REFUGEES, MIGRANTS AND INTERNALLY DISPLACED
The choice to reject, confine and degrade these populations has shamed us for decades.
by Nicolas Bwakira and Patrycja Stys
A young boy shows off his new pair of shoes he received at a Kuchi camp near Hutal, Kandahar province, Afghanistan
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Many of the most vulnerable are refugees and the internally displaced. Waves of migration and flight of families escaping for economic, environmental or political reasons will increase exponentially. The choice to reject, confine and degrade these populations has shamed us for decades. Some countries have already understood that by empowering refugees to work, giving access to land and property so that they too can become integrated is the most sustainable and humane approach. Firm commitments need to be made to protect these vulnerable populations and resources and support provided so that they can build a life and a home.
— Nicolas Bwakira
Central African states – Congo included – responded swiftly by imposing the knee-jerk one-size-fits-none prevention measures which were being rolled out worldwide. In eastern DRC, in the Kivu’s provincial capitals of Goma and Bukavu, people spoke of dying of prevention measures, of hunger induced by them, before they could ever die of COVID-19.This pandemic has taught us we can all become stateless or confined at the drop of a hat, and that self-sufficiency and regional co-operation to safeguard the lives of the most vulnerable ought to be priorities in any strategies to find a new normal post-Coronavirus. A one-size-size-all approach fits none. Worse: it kills many.
— Patrycja Stys
This pandemic has taught us we can all become stateless or confined at the drop of a hat
Nicolas Bwakira, Burundian Diplomat, international civil servant and academician.
Patrycja Stys, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
OUR SPEAKERS
Nicolas Bwakira
Ambassador Nicolas Bwakira is a citizen of Burundi and South Africa. He is a lawyer and diplomat with 45 years’ work experience with governments, international organizations, NGO’s and academic institutions. He has worked for UNHCR from 1970 to 2002 in various capacities. He has served as Representative and UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Angola following the country independence, Regional Representative for Africa accredited to OAU, ECA and Ethiopia, Deputy Director and Director for Africa at Headquarters in Geneva, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Namibia during the process leading to the Independence of Namibia, Regional Director for SADC region and Director for UNHCR Office at the UN Headquarters in New York.
After his retirement from UNHCR, he served as the Director for International Relations and Partnership at the University of South Africa (UNISA) in Pretoria.
From 2007 to 2009, Mr Bwakira has been the African Union Special Representative of the Chair Person of the Commission to Somalia.
He also serves as a member of Board of Trustees of the African Humanitarian Action (headquarters in Addis-Ababa) as well as the Institute of Security Studies (Pretoria).
Mr Bwakira is currently a Senior Adviser to the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI).
Patrycja Stys
Dr Patrycja Stys is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, on the ESRC-DfID Poverty Alleviation Project, headed by Prof Paul Nugent and Drs Zoe Marks and Jan Eichhorn, ‘A Comparative Analysis of Ex-Combatants’ Economic and Social-Political Power during and after War. We explore these themes across Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Patrycja has worked on post-conflict state and social reconstruction in Africa’s Great Lakes Region since 2008. Her initial research focused on the repatriation and reintegration of refugees and former combatants in Rwanda, subsequently expanding into Uganda and the DRC during her doctoral research at the University of Oxford.
Broadly, her work examines the construction and contestation of nationalism, identity, and citizenship in exile. Mapping the social networks and political mobilisation of refugee communities and armed groups, she explores the practicalities of mending broken nation-states through the return of expatriated populations – or their endurance in exile, and its effects on host states.
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Individuals contributed with their image and content in a personal capacity, not as a part of their role in any institution or company listed on this website.
Resources and points of view
Social Innovation for Refugee Inclusion: From Bright Spots to System Change, article in Migration Policy Institute
The dramatic increase in the number of asylum seekers arriving in Europe during 2015–16 sparked a burst of social innovation. Grassroots groups, tech start-ups, and businesses of all sizes brought new thinking and resources to bear on the challenges of receiving and integrating newcomers into European societies. Many of these challenges continue to echo across education systems, health services, labor and housing markets, and neighborhoods, even as the keen sense of crisis has waned.
Refugee Innovation report
Humanitarian innovation that starts with communities.
