Oxfam knowledge fund: Engaging local authorities in responding to protracted displacement

Protracted displacement crises call both international community and national actors for responding to crises through a developmental lens. As recent refugee crises in the Balkans and Middle East have shown, protracted displacement hits host countries dramatically. Already fragile contexts have to bear the burden of thousands of people fleeing from conflicts and human rights violations or escaping from the adverse effects of climate change and natural disasters. Basic services such as waste management, water, primary healthcare, education, are put under pressure, local economies at stake. In certain contexts, tensions between host communities and displaced people raise due to deteriorated access to basic services, depletion of natural resources and competition for livelihood opportunities, reawakening or intensifying also religious and ethnic upheavals.