Refugee Crises and Third-World Economies

Refugee can refer to movements of large groups of displaced people, who could be either internally displaced persons or other migrants. According to UN High Commissioner Report for refugees (2017), 65.6 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide because of persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violation alone. Now we are witnessing a massive shift of humanity unlike any seen before. A huge population around the world, which is equivalent to the entire population of the UK, is displaced from their homes. More than 23 million of them are from five places: Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, the Lake Chad Basin and Somalia. And the astonishing figures are 11.5 million people in five years between 2011 and 2016 in Syria, 4 million displaced from 2013 in South Sudan, 3.8 million in Afghanistan, 2.3 million in Africa's Lake Chad basin and 1.6 million in Somalia. All of the above have the reasons either being unemployment, insecurity and political instability or civil war or droughtlike phenomena, all of which can be summarized as economic crisis. Most of the time, we do our research on the subject about the wake of the crisis, but nobody do the prefacing matter analysis. This chapter is mainly based on the secondary data of the World Bank and the UNHCR and various governments' official data. In this chapter, we are trying to identify the major parameters responsible for refugee generation and also we are analyzing the cause of these phenomena, whereas no research has been done yet about the era prefacing that crisis.

Presence of refugees in our world is very common and historically admitted also. Refugees are heterogeneous as a group, many asylum seekers are relatively young, the vast majority is of working age, and increasingly more people come from countries considered crisis accumulated or unsafe. Refugee crisis is recently hindering the developmental paths of several emerging economies across the globe and therefore generates curiosity among both economists and political scientists. Under such a backdrop, findings of any substantive plausible economic reasons behind such hitherto commonly ascribed issue become crucial from the angle of policy making. Broadly speaking, here we want to examine the major cause of refugee formation and how it will affect the size of the so-called potential refugees owing to eco-political instability. To perform this, here we have used a hybrid model which entails the flavours of both dynamic game theory and rational expectations theory of macroeconomics. From such a setup and under the presence of rational expectations, we have shown that a movement from a regime of REPE to non-REPE may lead to an increase in the level of nuisance or uncertainty in the South, which in turn raises the cost of life associated with high-quality quality-differentiated product of the South and thereby increases the number of potential refugees.

Refugee crisis has been often seen as a matter owing its occurrence to political instability of different countries. The study on refugee crisis has very recently come up with climate becoming a major factor in playing an advanced role in this alarming crisis. Climate change as a phenomenon has been a much debatable issue, but its direct relation to the refugee crisis has been noticed very recently. It has been noted that due to marked temperature changes and sea level rise many countries with large coastal outlines are facing risks of submergence and salinity. In this study the case of Bangladesh, which is slowly subsiding into the waters of the Bay of Bengal and facing severe consequences due to effects of climate change, is highlighted. This has well affected the coastal population of Bangladesh, who have been grouped under the category of what geographers term as climate refugees. Due to the inaction of state authorities, such population is forced to first migrate internally and then externally. The fragile border of Bangladesh and India thus pushes such refugees to the Indian subcontinent, which in turn creates socio-economic and political impact on India. This study argues that despite several legislative measures at international level, the refugee crisis is not dealt with seriously and concerns need to be adopted to give protection.

In this chapter, the author has described the nexus between climate change and the evolution of refugee problems. The concept of climate refugee and the controversy between refugee and climate refugee were extensively elaborated. The estimates of climate refugees under various dimensions in different parts of the world were exemplified with statistical figures. The solutions of the refugee problems, funding, directions of estimates and social responsibilities towards refugees are described in the activities of international institutions like UNHCR, CCDO, UNFCCC, IPCC, the Red Cross and many others. The chapter also highlights some important policy issues such as charters, funds, response strategy to disaster and disaster recovery plans, support capacity building and climate change adaptation and so on and also cited policies taken by the G20 summit to care for refugees. Besides, the recommendations of COP23 were also included. In conclusion, ‘no climate change, no climate refugees’ slogan is incorporated with suggestions of taking care of sizable percentage shares of refugees by the rich nations.

One of the serious crises faced chiefly by the developing countries is the large influx of people from neighbouring poor and less developed countries as a result of civil wars, political and social turbulence, to name some. Following UNHCR's latest available publication of data on refugees (2016), this chapter attempts to highlight the world's major refugee producing countries, inherent causes of such generation and destination of the emigrants on one hand and the scenario of world's major refugee hosting countries, refugees from countries received by them and their present condition, on the other. Disaggregation of data is done in each case to provide further insightful analysis.

A refugee is a displaced person who has been forced to cross national boundary and who cannot return home safely. No one likes or chooses to be a refugee. Being a refugee means more than being an alien. It means living in exile and depending on others for such basic needs as food, clothing and shelter. The problem of refugees is the problem of human rights involving a flow of people from places of denial to the regions of guarantee. Today refugee problem is one of the core problems all over the world. It is the most complicated issue. When refugees are hosted in the neighbouring countries, economic, social, political and environment impacts are created on these host countries. The main objective of this chapter is to analyze these impacts created by refugees on the developing host countries. From the moment of arrival, refugees may compete with local citizens for scarce resources such as water, food, housing and medical services. Their presence increases the demands for education, health services, infrastructure such as water supply, sanitation and transportation, and also in some cases, for natural resources such as grazing and firewood.

Soon after the first refugees started coming to India from Tibet, the Department of Home was established to coordinate the immediate relief assistance for them and to find a long-term solution for the resettlement of refugees. The resettlement of refugees, however, also involves providing basic amenities and adequate source of livelihood. As a result, towards the end, the Department of Home had established 58 Tibetan settlements in India, Nepal and Bhutan, and the welfare and interests of these settlements are looked after by their respective representative or welfare officers. These settlements are primarily assisted by the Government of India and other voluntary aid organizations. There are a total of 58 settlements, out of which there are 39 major and minor settlements in India, 12 in Nepal and 7 in Bhutan based either on agriculture or agro-industries or handicrafts. Of these, 39 major and minor settlements spread across the length and breadth of the country; 11 settlements are found in the north-eastern part of the country, most of which is concentrated in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Sikkim and West Bengal. The present study discusses the socio-economic status of the Choephelling Tibetan settlement in Miao, Arunachal Pradesh, established in 1975. As per the 2008–2009 annual report, the current population is 2,816. The major source of livelihood for the settlers is farming. Alternatively, some of the settlers have also started carpet weaving as an alternate source of income. However, one of the greatest problems in the settlements is that the population is rapidly growing, due to the number of births in the community and the steady streams of new refugees, which has increased since 1980 when travel restrictions from Tibet became more relaxed. This has put a strain on the already fragile economy and infrastructure of the settlements, and the housing, sanitation, health clinics, schools and other facilities are no longer equipped to deal with the number of people in the settlements. This study attempts to address and discuss some of the major socio-economic issues faced by the settlers.

Large dams have played a key role in the economic development of a country. They serve a variety of purposes, including electricity generation, flood control and irrigation. Nevertheless, development-induced forced migration of human population for the construction of Tehri Dam in Old Tehri of Garhwal–Himalayan region of Uttarakhand has invited lot of controversy in the recent past. A new city has been designed and presented by the government as a solution for the new settlement of migrated people. A large dam has enormous consequences for people's lives and livelihoods. Tehri Dam transforms landscapes of the region greatly, creates risks of irreversible impacts including controversial issues such as displacement and resettlement and also alters the natural functioning of the entire ecosystem. As a consequence of ecological disruption, a large number of human populations lost their migratory routes and considered as ecological refugees in their new habitat. The present study aims to understand how the forced migration has changed people's daily lives in social, cultural, religious and economic aspects. People's perceptions were discerned through participatory discussions. The field work has been carried out through direct communion with the villagers to explore how the government has reacted to the voices of the resettled citizens and how the development process has affected traditional livelihoods of the rural communities.

In 2015, the Supreme Court of India directed the Government of India to confer the citizenship right to the Chakma refugees, who settled in North-Eastern States in India. Arunachal Pradesh, the former North Eastern Frontier Agency, holds a large number of Chakma refugees who had migrated to India from the erstwhile East Pakistan during the late 1960s. The present benevolent approach of the Government of India towards this ethno-refugee community is having domestic as well as external implication in the backdrop of rampant deportation of refugees from its neighbouring state, Bangladesh. Mere citizenship right may result in the administrative integration of the Chakmas but could not resolve their crises as alien versus indigenous debate intensifies the refugee crises today. Over the decades, political alienation of the Chakma refugees extended their sense of deprivation and marginalization. A separate perspective is required to assess the Chakmas’ claim that they are after all not alien to India since their ancestral land Chittagong Hill Tracts were under Indian territory and they have had a deep allegiance to this territory because of India's accommodative pluralistic outlook and multi-ethnic characters. Permanent means of livelihood, legal rights over land holding and bridging social capital would help ethnic integration, not merely ‘limited’ citizenship right. This study from ethno-political perspective would assess the crises of the Chakma refugees in Arunachal Pradesh in India.

According to a report by the Afghan embassy in Delhi, refugees from Afghanistan, estimated at around 30,000 families, have, over the past two and a half decades, fled from their home towns due to large-scale conflicts, seeking safety in India's capital city. Many outsiders call Delhi home, but the Afghan people can claim a special relationship with India and her capital. To understand why, we must recall the history, both the ancient and the modern, of the two nations. There are nearly 11,000 Afghan refugees registered with the UNHCR in India, mainly living in Delhi and bordering areas. The refugees in Delhi face considerable hardships and difficulties. The Indian government and UNHCR should make it a priority to protect these Afghan refugees. While recognition of UNHCR-recognized China and Afghan refugees is greatly appreciated, the Indian government must be sensitive and sensitize others about their situation in Delhi and ensure timely attainment of recognition, registration, residential permits and exit permits without unnecessary cost or delay or corruption. The resettlement program must also be expanded and prioritized for Afghan refugees living in Delhi, particularly within large resettlement countries such as the US without any discrimination based on culture, language or religion. Without adequate and timely protection mechanisms and proper community support structures in place, the protection and assistance to the vulnerable section of society would be hard to attain and resolve.