Social and Environmental Imperatives for Risk Management: Lessons from the Rohingya Refugee Crisis

Abstract

The world is witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record. An unprecedented 70.8 million people around the world were forced from their homes by conflict and persecution in 2018. Among them were nearly 30 million refugees, over half of whom were under the age of 18. Since late 2017, over a million Rohingya refugees have been present in the Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh. Cox’s Bazar is one of the poorest districts of the country and is prone to natural hazards including cyclone, floods, and landslides. Bangladesh is one of the world’s most densely populated countries in the world, and influx of over one million refuges added pressure on natural resources. The influx due to displacement occurred over a short duration. Limited space and time provisions existed for the planned settlement of refugees. Herein the Kutupalong camp is highly congested and located on unstable slopes, though is considered the world’s biggest refugee camp. The humanitarian response to this crisis took several measures, which ranged from understanding risk to setting up risk governance mechanisms, thus reducing risk and managing residual risk. The response involved the government, UN agencies, academia, NGOs, and community volunteers. This chapter draws key lessons from risk governance and coordination among partners effecting management of risk. Addressing risk includes structural and non-structural measures pertaining to policy formation and coordination. Key challenges faced in addressing the risks imposed during flood and cyclone periods in 2018 are detailed. The measures and challenges are context specific and comprehensive background is given. The management of risk in Rohingya refugee crisis is a continuous exercise as the overall policy to govern this crisis evolves. The chapter is closed with a set of broad recommendations for managing disaster risk in a conflict/refugee context, which can be customized as per the ground realities.