Publication: Unbundled: A Framework for Connecting Safety Nets and Humanitarian Assistance in Refugee Settings
Date
2019-09
ISSN
Published
2019-09
Author(s)
Abstract
The debate on if and how to connect
humanitarian assistance for refugees with national social
protection systems can elicit polarizing views. Hence, it is
not unusual to observe country-level approaches getting
somewhat ‘stuck’ – especially where refugees represent a
sizable share of the population: from a donor perspective,
the question is how can governments be persuaded to be more
inclusive; from a government standpoint, it faces
disproportionate political and economic risks from “being
left with the bill”; and from the international humanitarian
agencies viewpoint, there might be quandaries on how to
reconcile commitments to neutrality and independence with
those to respecting the primary responsibility of
governments. These stylized views are legitimate, but their
combined effect may generate competing narratives and little
negotiating space among the multiple actors involved. The
net result might be the endurance of a sub-optimal dual
systems operating in parallel – one for refugees, one for
citizens. The framework laid out in this paper attempts to
facilitate the identification of workable pathways for
progress among actors. Instead of framing the
humanitarian-social protection links as an ‘either-or’
choice, the framework includes a more granular analysis of
how collaborations may emerge around select programmatic
‘functions’, as well as the ‘degrees’ of possible connection
between national and international support within a given function.
Citation
“Seyfert, Karin; Barca, Valentina; Gentilini, Ugo; Luthria, Manjula; Abbady, Shereen. 2019. Unbundled; Unbundled : A Framework for Connecting Safety Nets and Humanitarian Assistance in Refugee Settings. Social Protection and Jobs Discussion Paper,no. 1935;. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/32467 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”