The Displacement Economies Framework

Abstract

Protracted displacement of refugees and IDPs (internally displaced people) is one of the most critical humanitarian problems today. Legislation often prohibits refugees’ rights to work, move beyond camps, or attain citizenship, while IDPs lack access to security and services. New approaches are urgently needed to overcome barriers to economic integration of displaced people’s livelihoods and enterprise as a stepping-stone to broader social integration. Drawing on refugee, development and informality literatures, this paper proposes a new Displacement Economies Framework, a theoretical and programming tool that helps bridge the humanitarian-development divide and highlight the agency and collective economic contribution of displaced people.