Forced Migration Online: Blog

This podcast was recorded at a launch event for the fifth Refugee Studies Centre Policy Briefing which was held on Thursday 30th September 2010 at the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, London.

The talk given by Dr Jason Hart & Claudia Lo Forte, was on the subject of the Policy Briefing – ‘Protecting Palestinian children from political violence: the role of the international community’.

Drawing on extensive field and desk research, the briefing considers the role of international and UN organisations in protecting Palestinian children.

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• Read the RSC Policy Briefing
• Read previous RSC Policy Briefings

Italy has been transformed in recent decades from a nation of emigrants to a destination country for mass immigration, receiving tens of thousands of immigrant from south-east Europe and north Africa each year.

Its long coast lines and developed economy make it both an attractive destination and an easy route into Europe. As immigration rates have risen sharply, relations between the Italian and immigrant population have often been tense.

FMO’s latest resource summary  highlights a selection of web-based resources that focus on Italy. Links are provided to full-text documents, journal articles, external resources, and organizations.

• Resource summary: Italy

The most recent RSC Policy Briefing “Protecting Palestinian children from political violence: the role of the international community” was launched in London on Thursday 30 September.

The briefing, written by Dr Jason Hart and Claudia Lo Forte, considers the role of international and UN organisations in protecting Palestinian children. Four distinguishing features of a rights-based approach to child protection are identified:

• the prioritisation of child protection over national self-interest;
• a focus on causes and not merely effects;
• the need for political engagement around international legal standards;
• the mobilisation of public opinion

Following the publication of this policy briefing, we have also updated our Resource Summary on Palestine.

• RSC Policy Briefing
• FMO Resource Summary: Palestine

“Protecting Palestinian Children from Political Violence: The Role of the International Community” by Dr Jason Hart and Claudia Lo Forte is the latest policy briefing from the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre.

Drawing on extensive field and desk research, this study considers the role of international and UN organisations in protecting Palestinian children. Four distinguishing features of a rights-based approach to child protection are identified: the prioritisation of child protection over national self-interest, a focus on causes and not merely effects, the need for political engagement around international legal standards, and the mobilisation of public opinion.

• Protecting Palestinian Children from Political Violence
• RSC policy briefings

The Refugees Studies Centre at Oxford University has recently published a strategic overview of current policy trends and future directions in the forced migration field. The following seven interconnected themes were identified as being of key research interest and of immediate and future relevance to policymakers:

• state fragility and forced migration;
• the economics of forced migration;
• environmental displacement;
• displaced groups with specific needs;
• durable solutions;
• humanitarian space and spaces of protection;
• realising protection: legal and institutional challenges.

The document also identifies areas likely to demand attention in the future.

Prepared by Dr Katy Long, a researcher at the RSC, the document also benefited from inputs by senior RSC staff and researchers and some external policy partners of the RSC.

It is hoped that this overview will be instrumental in informing the research agenda, policy priorities and institutional practices of the wider academic community and policy stakeholders, helping improve international humanitarian action and conflict prevention, and addressing the rights and needs of forced migrants.

The RSC would welcome receiving your feedback on the relevance and usefulness of this document. We also encourage you to contact the RSC should you wish to discuss a specific topic further, share information on a particular area, or support our research. Kindly direct your feedback or queries to the RSC’s Policy Programme Officer, Ms Héloïse Ruaudel, at rscpolicy@qeh.ox.ac.uk.

• Forced migration: Current policy trends and future directions

Issue 34 of Forced Migration Review (FMR) is now available in the digital library. This issue focuses on the topic of “Urban Displacement”.

Articles explore the complexity of the challenges faced by those displaced into urban areas and by those seeking to protect and assist them, and argue for the need for a radical rethinking of approaches by the international community.

The issue also includes a spotlight on Haiti and the use of standards to shape response and recovery after the earthquake in January, plus a selection of articles on subjects such as Mauritania, South Africa, Timor-Leste, Colombia, Pakistan, the new Kampala Convention, family separation in the UK, cross-border mobility of Iraqi refugees, and maternal mortality among conflict-affected populations.

FMR is also published in French, Spanish and Arabic.

Forced Migration Online’s latest resource summary, which complements FMR 34, is also available to view online. It provides links to key resources, websites and documents exploring contemporary debate on these issues, as well as links to wider issues concerned with human rights and displacement.

Full Issue

• FMR 2010, No. 34:  Urban Displacement
  

Resource Summary

• Urban Displacement

Individual Articles

• Adapting to urban displacement
• Meeting humanitarian challenges in urban areas
• Protection challenges for persons of concern in urban settings
• Urban displacement and migration in Colombia
• Invisibility of urban IDPs in Europe
• Profiling urban IDPs
• Improving living conditions in Bossaso, Somalia
• The poor and the displaced in Khartoum
• The journey towards social exclusion in Colombia
• Desperate lives: urban refugee women in Malaysia and Egypt
• Urban refugee health: meeting the challenges
• Support systems among urban IDPs in Georgia
• Education and self-reliance in Egypt
• Urban shelter and the limits of humanitarian action
• Refugees and space in urban areas in Malaysia
• Urban IDPs in Uganda: victims of institutional convenience
• Transition, connection and uncertainty: IDPs in Kampala
• Urban Somali refugees in Yemen
• Displacement within the city: Colombia
• The role of municipal authorities
• Surviving in the city
• ATM cash assistance: does it work?
• Cities of Solidarity: local integration in Latin America
• City of Sanctuary – a UK initiative for hospitality
• Hosting ‘the enemy’
• “Legitimate” protection spaces: UNHCR’s 2009 policy
• Using standards to shape response and recovery in Haiti
• Beyond good intentions: implementing the Kampala Convention
• Norwegian Refugee Council: Shade netting: simple design – effective relief
• RAISE Initiative: The blind spot of the Millennium Development Goals
• International Displacement Monitoring Centre: Displacement in urban areas: implications for humanitarian action
• Cross-border mobility of Iraqi refugees
• Non-nationals displaced in South Africa
• Social mobilisation in IDP camps in Pakistan
• Flexible mandate for protection
• IDP camp closure and gender inequality in Timor-Leste
• Family breakdown in Bogotá
• Living death: separation in the UK
• Voluntary repatriation and the participation of Mauritanian refugees

This podcast was recorded at the Refugee Studies Centre’s Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture which was on Wednesday 18th November 2009 at the Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford. The Harrell-Bond Lecture is held annually in honour of Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond, founding former director of the Centre and of the academic field of refugee studies or forced migration studies. Jan Egeland, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator and currently director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs gave the 2009 lecture on the subject of political deals and durable solutions for the displaced.

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The latest podcast in a series recorded at the bi-annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) is now available online.

The Boundaries of Policy plenary event was chaired by Martin Jones and included Alice Bloch, Jeff Crisp and Marjoleine Zieck.

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