It doesn’t have to be a crisis: Partnering for a shared future with refugees

There is never a good time for disaster; but when it comes to migration we should, and can, be ready. At the very least, readier than we are now, facing the largest refugee crisis since World War II, with an unprecedented 70.8 million people worldwide having been forcibly displaced from their homes. When war strikes or natural disasters take their toll — and hundreds of thousands of people flood foreign borders — countries struggle not only to cope, but to provide long-term solutions to recurring problems.

Time and again we face this tension between the urgency of refugee crises and the time it takes to address them successfully. While many refugees have arrived in Europe, the number pales in comparison to the 85% hosted by developing regions, where the strain on both sides is drastic: those in protracted refugee situations, especially, are lacking the lasting support they need to escape their current situation; while host countries often lack the resources and know-how to provide that support. The result is not only the extreme marginalization and loss of dignity of refugees, but the condemnation of host countries to a financial black hole and decades of political tension. Humanitarian assistance cannot tackle the full extent of migration-associated issues, most of which long outlive initial bursts of aid funding.

“Governments have been on the case for decades,” Tapio Vahtola of UNHCR told us. Having realised that it makes no sense to pump humanitarian aid without linking it to a country’s development (in Africa, for example), they merged, or are in the process of merging, their two main strands of humanitarian and development funding. Meanwhile, in December 2018, the UN’s Global Compact on Refugees recognised that sustainable solutions to refugee situations cannot be achieved without international, cross-sector cooperation– and that, for UNHCR and leading social impact finance architects like KOIS, is where inclusive partnerships come in.

The primary role of this kind of partnership, on both the financial and humanitarian sides, is to find new models for socio-economic inclusion: in the case of refugees, to facilitate their transition out of their state of limbo by giving them the access, resources and tools to participate in the host country’s society and economy; in essence, to build a future.

We put these two questions to our interviewees: Why are we not seeing more of these inclusive partnerships; and why are the existing ones so limited in scale and resources?

Both Vahtola and François de Borchgrave of KOIS suggested that it’s because the dynamics and structures of partnerships are still unfamiliar, and that the key ingredients needed to mainstream them are, unsurprisingly, time and money. Successful inclusion partnerships take, according to them, about 3 years to build properly, while the average global waiting time for refugees’ right to remain is now 21 years. It is imperative, therefore, that we start to think differently about our crisis timelines.

Time and time again

Adapting to the inclusion model and finding new development actors to work with, said Vahtola, takes time– and many organisations, including UNHCR, are not quite there yet. It involves unlearning the old model of short-term aid and opening up UNHCR — with new knowledge, resources and tools — to different kinds of partnerships seeking to provide long-term socio-economic support. “Maybe SDG 17 will become more of a global priority,” he said, “When there is a more holistic view of this new model.”

Money can’t buy you love, but it can buy you time

Making programmes financially sustainable — and scalable — requires large sources of money. But where there is money, there is risk; and where there is risk, there must be transparency. “In fact,” said Vahtola, “We ask our corporate partners to do their own due diligence on us too, so that we’re on an equal footing– which also takes time.” All in all, both sectors can be quite cautious and really take their time to build a willingness to work with one another: “Our trust in a corporate partner wouldn’t come from the money they put on the table, but from their willingness to create an equal partnership from the start based on transparency, shared values and stance.”

When you share the same values

Shared values are the mutual bottom line; and among them is the belief that values themselves can be a force for thriving economies and societies. The KOIS refugee initiatives embody the notion that investing in economic inclusion is not only the right thing to do in the name of progressive societies but makes a financial case far superior to the social exclusion of refugees and the passive acceptance of migration as a financial ‘burden’. KOIS initiatives include: Duo for a Job — the first social impact bond in Belgium helping unemployed immigrants to find jobs in Brussels; another impact bond integrating Syrian refugees into the Jordanian and Lebanese economies through the provision of start-up training, capital and apprenticeships; and the last, not yet launched, supports capital investments in humanitarian settings around the world. None of these initiatives would have been possible “without the support of organisations who understand the refugee crisis, and the support of social investors and governments,” said de Borchgrave.

The same mindset underpins UNHCR’s partnership with the Jordanian government and the IKEA Foundation in the Asraq refugee camp, which has its own solar power plant, employs refugees at the plant, gives excess energy back to the Jordanian national grid for free, and saves UNHCR several millions a year. Another partnership with the IKEA Foundation and the Ethiopian government has invested 110 million dollars since 2012 in a refugee settlement on the Ethiopian-Somalian border, in key areas of socio-economic opportunity for refugees: education; renewable energy; lifestyle opportunities (irrigated agricultural land or livestock opportunities); and increased capacity for teacher training. Thanks to this partnership, the Ethiopian government proved that refugees could contribute to the local economy and benefit everyone, making it worthwhile for Ethiopia to host the refugees in the first place. Now, the camps have become “the place where things happen”, said Vahtola. More than that, “when you give refugees access to loans, it’s a sign of trust that they’re going to be there for a while, and a sign that you’re welcoming them.”

Treading softly

The level of awareness and knowledge required for these kinds of partnerships can sometimes be grounds for not collaborating with a corporate partner, if that partner lacks understanding of, say, UNHCR’s protection mandate. Another obstacle could involve a partner wanting to sell a product in rural areas through a pure market-based approach, while lacking crucial knowledge of those areas– condemning their initiative to failure. A successful partnership, said Vahtola, is about “matching the reality to the dream, and coming up with a collaboration that works for everybody.”

We must acknowledge, however, that the reality of this refugee crisis, with its current timelines, is far from what many of us have in mind. Investing in a shared future between refugees and host countries takes time (and rightfully so) which means we need more cross-sector partnerships, now: in anticipation of their implementation time and in preparation for future waves of migration.

At the risk of sounding paradoxical, the long-term mindset is an urgent prerequisite for addressing short-term crises. It’s the only viable solution; and the only viable vehicle for that solution is partnership. “And all it takes,” said Vahtola, “Is for one or two people at the top to want to change the system and commit to global impact.”

It may take two to tango, but the first step can be yours. 💋

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