While there is global responsibility to respond to international protection needs, neighbouring countries in a region experiencing a conflict are those chiefly responsible for hosting the majority of refugees. The Syrian conflict and refugee displacement demonstrates this issue: millions of Syrian refugees are hosted within the region (ca. 3.6 million in Turkey, ca. one million in Lebanon, ca. 670,000 in Jordan), while only ca. 115,000 Syrian refugees have been resettled across the globe (from 2014-2017 the EU resettled ca. 37,000 Syrians and also granted 765,460 positive asylum status) and return to Syria has been reported in the thousands (for Lebanon) and several hundred thousand (for Turkey).
What does this mean for refugee-hosting countries? It means that, now almost eight years after the start of the conflict, millions of Syrians remain in limbo in host countries. Many refugees remain unable to work legally, may not have a legal status and may have difficulty accessing essential services. This will have long-standing impacts on this population, including children, as well as the community hosting them (including upon potential return to Syria). The large numbers of refugees hosted has also had a significant development impact on and contribution to host countries: on the labour market, the economy, education and schooling, healthcare, the property market and housing, environment and waste and on politics (both internal and diplomatic).

To respond to these challenges and opportunities, ICMPD, with co-funding from the OPEC Fund for International Development, conducted a “Study on Refugee Protection and Development: Assessing the Development Displacement Nexus in Regional Protection Policies”. Our study aimed at developing policy options that respond to the needs of both refugees and host countries. These policy options have been developed based on desk research and consultations with stakeholders (government institutions, NGOs, chambers of commerce, UN agencies, donors).