According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), over 130 million people are now forcibly displaced—compared to just 37.5 million in 2010—meaning nearly one in every 100 people worldwide is either a refugee or internally displaced. Every three seconds, someone is displaced. Despite the headlines, what is often overlooked is that more than 86% of these displaced individuals reside in developing countries, with 60% located in fragile states. The 36 most fragile countries, which contribute just 2.6% to global GDP, host a staggering 71% of the world's forcibly displaced population.
As conflict intensifies, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, these numbers are expected to rise. The World Bank predicts that by 2030, nearly half (46%) of the global poor will live in fragile, conflict-affected regions. This presents enormous economic and political challenges for low-income states while increasing immigration pressures in wealthier nations. Managing refugee flows has thus become one of the most pressing policy challenges of our time.
The REFUGEDEV project addressed two key challenges: first, how to effectively manage displacement flows. By examining the Mozambican civil war (1977-1992) as a case study, REFUGEDEV sheds light on how various displacement paths—whether to refugee camps, rural areas, or cities—impact key outcomes like human capital development and shifts away from agricultural labor. The findings highlight the long-term consequences of displacement, revealing both opportunities for structural transformation (such as urban integration, increased educational investments and movements out of subsistence agriculture) but also the lasting social costs, such as poorer mental health and weakened social cohesion among displaced individuals, which is still felt three decades after the conflict.
The second key challenge is how to integrate refugees into the economic and social fabric of host communities. Given that over 74% of refugees never return home or resettle, this is an urgent issue for the Global South. Diverse groups of refugees, often traumatized by conflict, may strain social relations with local populations. Moreover, host governments worry that refugee support policies could attract more refugees and economic migrants. REFUGEDEV tests the effectiveness of income and employment support programs for both refugees and locals, finding that boosting financial security significantly improves trust, resource-sharing, and cross-group friendships. However, these gains in social cohesion proved fragile. When a devastating hurricane struck during the study, social cohesion faltered despite financial resilience, emphasizing the destabilizing impact of climate shocks on fragile communities. This underscores the need for policymakers to account for the broader, long-term effects of both economic policies and environmental vulnerabilities when managing refugee integration in fragile states.
