AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION: REDUCE THE DRIVERS AND NEGATIVE
IMPACTS OF FORCED DISPLACEMENT
MERCY CORPS RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE UN HIGH LEVEL MEETING ON ADDRESSING LARGE SCALE
MOVEMENTS OF REFUGEES & MIGRANTS
Mercy Corps is a global organization, active in 47 countries around the world, many of which are either sources or
hosts of refugees and IDPs, and often both. Mercy Corps has worked for decades in both humanitarian
emergency and development situations and has witnessed time and again the devastating impact of large scale
displacement on individuals, communities and countries and the enormous barrier it creates to achieving
sustainable development.
For the first time ever, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly will host a UN High-level Meeting on addressing
large movements of refugees and migrants (UNHLM) on 19 September 2016. The meeting will bring together
heads of states and civil society actors and other stakeholders to make commitments to address the challenges
inherent in such large scale movements. UN Secretary General (SG) Ban Ki-moon has issued a report in
preparation for the HLM “In Safety and Dignity: Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants” in which
he suggests three pillars on which commitments can be based:



Pillar 1: Uphold safety and dignity in large movements of both refugees and migrants
Pillar 2: Global compact on responsibility-sharing for refugees
Pillar 3: Global compact for safe, regular and orderly migration
The UNHLM in September presents a historic opportunity for the international community, including hosting
countries and donors, to take bold steps to tackle the biggest challenge of the decade, the forced displacement of
more than 65.3 million people1.
To deliver on that promise, and to really impact on the suffering of millions of displaced people, the UNHLM
should include significant attempts both to reduce the drivers and the negative impacts of forced displacement.
The General Assembly should include the following themes and priorities within the Summit Declaration, the
Global Compact on Responsibility-Sharing for Refugees, and the Comprehensive Response Plan for Refugees.
1. FOCUS ON SOLUTIONS: PRIORITIZE INVESTMENTS IN CONFLICT PREVENTION AND MITIGATION
Conflict severely disrupts development, and is often devastating to both individuals and countries.2 Violent
conflict is also the primary source of human displacement around the world - driving 80 percent of displacement.
1
Although the UNHLM will address the movement of both migrants and refugees, our recommendations herein focus on
addressing the root causes and effects of forced displacement. An estimated 65.3 million people, including 21.3 million
refugees, are displaced because of violence and conflict. See: UNHCR Global Trends 2015: http://www.unhcr.org/576408cd7
An Ounce of Prevention: Why Conflict Prevention and Mitigation are Critical to Diminishing Displacement
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According to the World Bank, despite being home to only 6% of the global population, fragile and conflict-affected
situations produce the majority of the world’s displaced people and currently account for 21% of global poverty -a percentage expected to rise to 50% by 2030. Furthermore, even in cases without overt violence, threats of
violence and instability can also stall development.3
In preparation for the UNHLM the UN Secretary General has called for the development of a Global Compact on
Responsibility-Sharing for Refugees and a Comprehensive Response Plan for Refugees. While the Secretary
General highlights the importance of addressing the root causes of the involuntary movement of refugees and
migrants – including conflict, disaster and climate change - his report calls only for implementation of what the
international community has committed to doing in this area. While it is true that many important commitments
are already enshrined in international agreements, these have proved insufficient so far. In order to make real
progress, the summit outcomes should include very specific commitments that facilitate joint state action and
opportunities for individual countries to implement policies and programs that address the greatest source of
forced displacement, conflict drivers.
Recommendations:

The outcomes document should include global commitments to doubling conflict prevention and
mitigation funding.

Donor countries should also pledge to reform their development and humanitarian interventions to
ensure they include conflict sensitive analysis, programming and assessments to guarantee that these
interventions are working to prevent and mitigate conflict, rather than fueling it. Humanitarian efforts
should target the drivers and manifestations of conflict and violence, head-on, earlier in humanitarian
responses alongside shelter, water and sanitation and food assistance. In today’s protracted, complex
crises, humanitarians cannot wait for a vaguely defined “transition” point between emergency aid and
early recovery to start addressing the root causes of fragility. That means supporting conflict mitigation,
civil society, and governance interventions and implementing programs that are demand-driven, embrace
local ownership, and build resilience.

The outcomes document should also encourage Multilateral Development Actors to follow up on their
recent commitments to support fragile states. The General Assembly should urge multilateral banks,
especially the World Bank, to attend the Summit and report on their commitments made at World
Humanitarian Summit 2016 (WHS). For example, the World Bank committed to designing a new facility
focused on humanitarian issues in crisis at the WHS. Mercy Corps recommends that this facility should
have a specific mandate to focus on how development actors engage in conflict prevention and mitigation
in fragile and conflict-affected states. This could have an explicit focus on assessing how displacement –
both internal and across borders – might undermine achieving development goals and the best means to
mitigate this risk.
2
According to the United Nations (2016), “One Humanity: Shared Responsibility,” Report by the UN Secretary General for the
World Humanitarian Summit, conflict drives 80 percent of all humanitarian needs and also reverses hard won development
gains.
3
“Special Theme: Fragility, Conflict and Violence,” International Development Association Resource Mobilization
Department. May 31, 2016. Available from: http://wwwwds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2016/06/03/090224b084391d73/1_0/Rendered/PDF/IDA
18000specia0onflict0and0violence.pdf
An Ounce of Prevention: Why Conflict Prevention and Mitigation are Critical to Diminishing Displacement
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2. UNLOCK THE ECONOMIC POTENTIAL OF REFUGEES
The majority of the world’s refugees live amidst protracted crises. Current approaches to meet the evolving needs
of refugees are not working. Host states, entire regions, and most importantly, the refugees themselves are much
worse off for it.
Rather than being viewed as a burden, refugees can be an economic benefit to local economies. Research shows
that when given the opportunity, refugees can stimulate growth in local markets and even create jobs for
refugees and locals alike. In Uganda, for example, the results of letting refugees move freely and work have
greatly benefited refugees and their hosts. Refugees are well networked, interacting significantly with other
refugees and with Ugandan nationals, and 99% of refugees are either self-employed or employed by others. 4
Furthermore, many refugees also generated employment opportunities for both refugees and Ugandans; each
refugee entrepreneur, on average, employs two people in rural settlements and 2.4 people in urban settlements.5
Leaving refugees in limbo – penned in camps, settlements or urban slums, where they are not allowed to work or
move freely for long periods of time – is a waste of human capital. In fact, these practices only disenfranchise
refugees, exacerbate tensions with hosts, and strain financial and natural resources. As Alexander Betts,
Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs at the University of Oxford, said: “Rather than see
refugees as inevitably dependent on humanitarian assistance, we need to provide them with opportunities for
human flourishing. Yes, clothes, blankets, shelter and food are all important during the emergency phase, but we
need to look beyond that.”6
The UNHLM needs to catalyze powerful economic initiatives, including increasing trade and forging new
partnerships with multilateral institutions and the private sector to address the needs of refugees and host
communities alike.
Recommendations

The Global Compact on responsibility sharing for refugees and the comprehensive plan for refugees
should include an “Economic Bridges Initiative”. Through this initiative, the General Assembly would
commit to developing a refugee integration index that would score qualifying governments on a set of
externally evaluated indicators that assess respect for refugee integration and incentivize better policy by
providing a menu of benefits for higher scores on the index. Areas of evaluation could include: elimination
of closed camp models that deny refugees the right to work and freedom of movement; granting of work
permits; allowing access to education for children and youth; and supporting better documentation for
refugees, including the issuance of birth certificates and other papers necessary for identity and travel
verification that are critical to refugees’ safety, wellbeing, access to social and financial services, and
livelihood opportunities.
Participating countries would benefit from: access to an unrestricted pooled fund that would provide bilateral
aid, trade preference agreements, or preferential trade zones.
4
The University of Oxford, Refugee Studies Center, “Refugee Economies: Rethinking Popular Assumptions,” Betts et al. 2014,
available at: https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/refugeeeconomies
5
Ibid.
6
“Four Innovations that Could Turn Refugees from Burdens into Assets—and Save Lives,” by Jessica Leber. March 2016,
Available from: http://www.fastcoexist.com/3057355/4-innovations-that-could-turn-refugees-from-burdens-into-assets-andsave-lives
An Ounce of Prevention: Why Conflict Prevention and Mitigation are Critical to Diminishing Displacement
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3. SUPPORT THE NEXT GENERATION: ADOLESCENT REFUGEES IN CRISIS
Our research has demonstrated that conflict and displacement has specific impacts on adolescents, and their
needs are severely underserved. The experience of conflict and violence, and the failure to meet those needs, is
also a contributing factor in their decision to engage in organized violence in their turn. However, adolescents
and young people also offer enormous potential to both their home and their host communities. To energize and
shape the narrative on refugees into one of opportunity for host countries, specific and bold commitments on
support for refugee adolescents should be a cornerstone of the UNHLM outcomes, which should include specific
commitments to meeting the comprehensive needs of adolescent refugees, including through:

Targeted psychosocial support for adolescents who have been exposed to violence and disrupted by
displacement to enhance their ability to make positive life decisions, assess risks, and ultimately benefit
from education and employability programming via community-based mechanisms and programs.

Promotion of life skills for adolescents to better prepare them for the school-to-work transition and make
up for years of lost schooling.

Strong language affirming that the education commitment made at WHS will deliver on learning at the
secondary level through a more systematic targeting of educational supports and initiatives for
adolescents (15-17 years) that respond to the realities of young refugees, offering multiple and mixed
channels of learning in formal and non-formal sectors. And, as part of this focus, establish: systems that
allow for the remote administration of required exams from refugees’ countries of origin; alternative
assessment mechanisms for adolescents to demonstrate completion of schooling levels in lieu of official
certificates (a major barrier for many refugees in continuing education and transitioning to safe and
equitable work); a regional-level equivalent of a high-school diploma that would be recognized across
countries.

Support mechanisms to give youth a greater voice in decision-making at the local, national, regional
and international level to operationalize UN Security Council resolution 22507 which aims to engage
youth in decision making at all levels, and the 2015 Amman Youth Declaration on youth engagement
which lays out a roadmap for youth inclusion in archiving peace and security.8
The UNHLM represents a unique opportunity not only to do the right thing, but also to accomplish the smart
thing. Participating governments and stakeholders can contribute to bigger picture thinking on how to respond to
some of the largest-scale displacement in a generation, and more broadly, to a world that is seeing more people
on the move than ever before. The 70-year old Bretton Woods, post-World War II humanitarian and political
system is no longer meeting the needs of the displaced. Bold leadership and creative thinking must happen in
order to break cycles of violence, alleviate suffering, lessen political and economic burdens, and enable refugees
to live productive, dignified lives.
7
On 9 December 2015, the UN Security Council, Unanimously Adopted Resolution 2250 (2015) on increasing representation
of youth in decision-making at all levels, available online at: http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc12149.doc.htm.
8
Available online at: http://www.un.org/youthenvoy/2015/08/amman-youth-declaration-adopted-global-forum-youthpeace-security/.
An Ounce of Prevention: Why Conflict Prevention and Mitigation are Critical to Diminishing Displacement
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CONTACT:
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An Ounce of Prevention: Why Conflict Prevention and Mitigation are Critical to Diminishing Displacement
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