Refugee Livelihoods Network Report 2005

As was noted in the RLN of April 2004, information on the ways refugees in urban areas pursue livelihood strategies has long been extremely limited, despite the fact that a very large number of refugees live their lives in cities in the region. This issue will look at what has happened since April 2004 in terms of research activities and projects for urban refugees. It provides a follow-up of earlier introduced urban refugee projects in Johannesburg and Cairo. Also, a number of papers are presented that address interesting issues. These papers illustrate that urban refugees manage to carve out a living in the various ‘global cities’ of the South. They are often self-employed, finding niches in the informal economy. Also, some of them are well-connected transnationally. Thus, various authors stress that urban refugees should be seen as an asset to regional economies. At the same time, these refugees do often live marginal lives; especially facing problems due to their poor legal status. Yet, assistance programmes for urban refugees are still hard to find. Various papers recommend policies and projects to focus on (legal) local integration as a durable solution for urban refugees. The RLN moderator invites subscribers to send in abstracts for possible contributions to the Refugee Survey Quarterly (RSQ), the UNHCR academic journal on refugee issues. The journal is published by Oxford University Press (OUP), which also publishes the International Journal of Refugee Law and the Journal of Refugee Studies. The RSQ June 2006 issue will focus on Refugee Livelihoods. For this issue, contributions are requested in the shape of original articles. Furthermore, those who have published on refugee livelihoods are requested to send full bibliographical details in order to have these included in this issue’s select bibliography. The deadline for sending in article abstracts is 31st of October, whereas bibliographical information needs to be sent no later than 31st of January. Contributions can be sent to the RLN moderator, who will be guest-editor for this issue, at C [dot] Horst [at] inter [dot] NL [dot] net. Those who send in abstracts will be contacted about the possibility of having their article published in the RSQ June 2006 issue.