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Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System
Europe is facing its greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War, yet the institutions responding to it remain virtually unchanged from those created in the post-war era. Going beyond the scenes of desperation which have become all-too-familiar in the past few years, Alexander Betts and Paul Collier show that this crisis offers an opportunity for reform if international policy-makers focus on delivering humane, effective and sustainable outcomes - both for Europe and for countries that border conflict zones. Refugees need more than simply food, tents and blankets, and research demonstrates that they can offer tangible economic benefits to their adopted countries if given the right to work and education. Refuge sets out an alternative vision that can empower refugees to help themselves, contribute to their host societies, and even rebuild their countries of origin.
288 pages, Paperback
First published March 30, 2017
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1284 people want to read
About the author
Alexander Betts
23 books20 followersAlexander Betts is Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, William Golding Senior Fellow in Politics at Brasenose College, and Associate Head (Doctoral and Research Training) of the Social Science Division, at the University of Oxford. He served as Director of the Refugee Studies Centre between 2014 and 2017. His research focuses mainly on the political economy of refugee assistance, with a focus on Africa.
He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, was named by Foreign Policy magazine in the top 100 global thinkers of 2016, and his TED talks have been viewed by over 3 million people. He has previously worked for UNHCR and has served as a Councillor on the World Refugee Council. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian. He currently leads the IKEA Foundation-funded Refugee Economies Programme, which undertakes participatory research on the economic lives of refugees in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia. He received his MPhil (with distinction) and DPhil from the University of Oxford.
He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, was named by Foreign Policy magazine in the top 100 global thinkers of 2016, and his TED talks have been viewed by over 3 million people. He has previously worked for UNHCR and has served as a Councillor on the World Refugee Council. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian. He currently leads the IKEA Foundation-funded Refugee Economies Programme, which undertakes participatory research on the economic lives of refugees in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia. He received his MPhil (with distinction) and DPhil from the University of Oxford.
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November 14, 2017
This book does the job our politicians should have asked for: a thorough analysis of the refugee situation with potential alternatives for solutions along with an in depth evaluation of those alternatives, using both head and heart. A recurring theme in the book are decisions made using either the headless heart or the heartless head. The authors dig in with history, background, discuss various arguments on free versus restricted migration, what obligations we have to our fellow humans and how choices made reverberate into the future capacity to rebuild the home countries.
I've read several of Paul Colliers earlier works (Exodus - How Migration is Changing Our World. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It. Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places.). I find him fascinating as a researcher, with his focus on the poorest of the poor. How can we lift the bottom billion? If we focus on lifting the least fortunate, we lift the whole world. His texts are backed up by well considered research and I find his ponderings on the various aspects that tilt the scale one way or another to be well thought through. This is my first aquaintance with co-author Alexander Betts.
I live in Sweden, a country which per capita has taken in more asylum seekers than any other European nation. A country who like Germany chose to help a very few at a high cost not only to the tax payers but to the migrants themselves. In order to reach the honey pot they had to risk life and limb in rickety boats. The majority of people left behind, in the nearby havens, were essentially ignored. I would very much like to see this book translated into Swedish. We need more than ever to have an honest dialog about migration policies. If we truly want to help the world there is surely a better way.
This book has four big new ideas:
1) the right ethical focus is the duty to rescue the displaced from the disruption to normal life generated by their flight from home.
2) the best places for safe haven are those that are easy for the displaced to reach, and rich countries should make it financially feasible for these haven countries to take them.
3) the best way to restore normality is for refugees to be able to work, so jobs should be brought to the haven countries.
4) the economic support needed for refuge can be used for the dual purpose of incubating the post-conflict recovery.
The authors point the way to transform refugee policies from humanitarian to a development focus.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Wheras the humanitarian approach has been to provide food for the day (aka crisis management) the development approach is to seek long term solutions, putting in place structures that feed them for a lifetime. I'm not surprised to see this suggestion, it mirrors what Paul Collier's life work has been all about. How to lift the bottom, by so doing we lift humanity.
There is always hope, no situation is static…
"Contrary to many international policy assumptions, there are practically no weak states that should be permanently written off. In the twenty-first century it is feasible for all societies to become reasonably viable. The global tragedy of the 1980s was Ethiopia; that of the 1990s was Rwanda: both are now thriving. Many societies will remain fragile for many years, and so long term provisions must be made for those who flee the fallout from anarchy. Sometimes this will persist so long as to make assimilation into other societies the best option, but, as we discuss in Chapter 7, a refugee strategy that incubates the restoration of a functioning state has an important role."
"In 1999, The European Union incorporated border regulations into its legal framework, giving scarcely a thought to the practical implications for the flow of refugees."
"Obviously, a border-free area requires a common external force to police its borders. A real federal state such as the USA has one, but the EU adopted the symbol of borderless passage without the necessary supporting organization."
"The European policies that have shaped the Syrian refugee disaster have lurched between the headless heart and the heartless head. Panic is not too strong a word to describe what happened: each step was a reaction to the unanticipated consequences of previous actions which turned out to be blunders."
"Since the need was for international cooperation, the primary responsibility for failure is with the international agencies tasked with coordination… the agencies were hopelessly stuck in their silos of 'humanitarian', 'post-conflict' and 'economic development'. The displaced fled across Syria's borders to Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. The response of the UNHCR was camps: the provision of food and shelter based on the needs of the late 1940s. In Jordan around 85 percent of the refugees ignored the camps; in Turkey it was 90 percent: what refugees wanted was the autonomy that comes from a job."
The camps are often located in border regions, while there refugees are not allowed to work and the average length of stay is now more than a decade. What is most needed are havens where people can have a life and work until home conditions settle down.
"The other bystanders missing in action were the states of the Arabian Gulf. They were, indeed, by far the best placed to act because geography, culture and finance were all favorably aligned. They could have become what was needed: havens with jobs; and also have financed the three neighboring havens. When put to the test, generosity to their fellow Sunni Arabs did not stretch very far."
"… a dilemma for all high-income countries. An offer of refuge to people from much poorer countries effectively turns refugees into economic migrants, attracted by the prospect of a major improvement in the quality of life: not just compared with the miserable circumstances of being a refugee, but compared with their prior life chances. Evidently, this goes well beyond a duty of rescue, which requires that the life be restored as closely as possible to pre-refuge conditions. The only way that high-income countries can meet the duty of rescue without exceeding it is if they partner with other countries to offer havens that broadly match pre-refuge conditions."
"Azraq refugee camp in Jordan is one of the first internationally planned and designed refugee camps in the world. In theory, it offered an increasingly self-aware UNHCR an opportunity to put into practice everything it had learned about the pros and cons of different forms of camp design during its sixty-year history.
And yet, despite being planned from scratch as a dream camp, Azraq is a grim place to live. Built on an ex-army base, it is in a remote desert area, twenty kilometers from the nearest town.
Azraq defies almost every basic rule ever learned in urban planning. It is to refugee settlement what Brasilia, Chandigarh and Canberra, and LeCorbusier's 'banlieues' are to cities; a well intentioned, high modernist catastrophe."
"Predicably, people are voting with their feet and shunning refugee camps. Over half of the world's refugees now live in urban areas, and in some countries like Jordan, the proportion is as high as 80 percent. But in dooing so they relinquish formal assistance, and yet sometimes do not even have the right to work."
"There is an alternative. And it starts with the recognition that refugees have skills, talents and aspirations. They are not just passive objects of our pity, but actors constrained by cruel circumstances. They do not have to be an inevitable burden, but instead can help themselves and their communities - if we let them. Imagine if, instead of the humanitarian silo, we could conceive of an approach that could support refugees' autonomy and dignity while simultaneously empowering them to contribute to host communities and the eventual reconstruction of their country of origin."
"If just some of the $135 spent on the 10 percent for every $1 spent on the 90 percent could be reallocated, then an alternative vision might be possible."
"However, the duty of rescue does not require an unqualified right of migration or immediate assimilation. There is nothing inherent to being a refugee that necessitates unrestricted global mobility or the ability to chose a destination country."
I've read several of Paul Colliers earlier works (Exodus - How Migration is Changing Our World. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It. Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places.). I find him fascinating as a researcher, with his focus on the poorest of the poor. How can we lift the bottom billion? If we focus on lifting the least fortunate, we lift the whole world. His texts are backed up by well considered research and I find his ponderings on the various aspects that tilt the scale one way or another to be well thought through. This is my first aquaintance with co-author Alexander Betts.
I live in Sweden, a country which per capita has taken in more asylum seekers than any other European nation. A country who like Germany chose to help a very few at a high cost not only to the tax payers but to the migrants themselves. In order to reach the honey pot they had to risk life and limb in rickety boats. The majority of people left behind, in the nearby havens, were essentially ignored. I would very much like to see this book translated into Swedish. We need more than ever to have an honest dialog about migration policies. If we truly want to help the world there is surely a better way.
This book has four big new ideas:
1) the right ethical focus is the duty to rescue the displaced from the disruption to normal life generated by their flight from home.
2) the best places for safe haven are those that are easy for the displaced to reach, and rich countries should make it financially feasible for these haven countries to take them.
3) the best way to restore normality is for refugees to be able to work, so jobs should be brought to the haven countries.
4) the economic support needed for refuge can be used for the dual purpose of incubating the post-conflict recovery.
The authors point the way to transform refugee policies from humanitarian to a development focus.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Wheras the humanitarian approach has been to provide food for the day (aka crisis management) the development approach is to seek long term solutions, putting in place structures that feed them for a lifetime. I'm not surprised to see this suggestion, it mirrors what Paul Collier's life work has been all about. How to lift the bottom, by so doing we lift humanity.
There is always hope, no situation is static…
"Contrary to many international policy assumptions, there are practically no weak states that should be permanently written off. In the twenty-first century it is feasible for all societies to become reasonably viable. The global tragedy of the 1980s was Ethiopia; that of the 1990s was Rwanda: both are now thriving. Many societies will remain fragile for many years, and so long term provisions must be made for those who flee the fallout from anarchy. Sometimes this will persist so long as to make assimilation into other societies the best option, but, as we discuss in Chapter 7, a refugee strategy that incubates the restoration of a functioning state has an important role."
"In 1999, The European Union incorporated border regulations into its legal framework, giving scarcely a thought to the practical implications for the flow of refugees."
"Obviously, a border-free area requires a common external force to police its borders. A real federal state such as the USA has one, but the EU adopted the symbol of borderless passage without the necessary supporting organization."
"The European policies that have shaped the Syrian refugee disaster have lurched between the headless heart and the heartless head. Panic is not too strong a word to describe what happened: each step was a reaction to the unanticipated consequences of previous actions which turned out to be blunders."
"Since the need was for international cooperation, the primary responsibility for failure is with the international agencies tasked with coordination… the agencies were hopelessly stuck in their silos of 'humanitarian', 'post-conflict' and 'economic development'. The displaced fled across Syria's borders to Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. The response of the UNHCR was camps: the provision of food and shelter based on the needs of the late 1940s. In Jordan around 85 percent of the refugees ignored the camps; in Turkey it was 90 percent: what refugees wanted was the autonomy that comes from a job."
The camps are often located in border regions, while there refugees are not allowed to work and the average length of stay is now more than a decade. What is most needed are havens where people can have a life and work until home conditions settle down.
"The other bystanders missing in action were the states of the Arabian Gulf. They were, indeed, by far the best placed to act because geography, culture and finance were all favorably aligned. They could have become what was needed: havens with jobs; and also have financed the three neighboring havens. When put to the test, generosity to their fellow Sunni Arabs did not stretch very far."
"… a dilemma for all high-income countries. An offer of refuge to people from much poorer countries effectively turns refugees into economic migrants, attracted by the prospect of a major improvement in the quality of life: not just compared with the miserable circumstances of being a refugee, but compared with their prior life chances. Evidently, this goes well beyond a duty of rescue, which requires that the life be restored as closely as possible to pre-refuge conditions. The only way that high-income countries can meet the duty of rescue without exceeding it is if they partner with other countries to offer havens that broadly match pre-refuge conditions."
"Azraq refugee camp in Jordan is one of the first internationally planned and designed refugee camps in the world. In theory, it offered an increasingly self-aware UNHCR an opportunity to put into practice everything it had learned about the pros and cons of different forms of camp design during its sixty-year history.
And yet, despite being planned from scratch as a dream camp, Azraq is a grim place to live. Built on an ex-army base, it is in a remote desert area, twenty kilometers from the nearest town.
Azraq defies almost every basic rule ever learned in urban planning. It is to refugee settlement what Brasilia, Chandigarh and Canberra, and LeCorbusier's 'banlieues' are to cities; a well intentioned, high modernist catastrophe."
"Predicably, people are voting with their feet and shunning refugee camps. Over half of the world's refugees now live in urban areas, and in some countries like Jordan, the proportion is as high as 80 percent. But in dooing so they relinquish formal assistance, and yet sometimes do not even have the right to work."
"There is an alternative. And it starts with the recognition that refugees have skills, talents and aspirations. They are not just passive objects of our pity, but actors constrained by cruel circumstances. They do not have to be an inevitable burden, but instead can help themselves and their communities - if we let them. Imagine if, instead of the humanitarian silo, we could conceive of an approach that could support refugees' autonomy and dignity while simultaneously empowering them to contribute to host communities and the eventual reconstruction of their country of origin."
"If just some of the $135 spent on the 10 percent for every $1 spent on the 90 percent could be reallocated, then an alternative vision might be possible."
"However, the duty of rescue does not require an unqualified right of migration or immediate assimilation. There is nothing inherent to being a refugee that necessitates unrestricted global mobility or the ability to chose a destination country."
May 1, 2017
Batts a Collier, dvaja celebritní vedci z Oxfordu, spísali knihu o tom, ako vyriešiť nefungujúci systém pomoci utečencom. Tldr/v skratke: Namiesto vylučovania na okraj spoločnosti integrovať cez ekonomickú aktivitu. V ekonomických zónach a krajinách, blízko ohnísk konfliktu.
Teraz celý príbeh okolo. Kríza v lete 2015 ukázala slabosť spôsobu, akým riešime utečencov. No riešienie je silné slovo. Bol to chaos. Teraz sa treba poučiť.
Tak ako už asi každý, kto kúsok pričuchol k tomuto problému pripomenú, že jednotný priestor voľného pohybu (Schengen), nedokáže fungovať bez jednotných pravidiel udelovania azylu. Tých čo začínajú drať klávesinicu, vyklepávaním "kvóty" v kapitálkach, poteším, že relokácie sú pre nich okrajová téma.
Gro našej odpovede na utečencov, by sa malo sústrediť na 90% z 21 miliónov utečencov, ktorí ostavajú v krajinách susediacich so svojimi domovmi. Narobilo sa u nás veľa kriku, no zabúdame, že najväčšími hosťovskými krajinami utečencov sú - Turecko, Pakistan, Libanon či Jordánsko.
Druhý problém je, že žijeme v dobe dlho sa tiahnucich občianskych vojen. Milióny ľudí žijú v dlhodobých utečeneckých situáciách. Bez jasného výhľadu na riešenie.
Pritom sada nástrojov, ktoré dnes v týchto situáciách používame sa podobá viac na krátkodobú, núdzovú, humanitárnu pomoc. Postaviť tábor, rozdať prídel jedla. So životom v tábore sa však spája aj ďalšia vec - obmedzenie pohybu, oddelnie od populácie a zákaz akejkoľvek ekonomickej aktivty. Miesta bez akejkoľvek perspektívy. Mimochodom, skvelý terč na radikalizáciu. Niet divu, že aj preto vyše 80% utečencov žije mimo tábory. Roztratení v mestských centrách, bez oficiálnej pomoci hocikoho. V lepšom prípade, prežívajúci v neformálnej ekonomike. Jedno však je isté, tábory ako riešenie, už dnes vidí ako riešnie málokto.
Namiesto sústredenia sa na zraniteľnosť utečencov navrhujú, aby sme odpoveď postavili na ich potenciále.
Celá téza knihy, podpora integrácie prostredníctvom ekonomických zón v susedných krajinách vychádza z návštevy autorov v Jordnánsku, kde vedľa 90-tisícového tábora stála prázdna ekonomická zóna, ktorá sa kvôli nedostatku pracovnej sily nevedela rozbehnúť. Napísali o tom článok do Foreign Affairs, v Davose boli za hviezdy a teraz k tomu dali aj knihu.
Znie to dobre. Nakoľko je reálne rozbehnutie fungujúcich ekonimických zón je neznáma. Koľko firiem im uverí, koľko vlád ich podporí. Bez vykorysťovania, podliezania štandarodov, ktoré je častým neduhom podobných nápadov. Zároveň ostáva aj otázka, či liepaním následkov, nestratíme zo zreteľa to podstatné, riešenie konfliktov ktoré utečencov generujú. (Krátka kritka knihy z Nature tu - https://goo.gl/vI7DJS)
Nápady ako tieto, vyvolajú ešte veľa diskusie. V každom prípade však aspoň naznačujú cestu a rámce, ako by sme mohli nad touto otázkou rozmýšlať. V smutnom kontraste k našej domácej debate, postavenej na halucinogénnych nápadoch o obrých záchytných táboroch a rozťahovacích múroch pri Komárne. Mimo akúkoľvek skúsenosť a realitu posledných mesiacov a rokov.
Teraz celý príbeh okolo. Kríza v lete 2015 ukázala slabosť spôsobu, akým riešime utečencov. No riešienie je silné slovo. Bol to chaos. Teraz sa treba poučiť.
Tak ako už asi každý, kto kúsok pričuchol k tomuto problému pripomenú, že jednotný priestor voľného pohybu (Schengen), nedokáže fungovať bez jednotných pravidiel udelovania azylu. Tých čo začínajú drať klávesinicu, vyklepávaním "kvóty" v kapitálkach, poteším, že relokácie sú pre nich okrajová téma.
Gro našej odpovede na utečencov, by sa malo sústrediť na 90% z 21 miliónov utečencov, ktorí ostavajú v krajinách susediacich so svojimi domovmi. Narobilo sa u nás veľa kriku, no zabúdame, že najväčšími hosťovskými krajinami utečencov sú - Turecko, Pakistan, Libanon či Jordánsko.
Druhý problém je, že žijeme v dobe dlho sa tiahnucich občianskych vojen. Milióny ľudí žijú v dlhodobých utečeneckých situáciách. Bez jasného výhľadu na riešenie.
Pritom sada nástrojov, ktoré dnes v týchto situáciách používame sa podobá viac na krátkodobú, núdzovú, humanitárnu pomoc. Postaviť tábor, rozdať prídel jedla. So životom v tábore sa však spája aj ďalšia vec - obmedzenie pohybu, oddelnie od populácie a zákaz akejkoľvek ekonomickej aktivty. Miesta bez akejkoľvek perspektívy. Mimochodom, skvelý terč na radikalizáciu. Niet divu, že aj preto vyše 80% utečencov žije mimo tábory. Roztratení v mestských centrách, bez oficiálnej pomoci hocikoho. V lepšom prípade, prežívajúci v neformálnej ekonomike. Jedno však je isté, tábory ako riešenie, už dnes vidí ako riešnie málokto.
Namiesto sústredenia sa na zraniteľnosť utečencov navrhujú, aby sme odpoveď postavili na ich potenciále.
Celá téza knihy, podpora integrácie prostredníctvom ekonomických zón v susedných krajinách vychádza z návštevy autorov v Jordnánsku, kde vedľa 90-tisícového tábora stála prázdna ekonomická zóna, ktorá sa kvôli nedostatku pracovnej sily nevedela rozbehnúť. Napísali o tom článok do Foreign Affairs, v Davose boli za hviezdy a teraz k tomu dali aj knihu.
Znie to dobre. Nakoľko je reálne rozbehnutie fungujúcich ekonimických zón je neznáma. Koľko firiem im uverí, koľko vlád ich podporí. Bez vykorysťovania, podliezania štandarodov, ktoré je častým neduhom podobných nápadov. Zároveň ostáva aj otázka, či liepaním následkov, nestratíme zo zreteľa to podstatné, riešenie konfliktov ktoré utečencov generujú. (Krátka kritka knihy z Nature tu - https://goo.gl/vI7DJS)
Nápady ako tieto, vyvolajú ešte veľa diskusie. V každom prípade však aspoň naznačujú cestu a rámce, ako by sme mohli nad touto otázkou rozmýšlať. V smutnom kontraste k našej domácej debate, postavenej na halucinogénnych nápadoch o obrých záchytných táboroch a rozťahovacích múroch pri Komárne. Mimo akúkoľvek skúsenosť a realitu posledných mesiacov a rokov.
May 23, 2020
Muutaman vuoden vanha kirja pakolaisuudesta Syyrian tapahtumien valossa. Kirjoittajana kehitystaloustieteen professori Paul Collier ja minulle ennestään tuntematon pakolaisasiantuntija Alexander Betts. Molemmat Oxfordin yliopistosta. Referoin kirjaa:
Ensimmäisenä löi silmille se asia, että lopulta Syyrian pakolaisia (5 miljoonaa about) on suhteessa maailman väestöön todella vähän. Ja suurin osa näistäkin pakolaisista pysyi ns. safe heaveneissa Libanonissa, Jordaniassa ja Turkissa. Vain runsas miljoona lähti liikkeelle ja suurelta osin nämäkin siksi, että pakolaisleirien oloihin ei ollut satsattu vaan taloudellinen taakka oli jäänyt näille kolmelle maalle. Jos Euroopan maat olisivat pikkaisen avanneet lompakkoa ennen Euroopan pakolaiskriisiä, kriisiä ei ehkä olisi tullut, eikä Euroopan rakenteet olisi natisseet ja Britannia poistunut EU:sta.
Pakolaisten näkökulmasta ongelma "safe heaveneissä" on myös se, että heillä ei ole mahdollisuutta päästä laillisille työmarkkinoille. Maailmassa on itse asiassa vain yksi laajan pakolaisuuden kohteeksi joutunut maa - Uganda - joka on antanut pakolaisille työluvan ja luvan perustaa yrityksiä. Kirjoittajat toteavat että Ugandalla on se etu että siellä ei ole vaaleja joten pakolaisten "hyysäämisestä" ei saa vaaliteemaa. Pakolaispolitiikka on toiminut Ugandassa suht hyvin.
Kirjoittajat pyrkivät puhumaan Ugandan mallin tyyppisestä mallista muissakin pakolaisia vastaanottavissa maissa ja ovat onnistuneet jonkun verran vaikuttamaankin Jordanian osalta. Mutta tämä edellyttäisi että maailman muut maat tukisivat taloudellisesti näitä kymmentä taloutta (Jordania, Libanon, Turkki, Kenia, Tansania, Uganda, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Etelä-Afrikka,...) niin, että paikallisten ja pakolaisten välillä ei syntyisi ristiriitoja. Tai mieluiten niin paljon että näillä naapurimailla olisi suorastaan insentiivi satsata pakolaisten työllistämiseen.
Pakolaisleirit toimivat nykyään siis lähinnä turvan antajina, mutta kun pakolaisuus yleensä kestää joitain vuosia, olisi tärkeää pakolaisleirien ympärille synnyttää talousalueita, joissa voisi syntyä laillisia (globaalejakin) työpaikkoja sekä pakolaisille että kantaväestölle ja joihin jopa tulisi ulkopuolisia sijoituksia. Kun pakolaiset palaavat (ehkä) kotimaihinsa, talousalueilla syntyneet yritykset voivat siirtyä palaavien pakolaisten mukana kotimaahaan. Uudelleenrakennettavissa maissa ei nimittäin juuri yrityksiä ole, koska ne ovat paenneet yhtälailla.
Kaikkein parasta olisi, jos heti kun kriisi jossain maassa alkaa, naapurimaihin luotaisiin näitä talousalueita joihin jopa kriisimaan yritykset ihmisten mukana voisivat siirtyä ja tavallaan osin jatkaa toimintaansa siellä. Paluu ja uudelleenrakennus nopeutuisi.
Euroopan etu on tukea näitä esimerkiksi Syyrian naapureita ja naapureissa toimivia talousalueita. Eurooppa voisi antaa talousalueilla erityisoikeuksia tuoda tuotteita Eurooppaan. Euroopan oma itsekäs etu on kantaa vastuuta näistä lähialueiden ongelmista.
Vapaa liikkuvuus kriisialueilta Eurooppaan ei sen sijaan ole oleellista puoleen ei toiseen. Sen sotkeminen pakolaiskysymykseen vain vaikeuttaa asian ratkaisua. Maahanmuutto on eri asia kuin pakolaisuus.
Vaikka maailmassa ei tällä hetkellä lopultaan pakolaisia ole kuin allle 1% väestöstä, riski on että pakolaisuus kasvaa esim. ilmastokatastrofien takia. Instituutiot pitäisi olla kunnossa ennen sitä.
Kirja kannattaa lukea jos aidosti haluaa ymmärtää miten pakolaisongelmaa jatkossa voidaan ratkaista. Tietysti jos ainoa päämäärä on kerätä pakolaispolitiikalla ääniä, niin kunnollinen ratkaisu on pelkkä este vaalimenestykselle.
Ensimmäisenä löi silmille se asia, että lopulta Syyrian pakolaisia (5 miljoonaa about) on suhteessa maailman väestöön todella vähän. Ja suurin osa näistäkin pakolaisista pysyi ns. safe heaveneissa Libanonissa, Jordaniassa ja Turkissa. Vain runsas miljoona lähti liikkeelle ja suurelta osin nämäkin siksi, että pakolaisleirien oloihin ei ollut satsattu vaan taloudellinen taakka oli jäänyt näille kolmelle maalle. Jos Euroopan maat olisivat pikkaisen avanneet lompakkoa ennen Euroopan pakolaiskriisiä, kriisiä ei ehkä olisi tullut, eikä Euroopan rakenteet olisi natisseet ja Britannia poistunut EU:sta.
Pakolaisten näkökulmasta ongelma "safe heaveneissä" on myös se, että heillä ei ole mahdollisuutta päästä laillisille työmarkkinoille. Maailmassa on itse asiassa vain yksi laajan pakolaisuuden kohteeksi joutunut maa - Uganda - joka on antanut pakolaisille työluvan ja luvan perustaa yrityksiä. Kirjoittajat toteavat että Ugandalla on se etu että siellä ei ole vaaleja joten pakolaisten "hyysäämisestä" ei saa vaaliteemaa. Pakolaispolitiikka on toiminut Ugandassa suht hyvin.
Kirjoittajat pyrkivät puhumaan Ugandan mallin tyyppisestä mallista muissakin pakolaisia vastaanottavissa maissa ja ovat onnistuneet jonkun verran vaikuttamaankin Jordanian osalta. Mutta tämä edellyttäisi että maailman muut maat tukisivat taloudellisesti näitä kymmentä taloutta (Jordania, Libanon, Turkki, Kenia, Tansania, Uganda, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Etelä-Afrikka,...) niin, että paikallisten ja pakolaisten välillä ei syntyisi ristiriitoja. Tai mieluiten niin paljon että näillä naapurimailla olisi suorastaan insentiivi satsata pakolaisten työllistämiseen.
Pakolaisleirit toimivat nykyään siis lähinnä turvan antajina, mutta kun pakolaisuus yleensä kestää joitain vuosia, olisi tärkeää pakolaisleirien ympärille synnyttää talousalueita, joissa voisi syntyä laillisia (globaalejakin) työpaikkoja sekä pakolaisille että kantaväestölle ja joihin jopa tulisi ulkopuolisia sijoituksia. Kun pakolaiset palaavat (ehkä) kotimaihinsa, talousalueilla syntyneet yritykset voivat siirtyä palaavien pakolaisten mukana kotimaahaan. Uudelleenrakennettavissa maissa ei nimittäin juuri yrityksiä ole, koska ne ovat paenneet yhtälailla.
Kaikkein parasta olisi, jos heti kun kriisi jossain maassa alkaa, naapurimaihin luotaisiin näitä talousalueita joihin jopa kriisimaan yritykset ihmisten mukana voisivat siirtyä ja tavallaan osin jatkaa toimintaansa siellä. Paluu ja uudelleenrakennus nopeutuisi.
Euroopan etu on tukea näitä esimerkiksi Syyrian naapureita ja naapureissa toimivia talousalueita. Eurooppa voisi antaa talousalueilla erityisoikeuksia tuoda tuotteita Eurooppaan. Euroopan oma itsekäs etu on kantaa vastuuta näistä lähialueiden ongelmista.
Vapaa liikkuvuus kriisialueilta Eurooppaan ei sen sijaan ole oleellista puoleen ei toiseen. Sen sotkeminen pakolaiskysymykseen vain vaikeuttaa asian ratkaisua. Maahanmuutto on eri asia kuin pakolaisuus.
Vaikka maailmassa ei tällä hetkellä lopultaan pakolaisia ole kuin allle 1% väestöstä, riski on että pakolaisuus kasvaa esim. ilmastokatastrofien takia. Instituutiot pitäisi olla kunnossa ennen sitä.
Kirja kannattaa lukea jos aidosti haluaa ymmärtää miten pakolaisongelmaa jatkossa voidaan ratkaista. Tietysti jos ainoa päämäärä on kerätä pakolaispolitiikalla ääniä, niin kunnollinen ratkaisu on pelkkä este vaalimenestykselle.
October 21, 2020
Interesting read on the global refugee crisis, with thorough analysis and constructive proposals to find global solutions benefitting refugees in the first place.
Though the book suffers from repitition, the key points are clear and well argumented. I completely agree with the double objective the international community should keep in mind: rescue and protection on the one hand, and autonomy and empowerment on the other. The authors show where things went wrong in the past and identify realistic and tested paths for doing better. They give interesting views on the history and work of UNHCR and how this organisation could evolve to become a global facilitator effectively pushing for policy change.
Whereas the book clearly distinguishes migrants and refugees and explains where the differences are, the concepts remain blurred to me. There still is a grey zone: when do people move out of necessity in search of protection from mass violence and when do they move in search of better lives? On the other hand, making the distinction and separating the case for refugees from the very polarising issue of migration could really make a difference and enhance protection and opportunities for refugees.
Moreover, the ethical chapter is the weakest in my opinion. The authors strongly argument the need to rescue (as for the child in the pond), but when dealing with the right to migrate, their arguments are somewhat flawed. Not only do they fail to acknowledge the historical role of the West in many actual conflict situations, but they also fail to see the contradiction between freedom of movement for goods and capital while preventing people to move, and how this leads to a lack of opportunities and poor labour conditions in developing countries (which is another type of violence created by borders).
The book was written before the UN started working on the Global Compact for Refugee adopted in December 2018. It would be interesting to verify how the ideas in this book have been taken up in this multilateral framework.
Though the book suffers from repitition, the key points are clear and well argumented. I completely agree with the double objective the international community should keep in mind: rescue and protection on the one hand, and autonomy and empowerment on the other. The authors show where things went wrong in the past and identify realistic and tested paths for doing better. They give interesting views on the history and work of UNHCR and how this organisation could evolve to become a global facilitator effectively pushing for policy change.
Whereas the book clearly distinguishes migrants and refugees and explains where the differences are, the concepts remain blurred to me. There still is a grey zone: when do people move out of necessity in search of protection from mass violence and when do they move in search of better lives? On the other hand, making the distinction and separating the case for refugees from the very polarising issue of migration could really make a difference and enhance protection and opportunities for refugees.
Moreover, the ethical chapter is the weakest in my opinion. The authors strongly argument the need to rescue (as for the child in the pond), but when dealing with the right to migrate, their arguments are somewhat flawed. Not only do they fail to acknowledge the historical role of the West in many actual conflict situations, but they also fail to see the contradiction between freedom of movement for goods and capital while preventing people to move, and how this leads to a lack of opportunities and poor labour conditions in developing countries (which is another type of violence created by borders).
The book was written before the UN started working on the Global Compact for Refugee adopted in December 2018. It would be interesting to verify how the ideas in this book have been taken up in this multilateral framework.
August 4, 2025
Siendo uno de los factores que con más peso están definiendo las dinámicas políticas en la actualidad, hacía tiempo que quería detenerme a intentar entender la complejidad de las crisis migratorias y este libro me ha venido perfecto. De una forma divulgativa pero exhaustiva el libro desengrana las limitaciones y carencias del enfoque actual de las crisis de refugiados y propone soluciones para encararlas de una forma más eficaz, racional y humanista. Como paradigma usa el caso reciente de la crisis de refugiados sirios y, basándose en ejemplos reales del siglo XX, propone un modelo que probablemente hubiera conseguido delimitar la magnitud del caos subsecuente.
Intento listar las ideas clave que el libro se esfuerza en transmitir:
- Los refugiados no son como cualquier otro tipo de migrante, ellos se desplazan porque no tienen otra opción y en consecuencia el deber moral es asistirles (Migrants are lured by hope; refugees are fleeing fear. Migrants hope for honeypots; refugees need havens. ). Esta aproximación es fruto de uno de los planteamientos posiblemente más polémicos hacia la migración: So one reason why there is no global human right to migrate is because it would infringe on the rights of the people living in prosperous societies.[…] Moderate rates of migration are mutually beneficial, but conferring unlimited rights on would-be migrants would have to confront the powerful moral claims of those in host societies. […] The claims of refugees on the rest of us are morally far more powerful than those of economic migrants. They rest not on some dubious global right to migrate, but on the granite-strong duty of rescue […] The salient feature of being a refugee is the need for protection, not the need to migrate. […] refugees have left because of desperation not aspiration.
- Los refugiados (20 millones cuando se escribió el libro, casi 43 millones a día de hoy – diez años después) son sólo la consecuencia de una crisis peor que es la de los desplazados (65 millones cuando se escribió el libro, 73.5 millones a día de hoy, datos de la UNHCR). Los refugiados son sólo aquellos desplazados que deciden abandonar el país.
- El enfoque actual hacia los refugiados está completamente obsoleto al haberse definido en el contexto de la Guerra Fría como aquellas personas que sufren persecución. En la actualidad, la causa principal de los refugiados son estados frágiles y fallidos que colapsan en guerras civiles (almost all recent refugee situations have arisen due to civil wars. Historically, on average international wars have lasted only six months. In contrast, the average civil war has been much longer, with estimates ranging from seven to fifteen years.). El riesgo es mayor en países con poca fuerza coercitiva y gobiernos con poca legitimidad, potenciándose el riesgo si son ricos en recursos.
- El gran fracaso del enfoque actual es que se centra en el concepto de ubicar a los refugiados en campos esperando que los conflictos sean breves. La realidad demuestra que los conflictos no suelen ser breves y una permanencia prolongada de los refugiados en los campos les desprovee de su autonomía y dignidad, transformándoles en generaciones dependientes (humanitarian aid soon undermines human dignity and autonomy). A los refugiados por tanto no se les debe atender sólo desde un punto de vista humanitario. Dejar a los refugiados en el limbo sin opción a trabajar es un nido de extremismo y de seguridad hacia el país en el que están al mismo tiempo que dificulta la reconstrucción futura del país del que escapan.
- El modelo que plantea el libro propone que lo ideal es que los refugiados permanezcan en países próximos de donde huyen. En esos países anfitrión, que suelen ser de rentas medias o bajas, deberían centrarse los esfuerzos económicos de los países de rentas altas para financiar y promover áreas industriales o proyectos de desarrollo que por un lado den opciones de trabajo a los refugiados mientras que por otro dan valor añadido a los países anfitrión (An approach that created opportunities for refugees to be self-reliant while offering development opportunities for underdeveloped regions of their host countries). Esas áreas se plantean como zonas temporales que llegado el fin del conflicto, podrían ser fácilmente recolocadas en el país de origen para acelerar su reconstrucción. Si el conflicto se extendiese en el tiempo, habría que explorar la opción de asimilación de los refugiados en el país anfitrión. Bajo esta solución se limitan los efectos llamada que, con el caso paradigmático de Alemania en la crisis de refugiados sirios, se ha demostrado contraproducente por varios motivos: 1) tensiona el país anfitrión debido a las marcadas diferencias culturales (países cercanos suelen tener menos barreras culturales) y a la dificultad de integración; 2) como son recorridos complicados, el efecto llamada recala en la población más preparada y con más recursos, que además, al llegar a un país de mucha mayor renta, minimiza la posibilidad de retorno, lo que deja desprovisto de un motor y mano de obra cualificada a su país de origen; 3) el foco se pone en los pocos refugiados que llegan a Europa, acaparando la mayor parte de los fondos, cuando donde más hacen falta son en los países vecinos que son los que más refugiados (y menos cualificados) están acogiendo.
El libro genera una sensación agridulce. Por un lado arroja una luz muy necesaria y gracias a una exposición magistral permite divisar una solución en un tema tan complejo y delicado. Por otro lado no puedo evitar sentir una profunda tristeza que en los apenas diez años que se escribió el libro, no sólo este modelo está tan lejano como entonces sino que, además de haberse duplicado el número de refugiados, volvemos a ser testigos de un terrible genocidio. ¿Quizá el problema es que el axioma del que parte el libro es incorrecto? ¿Quizá no nos queda humanidad?
Citas:
- Refuge is what statisticians call a ‘fat tails’ phenomenon: a very low likelihood event but with catastrophic consequences that create a thick tail to a distribution curve.
- populist nationalism has become the common currency of democratic politics.
- Nearly all of the opinion polls and social-psychology evidence tell us that public concern about asylum is not about numbers per se; it is about a perceived loss of control
- Until Turkey – host to 2.6 million refugees – recently overtook it, Pakistan had been the world’s most significant refugee-hosting country for decades almost entirely because it neighbours Afghanistan
- Azraq defies almost every basic rule ever learned in urban planning. It is to refugee settlements what Brasilia, Chandigarh, Canberra, and Le Corbusier’s banlieues are to cities: a well-intentioned, high modernist catastrophe.
- 10 per cent drop-out rate by Syrians from language classes, significantly because of male refugees refusing to be taught by women.
- A recent analysis of post-conflict recovery suggests that the loss of educated workers (‘human capital’ in the ugly jargon of economics) is even more damaging than the physical destruction.
- by far the least regulated labour market in Europe was in Britain. […] unlike the rest of Europe, Britain had no national identity card, and no requirement to register habitation.
- it contributed to a growing fear of Islam across the developed world. Whereas previously Europe had been relaxed about allowing entry to Muslims fleeing Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s, 9/11 unleashed a political toxicity around the admission of Muslim refugees.
- [Principales países origen de refugiados cuando se escribió el libro] Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Ukraine, the Central African Republic, Myanmar, and Eritrea
- As Adam Smith observed in 1777, ‘there is a great deal of ruin in a nation’: he meant that societies can absorb a lot of disaster and yet recover.
- China. For example, most of the world’s buttons are manufactured in just one city, colloquially known as ‘Buttonopolis’. The reason for this is what is known as ‘clustering’; economies of scale emerge for access to labour, supply chains, and buyers when manufacturing is geographically concentrated. This makes it challenging – though not impossible – for a country to break into manufacturing. What it requires is a small number of significant firms to relocate their manufacturing operations to Jordan and for a threshold level of infrastructure and clustering to emerge over time.
- The pace at which risks come down is certainly associated with the speed with which the economy recovers.
- Not only are international wars usually much shorter than civil wars, but they typically strengthen the capacity of organizations, especially of government. In tearing people apart, civil wars also tear organizations apart.
- ‘Somali paradox’: Somalis are among the most entrepreneurial and economically successful communities in exile but have a highly dysfunctional society back home.
- Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina begins: ‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’
- The reasonable person standard is used in legal systems around the world.
Intento listar las ideas clave que el libro se esfuerza en transmitir:
- Los refugiados no son como cualquier otro tipo de migrante, ellos se desplazan porque no tienen otra opción y en consecuencia el deber moral es asistirles (Migrants are lured by hope; refugees are fleeing fear. Migrants hope for honeypots; refugees need havens. ). Esta aproximación es fruto de uno de los planteamientos posiblemente más polémicos hacia la migración: So one reason why there is no global human right to migrate is because it would infringe on the rights of the people living in prosperous societies.[…] Moderate rates of migration are mutually beneficial, but conferring unlimited rights on would-be migrants would have to confront the powerful moral claims of those in host societies. […] The claims of refugees on the rest of us are morally far more powerful than those of economic migrants. They rest not on some dubious global right to migrate, but on the granite-strong duty of rescue […] The salient feature of being a refugee is the need for protection, not the need to migrate. […] refugees have left because of desperation not aspiration.
- Los refugiados (20 millones cuando se escribió el libro, casi 43 millones a día de hoy – diez años después) son sólo la consecuencia de una crisis peor que es la de los desplazados (65 millones cuando se escribió el libro, 73.5 millones a día de hoy, datos de la UNHCR). Los refugiados son sólo aquellos desplazados que deciden abandonar el país.
- El enfoque actual hacia los refugiados está completamente obsoleto al haberse definido en el contexto de la Guerra Fría como aquellas personas que sufren persecución. En la actualidad, la causa principal de los refugiados son estados frágiles y fallidos que colapsan en guerras civiles (almost all recent refugee situations have arisen due to civil wars. Historically, on average international wars have lasted only six months. In contrast, the average civil war has been much longer, with estimates ranging from seven to fifteen years.). El riesgo es mayor en países con poca fuerza coercitiva y gobiernos con poca legitimidad, potenciándose el riesgo si son ricos en recursos.
- El gran fracaso del enfoque actual es que se centra en el concepto de ubicar a los refugiados en campos esperando que los conflictos sean breves. La realidad demuestra que los conflictos no suelen ser breves y una permanencia prolongada de los refugiados en los campos les desprovee de su autonomía y dignidad, transformándoles en generaciones dependientes (humanitarian aid soon undermines human dignity and autonomy). A los refugiados por tanto no se les debe atender sólo desde un punto de vista humanitario. Dejar a los refugiados en el limbo sin opción a trabajar es un nido de extremismo y de seguridad hacia el país en el que están al mismo tiempo que dificulta la reconstrucción futura del país del que escapan.
- El modelo que plantea el libro propone que lo ideal es que los refugiados permanezcan en países próximos de donde huyen. En esos países anfitrión, que suelen ser de rentas medias o bajas, deberían centrarse los esfuerzos económicos de los países de rentas altas para financiar y promover áreas industriales o proyectos de desarrollo que por un lado den opciones de trabajo a los refugiados mientras que por otro dan valor añadido a los países anfitrión (An approach that created opportunities for refugees to be self-reliant while offering development opportunities for underdeveloped regions of their host countries). Esas áreas se plantean como zonas temporales que llegado el fin del conflicto, podrían ser fácilmente recolocadas en el país de origen para acelerar su reconstrucción. Si el conflicto se extendiese en el tiempo, habría que explorar la opción de asimilación de los refugiados en el país anfitrión. Bajo esta solución se limitan los efectos llamada que, con el caso paradigmático de Alemania en la crisis de refugiados sirios, se ha demostrado contraproducente por varios motivos: 1) tensiona el país anfitrión debido a las marcadas diferencias culturales (países cercanos suelen tener menos barreras culturales) y a la dificultad de integración; 2) como son recorridos complicados, el efecto llamada recala en la población más preparada y con más recursos, que además, al llegar a un país de mucha mayor renta, minimiza la posibilidad de retorno, lo que deja desprovisto de un motor y mano de obra cualificada a su país de origen; 3) el foco se pone en los pocos refugiados que llegan a Europa, acaparando la mayor parte de los fondos, cuando donde más hacen falta son en los países vecinos que son los que más refugiados (y menos cualificados) están acogiendo.
El libro genera una sensación agridulce. Por un lado arroja una luz muy necesaria y gracias a una exposición magistral permite divisar una solución en un tema tan complejo y delicado. Por otro lado no puedo evitar sentir una profunda tristeza que en los apenas diez años que se escribió el libro, no sólo este modelo está tan lejano como entonces sino que, además de haberse duplicado el número de refugiados, volvemos a ser testigos de un terrible genocidio. ¿Quizá el problema es que el axioma del que parte el libro es incorrecto? ¿Quizá no nos queda humanidad?
Citas:
- Refuge is what statisticians call a ‘fat tails’ phenomenon: a very low likelihood event but with catastrophic consequences that create a thick tail to a distribution curve.
- populist nationalism has become the common currency of democratic politics.
- Nearly all of the opinion polls and social-psychology evidence tell us that public concern about asylum is not about numbers per se; it is about a perceived loss of control
- Until Turkey – host to 2.6 million refugees – recently overtook it, Pakistan had been the world’s most significant refugee-hosting country for decades almost entirely because it neighbours Afghanistan
- Azraq defies almost every basic rule ever learned in urban planning. It is to refugee settlements what Brasilia, Chandigarh, Canberra, and Le Corbusier’s banlieues are to cities: a well-intentioned, high modernist catastrophe.
- 10 per cent drop-out rate by Syrians from language classes, significantly because of male refugees refusing to be taught by women.
- A recent analysis of post-conflict recovery suggests that the loss of educated workers (‘human capital’ in the ugly jargon of economics) is even more damaging than the physical destruction.
- by far the least regulated labour market in Europe was in Britain. […] unlike the rest of Europe, Britain had no national identity card, and no requirement to register habitation.
- it contributed to a growing fear of Islam across the developed world. Whereas previously Europe had been relaxed about allowing entry to Muslims fleeing Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s, 9/11 unleashed a political toxicity around the admission of Muslim refugees.
- [Principales países origen de refugiados cuando se escribió el libro] Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Ukraine, the Central African Republic, Myanmar, and Eritrea
- As Adam Smith observed in 1777, ‘there is a great deal of ruin in a nation’: he meant that societies can absorb a lot of disaster and yet recover.
- China. For example, most of the world’s buttons are manufactured in just one city, colloquially known as ‘Buttonopolis’. The reason for this is what is known as ‘clustering’; economies of scale emerge for access to labour, supply chains, and buyers when manufacturing is geographically concentrated. This makes it challenging – though not impossible – for a country to break into manufacturing. What it requires is a small number of significant firms to relocate their manufacturing operations to Jordan and for a threshold level of infrastructure and clustering to emerge over time.
- The pace at which risks come down is certainly associated with the speed with which the economy recovers.
- Not only are international wars usually much shorter than civil wars, but they typically strengthen the capacity of organizations, especially of government. In tearing people apart, civil wars also tear organizations apart.
- ‘Somali paradox’: Somalis are among the most entrepreneurial and economically successful communities in exile but have a highly dysfunctional society back home.
- Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina begins: ‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’
- The reasonable person standard is used in legal systems around the world.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 27, 2019
This book, co-written by an economist and political scientist, raises this important question: why do we not have an ethical and functional global system for managing refugees? Newly published this year in 2018, it details the history of the Syrian refugee crisis from 2011-2018 and critically examines the UNHCR’s current key strategies. Using examples of how the UNHCR supports and assists refugees, the authors make a case that the UNHCR’s policy, designed to support European refugees post-WWII, is outdated and unsuitable for the 21st century. Based on a humanitarian model centered around providing food and shelter aid, the UNHCR raises funds to place refugees in camps where they don’t have access to work and proper education. The authors main thesis is to suggest that instead of the camp and aid model, the UNHCR should be putting pressure on governments to allow refugees the right to work. They stress the importance of access to work to promote autonomy and allow refugees a chance to adapt to life in a new country. In the second section of the book, they offer an alternative based on a development model rather than a humanitarian model. Though the book is a bit too repetitive, it is an informative and well-thought out read. It is well-written, well-researched, and interesting for anyone who has followed the management of the Syrian refugee crisis as it has unfolded over the past seven years.
April 2, 2021
This book really surprised me. Before I started to read it, I thought it would be one of those heavily-technical-and-dry reads. In the end, it was a very pleasant read. The book is very informative, opened my eyes to problems I didn’t even know existed and showed me a new perspective from which to observe certain implemented projects/policies, and it did all of that without being too heavy or hard to keep track of. Even though I do not agree with all of the approaches – such as bringing big corporations into countries that need to be rebuilt -, I think all of them are interesting to consider and think about. I would recommend this book to people that would like to know more about the topic as well as to people that would just like to hear new perspectives on the issue. 4.5/5
July 31, 2018
The best book, bar none, on this subject. If you are talking to anybody about refugee policy and refuge, and you neither wrote nor read this book , you should read it.
November 20, 2023
A sweeping historical overview of the relevant geopolitical factors combined with a bold, compelling vision of significant modifications to global refugee relief practices results in a stunning, crucial book.
The authors provide a fresh, hopeful, and pragmatic picture of how nations can receive and support refugees, even non-host countries. The ideas in this book offer a paradigm shift that could reshape the refugee landscape.
There are constructive critiques of numerous key players (most notably UNHCR), all of which are followed up with practical suggestions for corrective measures and alternative approaches.
I hope that UNHCR executives and other key leaders will read this book with an open mind and the willingness and courage to make changes that will result in a more holistic, empowering, and dignifying system of support for refugees and other displaced people.
The authors provide a fresh, hopeful, and pragmatic picture of how nations can receive and support refugees, even non-host countries. The ideas in this book offer a paradigm shift that could reshape the refugee landscape.
There are constructive critiques of numerous key players (most notably UNHCR), all of which are followed up with practical suggestions for corrective measures and alternative approaches.
I hope that UNHCR executives and other key leaders will read this book with an open mind and the willingness and courage to make changes that will result in a more holistic, empowering, and dignifying system of support for refugees and other displaced people.
April 7, 2019
The discussion about the global refugee crises often focuses on three questions: why, what and how. Why do we need to help refugees, what exactly to do, and how to do it? The authors are heavily concentrating on the first question. They criticize UNHCR for ‘fighting last century war’ but don’t really present any new vision of what needs to be done and how. They research already existing trials like special economic zones in Jordan, but don’t show any new thinking or approaches. The book is good for the people new to the topic as it explains the history. However, it is less interesting for practitioners.
August 17, 2023
A thorough analysis of the history, problems, and practical solutions to the current system that nations and the international community have adopted for coping with refugees. Very well researched, clearly presented, good examples of actual programs that have worked well in one way or another.
January 10, 2021
This is a great thought experiment and look at the curent refugee crisis. It gives concrete examples of what can be done to help end the crisis.
June 1, 2019
The only critique I would have of this book is that there seemed to be some repetitiveness. There were several statements that were restated/reworded several times throughout the book. I don't know if this is because there are two authors and there was just a lapse in editing or what.
Otherwise, this book is great. They take a complex problem and make it accessible without losing the depth and magnitude of the issue. Rather than just analyzing the problem from an aloof academic point of view, Betts and Collier offer practical, tangible solutions all while remaining vigilant about the fact that each country is going to be forced to offer refugees different things due to geography, topography, economics, etc. There is no catch-all solution, but there are certainly changes that can and should be made to the current global refugee regime.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is even remotely interested in the current refugee system, how it was put in place, its shortcomings, and ways it can improve. You don't need to be an expert in anything to read this, just someone who cares about the well-being an autonomy of refugees.
Otherwise, this book is great. They take a complex problem and make it accessible without losing the depth and magnitude of the issue. Rather than just analyzing the problem from an aloof academic point of view, Betts and Collier offer practical, tangible solutions all while remaining vigilant about the fact that each country is going to be forced to offer refugees different things due to geography, topography, economics, etc. There is no catch-all solution, but there are certainly changes that can and should be made to the current global refugee regime.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is even remotely interested in the current refugee system, how it was put in place, its shortcomings, and ways it can improve. You don't need to be an expert in anything to read this, just someone who cares about the well-being an autonomy of refugees.
January 22, 2025
Necessary and interesting argument but I wasn’t convinced
July 17, 2017
A sobering, if somewhat dense, account of the refugee crisis and how it came about as a direct consequence of legacy policies, ossified political structures and overused emergency solutions (and, of course, good ol' Eurocentric and US-centric approaches). This, however, is used pragmatically as a way to propose a more modern and appropriate way of handling the refugee crisis globally, in a way that empowers both the host state and the refugees. In short, rather than demonstrating the incompetence of the ruling refuge systems and leaving us with a sense of hopelessness, the book tries to empower the reader.
It is also, for the less well-versed in the state of the refugee crisis world-wide (raises both hands), a sobering evidence for how the crisis did not mean an increase in the number of refugees globally, but rather a change in their movement. Coupled with the increasing awareness that refuge is sought not only form wars and violence, but also displacement by natural disasters triggered by climate change, the book should be read by everyone who is touched by the crisis. And pretty soon, that's gonna be everyone.
It is also, for the less well-versed in the state of the refugee crisis world-wide (raises both hands), a sobering evidence for how the crisis did not mean an increase in the number of refugees globally, but rather a change in their movement. Coupled with the increasing awareness that refuge is sought not only form wars and violence, but also displacement by natural disasters triggered by climate change, the book should be read by everyone who is touched by the crisis. And pretty soon, that's gonna be everyone.
August 26, 2017
I don’t think there’s much quibble with the basic idea that Paul Collier and Alexander Betts get at in Refuge that the current refugee regime that exists internationally needs to be fixed and needs to be fixed badly (well unless you are in charge of the busted system.) The reason the system is broken is covered in the first chapter or two: It’s a system that was designed for a Cold War mentality of East vs. West persecution that has failed to adapt to the post-Cold War world and the refugee reality that most refugees are fleeing to the nearest stable state within the region instead of making the long journey to Europe or the US. This in turn burdens often fragile states themselves.
Betts and Collier argue that such a state of affairs needs to change and offer something of a framework. What if refugees are categorized as a development rather than a humanitarian problem, then the international community could adapt localized state by state solutions that could prove beneficial to both refugee populations and native communities alike? I don’t ultimately know that the global political will exists, but I applaud Betts and Collier for tossing an idea out there.
Betts and Collier argue that such a state of affairs needs to change and offer something of a framework. What if refugees are categorized as a development rather than a humanitarian problem, then the international community could adapt localized state by state solutions that could prove beneficial to both refugee populations and native communities alike? I don’t ultimately know that the global political will exists, but I applaud Betts and Collier for tossing an idea out there.
June 21, 2020
I found the first half of this book really engaging, easy to read and so interesting to learn how the European ‘refugee crisis’ came to be. It addressed the history of UNHCR, the issues with the Eurocentric global refugee system and how Europe failed refugees, primarily from the war in Syria.
The second half of the book I found less enjoyable and disagreed with a lot of the politics. They speak about the ethics of migration and argue against the right for free movement. All of the solutions to providing safety for refugees revolve around capitalism. But it was interesting exploring their ideas of how to create jobs for refugees. They did focus on refugees right to work and to autonomy, along with moving away from encampment - which are hugely important issues to highlight.
There’s definitely much in the book that I found valuable and it raises a lot of important issues. It’s worth a read for anyone who’s interested in learning more about the global refugee system.
The second half of the book I found less enjoyable and disagreed with a lot of the politics. They speak about the ethics of migration and argue against the right for free movement. All of the solutions to providing safety for refugees revolve around capitalism. But it was interesting exploring their ideas of how to create jobs for refugees. They did focus on refugees right to work and to autonomy, along with moving away from encampment - which are hugely important issues to highlight.
There’s definitely much in the book that I found valuable and it raises a lot of important issues. It’s worth a read for anyone who’s interested in learning more about the global refugee system.
Want to read
July 4, 2017After listening to Alexander Betts' and Paul Collier's thought-provoking presentation at LSE (in March 2017) on this book, I am putting it at the top of my to-read list. Here's a link to the LSE page where you can stream or download the pod- or vidcast http://www.lse.ac.uk/website-archive/...
Read
July 15, 2020This month I read Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System by Alexander Betts and Paul Collier. This book was brought to my attention through one of the classes I’m taking through my Global Health Certificate. It was an interesting read, and was actually mentioned in this class through the professors critique of the authors analysis of the refugee system in the United States.
One of the strengths of this books is the historical context Betts and Collier go to great length to provide. The authors detail events that have led to the system in place for refugees in the United States today. I think this was particularly interesting because they analyse the intersection between social and political events which are especially important given the ability of public opinion to influence policy, especially policy around immigrants in refugees, today. The biggest ideas around the causes of the broken system in place today come from the way the nature of “refuge” and the story of the refugee have changed, and there has really been no formal system or attempt at international governance that have adapted enough to meet these changes. Another foundation cause of this systemic failure stems from the failure on an organizational level, which is that the definition of refuge has to go from meeting short-term immediate needs, to becoming a practice of restoring autonomy.
Some of these ideas I see heavily in my service and at my site. Oftentimes, especially when assisting participants with technology, it is easy to approach the situation with a “let’s get it done attitude”. This can manifest as typing up someone’s resume, filling out someone’s form, and entering their password for them. While this can save time, and at times be easier for me, it doesn’t teach computer or digital skills. One of Betts and Collier’s biggest argument about the broken refugee system is that it does not, similarly to taking over the keyboard in an appointment, address larger scale problems. It does not take into account long-term solutions. Ultimately their solution to the system is where my professor felt they missed the mark, as it involved a general suggestion of reforming the system, but did not get near as detailed as the beginning of the book. I think this is a useful book to better understand the refugee system in the United States on macro and academic levels, and would recommend people to read it for those purposes.
One of the strengths of this books is the historical context Betts and Collier go to great length to provide. The authors detail events that have led to the system in place for refugees in the United States today. I think this was particularly interesting because they analyse the intersection between social and political events which are especially important given the ability of public opinion to influence policy, especially policy around immigrants in refugees, today. The biggest ideas around the causes of the broken system in place today come from the way the nature of “refuge” and the story of the refugee have changed, and there has really been no formal system or attempt at international governance that have adapted enough to meet these changes. Another foundation cause of this systemic failure stems from the failure on an organizational level, which is that the definition of refuge has to go from meeting short-term immediate needs, to becoming a practice of restoring autonomy.
Some of these ideas I see heavily in my service and at my site. Oftentimes, especially when assisting participants with technology, it is easy to approach the situation with a “let’s get it done attitude”. This can manifest as typing up someone’s resume, filling out someone’s form, and entering their password for them. While this can save time, and at times be easier for me, it doesn’t teach computer or digital skills. One of Betts and Collier’s biggest argument about the broken refugee system is that it does not, similarly to taking over the keyboard in an appointment, address larger scale problems. It does not take into account long-term solutions. Ultimately their solution to the system is where my professor felt they missed the mark, as it involved a general suggestion of reforming the system, but did not get near as detailed as the beginning of the book. I think this is a useful book to better understand the refugee system in the United States on macro and academic levels, and would recommend people to read it for those purposes.
December 20, 2021
This book is an absolute must read for all the policy makers, and the practitioners who deal with refugees, but also for everyone who wants to understand these issues a bit better.
Betts and Collier wrote Refuge as a response to the 2015 refugee crisis, or as they refer to it, a "European refugee crisis". They analyse the existing refugee system and identify the shortcomings of the system that failed to prevent it. They describe how the system is in fact prolonging refugee crises around the world by using outdated methods, and adhering to rules and laws made to fit post-Second World War, rather than the 21st century one.
One an economist, and the other a political scientist, the authors aim not to create an applicable-to-all model but rather to "set out the objectives that a defensible system should have, and the basic means by which these objectives could be achieved." To this aim, they introduce four big ideas: the duty of rescue, safe havens, autonomy in exile and post-conflict incubation.
The book explains one of the major challenges of our time in a very understandable, easy to read language. They are far from taking the moral high ground, they advocate the necessity of resolving the refugee issue to the benefit of all involved: the refugees, the host country, the international community, the business.
What made me take down a star is not just the repetitiveness, but also the lack of policy implications. The authors are happy to point a finger at the international organisations, and while the critique is well placed and even more deserved, the difficulties that these organisations are facing when dealing with refugee issues are sometimes acknowledged, but the solutions are not well elaborated. They recognise that the laws and policies to better address the needs of refugees do exist, and are aware that these are not implemented, yet they do not offer views on how this can be altered.
But do not let this shortcoming prevent you from reading this book. It is truly an important one. Whether you decide to use it to create better policies to improve the life of refugees, or to win an argument on why it is necessary to do so. If you get a bit less judgmental in the process, well, it is what reading is supposed to do :)
Betts and Collier wrote Refuge as a response to the 2015 refugee crisis, or as they refer to it, a "European refugee crisis". They analyse the existing refugee system and identify the shortcomings of the system that failed to prevent it. They describe how the system is in fact prolonging refugee crises around the world by using outdated methods, and adhering to rules and laws made to fit post-Second World War, rather than the 21st century one.
One an economist, and the other a political scientist, the authors aim not to create an applicable-to-all model but rather to "set out the objectives that a defensible system should have, and the basic means by which these objectives could be achieved." To this aim, they introduce four big ideas: the duty of rescue, safe havens, autonomy in exile and post-conflict incubation.
The book explains one of the major challenges of our time in a very understandable, easy to read language. They are far from taking the moral high ground, they advocate the necessity of resolving the refugee issue to the benefit of all involved: the refugees, the host country, the international community, the business.
What made me take down a star is not just the repetitiveness, but also the lack of policy implications. The authors are happy to point a finger at the international organisations, and while the critique is well placed and even more deserved, the difficulties that these organisations are facing when dealing with refugee issues are sometimes acknowledged, but the solutions are not well elaborated. They recognise that the laws and policies to better address the needs of refugees do exist, and are aware that these are not implemented, yet they do not offer views on how this can be altered.
But do not let this shortcoming prevent you from reading this book. It is truly an important one. Whether you decide to use it to create better policies to improve the life of refugees, or to win an argument on why it is necessary to do so. If you get a bit less judgmental in the process, well, it is what reading is supposed to do :)
July 14, 2021
It's so hard to fault this book simply because it's one the world needs so badly right now. While we may have forgotten this in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, the skyrocketing number of refugees we are both witnessing and that we are projected to witness is not going to resolve itself. The current attitude with which we regard refugees and the treatment we offer them is frankly unconscionable, as Betts and Collier make clear in this very effective jeremiad. The most powerful thing the authors do is to immediately dispel the traditional fixation we have on the 'refugee crisis' of the West - epithets like Eurafrica and Eurabia that have been coined by fear-mongers against the supposedly enormous influx of African and Syrian refugees respectively into Europe neglect the very real refugee problem that exists throughout the rest of the world - 90% of all refugees continue to reside in the developing world.
This failure is not just a failure of perception - it turns out that the current refugee response has been profoundly unequal as well. Betts and Collier inform us that the world spends $75 billion a year on the 10 percent of refugees who make it to the West, and $5 billion on the other 90 percent who remain in developing countries, representing a spending ratio of $135 per refugee in the developed world to every $1 per refugee in the developing world. Indeed, they go on to argue that this represents a failure of what they term the 'headless heart' - an instinctive response of compassion that is misguided, as when Sweden accepted a disproportionate share of refugees only to cut international aid in half to compensate for increased demands on its budget, thus worsening this inequality. These are just a handful of very important correctives to widely-held myths today, and if one were to simply read the book as an illumination of important truths about the nature of refugeeism in society today, it would already be unspeakably enlightening.
Yet Betts and Collier go far beyond a simple stocktaking: having underscored the dysfunctional nature of refugee policy internationally today, they then propose 'four big ideas' with which they seek to improve and even revolutionise refugee policy - they attempt to rethink the ethics of rescue, the notion of safe havens, the concept of autonomy abroad, and incubating post-conflict recovery. They then synthesize these four areas of thought to produce a model of governance hopefully serving as a guide for an ideal approach towards managing a refugee 'crisis', against which the inept, bumbling response of Europe to the Syrian crisis is sharply juxtaposed. They criticise the present international law under which refugees are managed, suggesting that a 1947 Convention (which begat the UNHCR) is regrettably ill-suited to manage the shifting nature of refugee movement today, and argue that a more flexible approach is needed - what they do is contest the traditional division between 'refugees' - those seeking refuge from persecution, a definition largely shaped by the bipolar repression of the Cold War - and 'economic migrants' - those seeking a better livelihood, who form the bulk of refugees today given the increasing number of failed states globally.
The authors make clear that the existing system for managing refugees is hopeless - those who enter developed countries through smuggling (what he terms policies of the 'headless heart') demonstrate an inability to integrate into foreign cultures with strange languages and utterly different skill set requirements, while the refugee camps set up presently closer to affected countries outlaw employment, thus robbing refugees of livelihood and fundamental human dignity, and those who choose not to enter camps and instead work in urban centres find themselves in a precarious legal balance.
They propose thus that in place of this flawed patchwork of systems, we effect a total overhaul of the camp model - for example, by giving the right to employment to refugees. Very innovatively, and effectively countering the traditional criticism that they would be stealing jobs from local citizens, Collier and Betts propose the creation of Special Economic Zones where firms formerly running businesses in the affected country can shift their operations - in its way, with similar culture, language and principles of employment, jobs would easily be created for these refugees while the businesses would also proper. They also convincingly argue that when the affected country returns to normalcy, it will similarly be easy and smooth for such firms to transition back to operating there.
However, for all the thoughtfulness of this book, it occasionally struck me as a little over-optimistic, or even slightly intolerant. The book's hardline insistence that migration say from Syria to Europe is negative for the refugees who travel, the host countries and the origin countries and their insistence on the importance of camps to remain in nearby countries may well stem from goodwill and seeking greater productivity, but it also serves as a convincing argument for those who seek to continue to keep economic migrants away. This is well-demonstrated in a segment where, after ruminating on the difficulties and suffering experienced by individuals who have their status and employment in limbo, they suggest that they nonetheless be made to wait at least ten years in a foreign country before the political situation back home is considered intractable and they are offered resettlement. The suggestions of the book are thus simply too fixated on preventing migrants from moving from developing to developed countries - given that it is an inevitable desire of humans to seek refuge in a safer, more promising environment, it is unlikely that even if all of Betts' and Collier's suggestions are implemented, the flow will indeed be stemmed. The authors should, in my view, thus have also provided suggestions on how to better manage their integration, rather than mark it as a total impossibility. It is perfectly untrue that migration will always fail - witness the vibrant community of Somali-Americans in Minnesota, for instance. Nonetheless, while the book has flaws, it provides the most compelling blueprint today for a (desperately-needed) rethink of refugee management policies internationally.
This failure is not just a failure of perception - it turns out that the current refugee response has been profoundly unequal as well. Betts and Collier inform us that the world spends $75 billion a year on the 10 percent of refugees who make it to the West, and $5 billion on the other 90 percent who remain in developing countries, representing a spending ratio of $135 per refugee in the developed world to every $1 per refugee in the developing world. Indeed, they go on to argue that this represents a failure of what they term the 'headless heart' - an instinctive response of compassion that is misguided, as when Sweden accepted a disproportionate share of refugees only to cut international aid in half to compensate for increased demands on its budget, thus worsening this inequality. These are just a handful of very important correctives to widely-held myths today, and if one were to simply read the book as an illumination of important truths about the nature of refugeeism in society today, it would already be unspeakably enlightening.
Yet Betts and Collier go far beyond a simple stocktaking: having underscored the dysfunctional nature of refugee policy internationally today, they then propose 'four big ideas' with which they seek to improve and even revolutionise refugee policy - they attempt to rethink the ethics of rescue, the notion of safe havens, the concept of autonomy abroad, and incubating post-conflict recovery. They then synthesize these four areas of thought to produce a model of governance hopefully serving as a guide for an ideal approach towards managing a refugee 'crisis', against which the inept, bumbling response of Europe to the Syrian crisis is sharply juxtaposed. They criticise the present international law under which refugees are managed, suggesting that a 1947 Convention (which begat the UNHCR) is regrettably ill-suited to manage the shifting nature of refugee movement today, and argue that a more flexible approach is needed - what they do is contest the traditional division between 'refugees' - those seeking refuge from persecution, a definition largely shaped by the bipolar repression of the Cold War - and 'economic migrants' - those seeking a better livelihood, who form the bulk of refugees today given the increasing number of failed states globally.
The authors make clear that the existing system for managing refugees is hopeless - those who enter developed countries through smuggling (what he terms policies of the 'headless heart') demonstrate an inability to integrate into foreign cultures with strange languages and utterly different skill set requirements, while the refugee camps set up presently closer to affected countries outlaw employment, thus robbing refugees of livelihood and fundamental human dignity, and those who choose not to enter camps and instead work in urban centres find themselves in a precarious legal balance.
They propose thus that in place of this flawed patchwork of systems, we effect a total overhaul of the camp model - for example, by giving the right to employment to refugees. Very innovatively, and effectively countering the traditional criticism that they would be stealing jobs from local citizens, Collier and Betts propose the creation of Special Economic Zones where firms formerly running businesses in the affected country can shift their operations - in its way, with similar culture, language and principles of employment, jobs would easily be created for these refugees while the businesses would also proper. They also convincingly argue that when the affected country returns to normalcy, it will similarly be easy and smooth for such firms to transition back to operating there.
However, for all the thoughtfulness of this book, it occasionally struck me as a little over-optimistic, or even slightly intolerant. The book's hardline insistence that migration say from Syria to Europe is negative for the refugees who travel, the host countries and the origin countries and their insistence on the importance of camps to remain in nearby countries may well stem from goodwill and seeking greater productivity, but it also serves as a convincing argument for those who seek to continue to keep economic migrants away. This is well-demonstrated in a segment where, after ruminating on the difficulties and suffering experienced by individuals who have their status and employment in limbo, they suggest that they nonetheless be made to wait at least ten years in a foreign country before the political situation back home is considered intractable and they are offered resettlement. The suggestions of the book are thus simply too fixated on preventing migrants from moving from developing to developed countries - given that it is an inevitable desire of humans to seek refuge in a safer, more promising environment, it is unlikely that even if all of Betts' and Collier's suggestions are implemented, the flow will indeed be stemmed. The authors should, in my view, thus have also provided suggestions on how to better manage their integration, rather than mark it as a total impossibility. It is perfectly untrue that migration will always fail - witness the vibrant community of Somali-Americans in Minnesota, for instance. Nonetheless, while the book has flaws, it provides the most compelling blueprint today for a (desperately-needed) rethink of refugee management policies internationally.
July 19, 2018
I admire the attempt to both provide several fixes for the current refugee system and also make the book generally readable for those who aren't experts because I was afraid I would have trouble understanding the subject matter. For the most part, I followed, but there were moments in the economics discussion that threw me off.
Betts and Collier do a good job of summarizing how the current system came about and why Europe reacted so poorly to its sudden influx.
The major changes I would have made are the constant repetition of certain facts (There's a fine line between a helpful reminder and beating your audience over the head) and the lack of more specific stories/refugee experiences (though this is just a preference). I think the book would have been a bit shorter overall without so much repetition, and that would have left more room for better description of how the various failures of the system have impacted displaced people, haven countries, and origin countries. The read would have been much more interesting and less taxing.
Betts and Collier do a good job of summarizing how the current system came about and why Europe reacted so poorly to its sudden influx.
The major changes I would have made are the constant repetition of certain facts (There's a fine line between a helpful reminder and beating your audience over the head) and the lack of more specific stories/refugee experiences (though this is just a preference). I think the book would have been a bit shorter overall without so much repetition, and that would have left more room for better description of how the various failures of the system have impacted displaced people, haven countries, and origin countries. The read would have been much more interesting and less taxing.
December 28, 2019
So, I don't often rate a book 5 stars. And the book of Collier and Betts has a lot of aspects that work against it, such as bad editing (a lot of repetition) a number of bland factual errors and overstatements and an unsatisfying ending. For a more complete list, The Economist has a good summary of the books flaws.
However, the book is continuously riveting and great read. Even more important: it sheds a light on a topic that is often ignored and even more often misunderstood. It presents the situations now and lays a pragmatic approach on how refugee policy can be changed for good. The style of the book is straightforward and factual and as it went on, it confronted me with my own prejudices. I remember very well downplaying or ignoring certain facts during the Refugee Crisis, and this book sets the record straight. On top of that, the approach Collier and Betts is as much as a moral as a rethink of current refugee policy. A must-read for everyone wanting to learn about global refugee policy.
However, the book is continuously riveting and great read. Even more important: it sheds a light on a topic that is often ignored and even more often misunderstood. It presents the situations now and lays a pragmatic approach on how refugee policy can be changed for good. The style of the book is straightforward and factual and as it went on, it confronted me with my own prejudices. I remember very well downplaying or ignoring certain facts during the Refugee Crisis, and this book sets the record straight. On top of that, the approach Collier and Betts is as much as a moral as a rethink of current refugee policy. A must-read for everyone wanting to learn about global refugee policy.
October 5, 2020
A couple of takeaways, similar to my policy making days:
- it’s not a one-size-fits-all-approach
- walk the ground, understand the culture and what works and what doesn’t, repeatedly fine tune the model
- find what drives people to make a choice: could it be their family, or a push for freedom for future generations
- tap on others’ strengths: some may be good at selling while others are better with their hands
- most are just ideas until someone finally takes matters into their own hands. are we waiting for a feel-good moment or can organisations and governmental institutions do something? after all most jobs are created when someone takes a first step to the unknown and pump resources in.
I really enjoyed their critique of the model that failed and what has to be done to bridge the gap. How are we to determine which country should be responsible to absorb new migrants? This, coupled with increased crimes, risk of losing one’s good for a cheaper labour, while juggling the cost of your political agenda to improve the economy, drive commodity prices up, etc. A political dilemma.
- it’s not a one-size-fits-all-approach
- walk the ground, understand the culture and what works and what doesn’t, repeatedly fine tune the model
- find what drives people to make a choice: could it be their family, or a push for freedom for future generations
- tap on others’ strengths: some may be good at selling while others are better with their hands
- most are just ideas until someone finally takes matters into their own hands. are we waiting for a feel-good moment or can organisations and governmental institutions do something? after all most jobs are created when someone takes a first step to the unknown and pump resources in.
I really enjoyed their critique of the model that failed and what has to be done to bridge the gap. How are we to determine which country should be responsible to absorb new migrants? This, coupled with increased crimes, risk of losing one’s good for a cheaper labour, while juggling the cost of your political agenda to improve the economy, drive commodity prices up, etc. A political dilemma.
August 17, 2017
A rather dry read, too academic for the average person. Could have been a little more personal and emotional to instill a sense of empathy in readers. But the points stated are good points and if all leaders read this and come together to do something about the refugee crisis, I guess this book will have attained what it sets out to do. The problem is these days there is too much animosity towards the 'outsiders' and too much of a 'we-first' mentality among the industrialised nations. What is also missing these days is a world leader able to garner the world to get its act together. It was not hard to notice that Obama was mentioned a number of times in the book for trying to get things to happen. Alas, the era of a world leader who can command the respect of the world is gone. What we have now is both a heartless and headless America who has lost its stand in the world. Gone, is the hope that the world can get its act together ever again.
October 21, 2017
Good book, rather dense text, so a bit challenging to wade through. I skimmed over table of contents, read the first few chapters and skimmed through parts of the book. Authors have their philosophy stated, with logical positions and supporting arguments to say we need to be doing things very differently, especially in this age of political instability and physical danger and large migrations out of fighting into neighbouring countries. They have previously written on related topics.
I have done some reading on this topic. The book is worth coming back to in the future.
Note, I read the trade paper edition, not the kindle edition, and this book is by 2 authors. Unfortunately in good reads, it is not cited this way, and the first author has published a number of related books, but is not listed on this one so far.
I have done some reading on this topic. The book is worth coming back to in the future.
Note, I read the trade paper edition, not the kindle edition, and this book is by 2 authors. Unfortunately in good reads, it is not cited this way, and the first author has published a number of related books, but is not listed on this one so far.
Read
November 30, 2017Migration and in particular refugee policy is a much-discussed if poorly understood flash point of political debate in America and Europe. Two Oxford academics, Alexander Betts and Paul Collier, provide a brisk and incisive account of the postwar refugee regime’s historical origins, pathways, and pathologies in Refuge: Rethinking Refugee Policy in a Changing World. Their recommendations, grounded in experience in the Middle East, are hard-headed but warm-hearted—and by rights should receive a wide and careful reception. On the same topic, but in a very different register, I also recommend Mohsin Hamid’s brilliant and humane account of the refugee experience filtered through a magical realist lens, Exit West. —Aziz Z. Huq
August 26, 2017
The proposed ideas are long overdue, and the authors do a great job of diagnosing the problems within current solutions of refuge. It's an articulate and masterfully well-argued work, but it'd be great if its future updated editions went through some editing: crucial points get lost in a morass of supporting arguments, topical sentences are misplaced, and key points are repeated in a way that doesn't add to clarity. Even with that, we do need to heed the advisory of this book because refugee numbers will not be decreasing in the near future, and at least these two scholars have stepped up with a workable solution. Their last line is killer.
May 20, 2023
This was an excellent book. The authors are incredibly well informed and researched on refugee policy and their narrative helps demonstrate the links between decisions and outcomes. Several of the models (especially the work-and-dignity related development zones) that they spell out as examples of success in some regions are fascinating. It was a touch dry and repetitive at times but ultimately it was well thought out and communicated and helped make the complexity of the topic easy to understand.
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