To help refugees, expert says to focus on cities

When Hassan was 18, he left Mogadishu, Somalia, where he had grown up. Prospects there were poor—the jihadist group al-Shabbab was trying to overthrow the government, schools were closed, and the economy was crumbling. He made his way with the help of smugglers to Egypt, landing in a slum on the outskirts of Cairo. Soon he found a community of other Somalis who had fled their homeland, too, and started making a new life for himself.

Hassan's journey, told by Karen Jacobsen in her new book "Host Cities: How Refugees Are Transforming the World's Urban Settings," highlights the fact that about half of refugees go to cities in neighboring countries, often trying to blend in. Cities not only change the lives of refugees like Hassan, says Jacobsen, Henry J. Leir Professor of Global Migration at The Fletcher School, but the refugees change the cities they live in.

That's something that she learned firsthand as she studied different approaches to helping displaced people around the world. "I realized that there's a lot written on what happens to the refugees, but not nearly as much about what happens to the cities, and especially the people already living there," she says.

Transforming neighborhoods

A common factor across the globe is that displaced people—both refugees from different countries and those who are displaced within the borders of their own country—often congregate with others like themselves. Once a small community has been established, those newly arriving seek the familiar and gather there.

That has consequences, though, for those who already lived there, such as the effect on housing. Take what happened in Tripoli, Lebanon, when refugees started pouring in as civil war tore apart Syria.

Tripoli is a mid-sized city in the north of Lebanon, close to the Syrian border, and its Syrian-dominated neighborhoods attracted most of the newcomers. That created competition for finite housing resources with the Lebanese who already lived there, leading to tensions.

Competition for jobs increased, too, as the refugees were often willing to accept lower wages and poorer working conditions. The book includes a photo of a sign strung above a busy Tripoli street that makes the point vividly. It reads, "Dear Syrian refugee, I deserve work in my country more than you do."

"There's also a spillover effect," says Jacobsen, who also directs the Refugees in Towns project at the Henry J. Leir Institute for Migration and Human Security at The Fletcher School. "If things happen in a particular neighborhood, it's going to eventually affect the whole city."

Help the helpers

There are other complications, too. When refugees receive payments from humanitarian organizations, it can appear unfair to local residents who are poor, but who are excluded from the aid. Jacobsen argues that agencies should find ways to give access to humanitarian goods and services to a range of people in a neighborhood, both refugees and the host population. If the neighborhood benefits, everyone benefits, she says.

"There is plenty of evidence that the best way to help refugees is to promote good relations with their neighbors by using humanitarian resources so that both refugees and locals benefit," she writes. "When resources flow into a neighborhood, refugees are seen as an asset, and tensions between refugees and hosts are reduced."

The arrival of refugees can also inspire tensions if they bring practices that conflict with the traditions of the local host population. Jacobsen points to a neighborhood in Cairo where young non-Muslim refugees from South Sudan and Ethiopia sometimes get drunk and rowdy in public, violating local norms. "That can create tensions in the neighborhood," she says.

While humanitarian workers don't like to highlight potential negatives related to refugees, recognizing host concerns is important in understanding the impact of refugees and how best to try to alleviate those concerns, Jacobsen says.

The benefits of hosting refugees

There are upsides for cities receiving refugees, too, she notes. Refugees can bring vitality to the local economy as they start businesses. In "Host Cities," she recounts a visit to what used to be a run-down neighborhood of Cairo. Now it's a thriving area filled with Syrian businesses, such as the fast-food chain Rosto. Its owner had run successful businesses in Syria and came to Cairo when the Syrian civil war broke out, where he restarted his business. That pattern has played out in other towns in Egypt—and in many host countries across the world, Jacobsen says.

"Host Cities," with its exploration of how cities are changed by refugee populations, is more descriptive than prescriptive, but there are some lessons. For starters, cities should "not get in the way" of refugees, Jacobsen says. "If cities create restrictions around work, freedom of movement, and starting businesses, that's just going to obstruct the economic and social benefits that refugees bring—and no one wins."

One idea Jacobsen thinks is worth exploring is to support host communities with things like tax breaks for people who take in refugees. Cities could also work with landlords to encourage them to rent to refugees by helping them rehabilitate their buildings, as some refugee agencies have done in cities like Tripoli and Beirut.

Ultimately, Jacobsen says, supporting host populations in cities is a very effective policy. "They are the people who are helping the refugees the most."

Provided by Tufts University