Home > Work > Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System
1 " The humanitarian silo model is also increasingly out of touch. It fails against almost any metric. It doesn't help refugees, undermining their autonomy and dignity. It doesn't help host governments, transforming potential contributors into a disempowered and alienated generation in their midst. It doesn't help the international community, leaving people indefinitely dependent on aid, less capable of ultimately rebuilding their countries of origin, and with onward movement as their only viable route to opportunity. "
― , Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System
2 " For every $135 of public money spent on an asylum-seeker in Europe, just $1 is spent on a refugee in the developing world. "
3 " Today over half the world's refugees are in 'protracted refugee situations' and for them the average length of stay [in camps] is over two decades. "
4 " One way of grounding how we should identify refugees in a changing world is through the concept of force majeure - the absence of a reasonable choice but to leave. "
5 " Six man variables... determine variation in refugees' income levels. First, regulation: the greater the degree of full participation in the national economy, the better refugees will do... Second, nationality... Third, education... fourth, occupation... fifth, gender... sixth, networks "
6 " More than fifteen years later, Uganda's Self-Reliance Strategy has endured as a relatively unique experiment. It was further formalized within Uganda's 2006 Refugee Act, now regarded as one of the most progressive pieces of refugee legislation in Africa. At times, self-reliance has been criticized for legitimizing the premature withdrawal of food rations. The quality of plots of land distributed to refugees has also become uneven as numbers have increased. And refugees still clearly face challenges, including discrimination and informal barriers to market participation. But compared to the alternatives in neighbouring countries, the model is both a shining beacon of policy innovation and a rare opportunity to understand what happens when refugees are given autonomy. "
7 " But when norms and interests come into tension, most states will side with their own interests. And yet pro-refugee rights advocacy and policy-making is dominated by a dogmatic insistence that reciting international law is the most effective way to influence state behaviour. "
8 " The attempt to stabilize Afghanistan is estimated to have cost American taxpayers $3tn to date. "
9 " The Second World War had begun with Poland being occupied by Germany, but ended with it occupied by Russia. "
10 " In other words, people are morally lazy. Unfortunately, wisdom is sometimes demanding. "
