating to evictions, slum demolitions, gentrification of their local area) but there are also many differences.

The impact of many displaced people arriving to live in an urban setting, on the local economies and provision of local services, and on the lives of the urban poor are quite poorly evidenced. Actual or imagined grievances in this respect often inspire a politics of scapegoating and hate, which undermine durable solutions to displacement.

Research at IDS points to the ways in which protractedly displaced people (displaced for many years) undertake a range of everyday activities in the pursuit of wellbeing. These include, amongst others, establishing livelihoods while in exile, housing opportunities and use of public spaces. This research finds that protracted displacement often contributes to the enduring transformation of cities, however, this transformation and patterns of change do not simply mimic historic patterns associated with domestic migration.

Public spaces play an important role for displaced people’s wellbeing, however, these spaces are not as freely accessible and useable as their name suggests.

A key strand from the research at IDS, including from the FCDO-funded BASIC programme, points to the critical role of policy and legal environments in the urbanisation of refuge – arguing that greater attention must be given in aid responses to the ways in which intersections across scales of migration governance (including those re: border crossings, legal registration, residential permissions, and constraints on the terms of incorporation in formal labour markets) and urban specific policies, including those regarding housing regulations and planning, structurally shape opportunities/constraints for integration as a ‘durable solution’ for displacement.

The research also notes the role of donors, including FCDO, specifically on limits to the localisation agenda, and how donors consider powerful non-state actors, and how proscription policies affect humanitarian/development practice, raising several dilemmas in programming and reaching the most vulnerable populations.

At the outset of conflict, does the FCDO pay sufficient interest to the needs of civilians, including how to prevent displacement and how to support those who are displaced?

Research at IDS argues that another important population group to consider, is the existing poor population, who the displaced people live alongside, and share local infrastructure with such as housing and services.

How effective is FCDO work to keep displaced people safe?

Overall, it is important to note that there is no single, principled and coherent approach followed by FCDO across major displacement crises globally, whether in Sudan, Afghanistan, Ukraine, or in Palestine, or elsewhere. In one of the worst instances of displacement witnessed over the last year, in Gaza, the UK government has utterly and miserably failed in each of the questions listed for this inquiry. Indeed, here it has conspicuously failed to tackle the key driver of displacement - war. The FCDO has objectively failed to prevent the repeat displacement of Gazans (with most people having been displaced repeatedly, and some reportedly 10 times in the span of a year or so) and failed the mass denigration of Gazan’s basic rights to life and livelihood. It has catastrophically forsaken to support those displaced, and overcome the deliberate barriers to aid put in place by the state of Israel, and indeed been unwilling or unable to hold the latter to account for its crimes, which in the view of many people, states, and justices of the International Court of Justice risk constituting war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, amongst others.

What is the role of local and civil society organisations in supporting displaced people? How could the FCDO better support these organisations?

Significant policy attention has recently been given to better connect international humanitarian assistance with state based social protection systems. These efforts seem to bypass the role of local and civil society organisations, whose role as first responders in acute displacement crises is very important.

These organisations are well placed to assess localised needs for support. However, their modus operandi, values underwriting their assistance efforts, their selection of beneficiaries for assistance and exclusion of others requesting aid is quite poorly understood. Their strengths include having cadres of volunteers and understanding local needs exceedingly well.

However, these organisations typically do not have the personnel or administrative capacities to effectively meet the due diligence and other demands that aid, and humanitarian bureaucracies may impose on them. Hence, FCDO may consider ways in which its funding requirements could be adapted in times of acute crises, to facilitate local civil society in an effective and timely response in case of acute needs. It may seek to encourage experimentation with, and evaluation of, such new aid provisioning models.

How effective is the FCDO’s current policy towards host countries of long-term refugees, including Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, as well as FCDO policy towards the West Bank?

IDS research, alongside partners, on Localising aid: Urban displacement, contested public authority and legitimacy in Jordan and Lebanon, points to various policy implications for FCDO and other donors. These include the fact that in urban contexts where multiple governance actors compete for authority, a clearer approach is needed on whether and how to engage these various actors in order to reach the most vulnerable host and refugee populations, in countries like Türkiye, Jordan and Lebanon.

Non-state public authority actors can have significant roles in the everyday governance of urban informal neighbourhoods, particularly in conflict and post conflict settings. Locally they can have significant legitimacy among local residents and compete for authority with state bodies such as municipalities.

The ‘localisation agenda’ of the international community must therefore broaden from supporting municipalities to enabling humanitarian and development organisations to engage urban non-state public authority actors.

Aid donors often seek to understand and influence the legitimacy of urban governance actors. They should foster greater dialogue with implementing partners to enable their careful engagement with multiple competing urban authorities and promote mutual learning on this.

Donors should offer more practical guidance for implementing partners on how to operate with non-state public authorities that are deemed to exclude certain groups and provide greater clarity on ‘red lines’ in the case of proscription policies.

Wholesale proscription policies of non-state public authority actors undermine humanitarian principles, impede abilities to reach vulnerable displaced populations, and may contradict donor development objectives.