PublicationNewspaper Article What does development mean for the stateless?

Published:
August 17, 2019
Publication Type:
Newspaper Article
Abstract:

Cur­rent­ly, there are upwards of one mil­lion Rohingya refugees liv­ing in Cox’s Bazar. For all the talk of mov­ing the Rohingya else­where, such as Bashan Char Island, or repa­tri­at­ing them to Myan­mar, it is almost cer­tain that they will remain where they are for an indef­i­nite peri­od of time.

His­to­ry has shown that the aver­age age of a refugee camp is 12 years. Like most oth­er refugee camp sit­u­a­tions, this one will like­ly last for at least anoth­er decade.

Many NGOs and aid agen­cies that are work­ing on Rohingya issues real­ize that this is not tem­po­rary, and are start­ing to take a longer-term view of the camps. The shift from emer­gency relief to devel­op­ment has begun, under­scor­ing the fact that the refugee cri­sis has huge long-term impli­ca­tions for how devel­op­ment oper­ates beyond state citizenship.

The Rohingya cri­sis is a use­ful case study to under­stand how refugees are slow­ly being brought into the tra­di­tion­al devel­op­ment frame­work. The scope of facil­i­ties and pro­grams set up by the Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion for Migra­tion (IOM), UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the hun­dreds of NGOs work­ing in the camps over the past year is remarkable.

They have built camps from the ground up and orga­nized them into zones with basic roads and latrines, tube­wells, health facil­i­ties, and com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters. How­ev­er, the sep­a­rate insti­tu­tions that are in place to deal with longer-term devel­op­ment and emer­gency relief are not aligned in their goals. This affects the extent of aid giv­en, the type of facil­i­ties that are built, and of course the eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal rights and social sup­port that the Rohingya have.

A strong indi­ca­tion of the shift toward devel­op­ment in the Rohingya camps is the recent invest­ment from the World Bank and Asian Devel­op­ment Bank (ADB), of $480 mil­lion and $100 mil­lion respec­tive­ly. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, these two insti­tu­tions have invest­ed in long-term devel­op­ment projects and sup­port­ed gov­ern­ments in capac­i­ty build­ing. In the past few years, they have cre­at­ed a relief fund for emer­gency sit­u­a­tions exact­ly like the Rohingya crisis.

One of the invest­ments from the World Bank and ADB is in renew­able ener­gy in the Rohingya camps. The invest­ment in ener­gy access shows a grad­ual shift toward longer-term, or at least medi­um-term, plan­ning in the camps. Com­pared to inter­na­tion­al aid fund­ing in every oth­er sector—water and san­i­ta­tion, health, shel­ters, etc.—energy had no allo­cat­ed fund­ing at the begin­ning of the Rohingya influx.

This is large­ly because ener­gy is not seen as essen­tial to emer­gency relief, which is arguably an out­dat­ed view from the aid indus­try, as ener­gy access is linked to more pos­i­tive health effects and gen­der safe­ty and equal­i­ty. Now with the World Bank and ADB’s invest­ment plan, there is a por­tion allo­cat­ed to set up some solar mini-grids in 2019, as well as con­struct­ing more solar lamps and dis­trib­ut­ing solar lanterns.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, there has not been a sys­tem­at­ic approach to ener­gy sup­ply in con­flict set­tings because they are thought to be short­er term. Most of the ener­gy is sup­plied ad hoc by indi­vid­ual NGOs or inter­na­tion­al aid agen­cies, usu­al­ly through diesel gen­er­a­tors. The move toward renew­able ener­gy shows increas­ing inter­est in long-term devel­op­ment because it is inher­ent­ly sus­tain­able and sim­ple to use. A solar mini-grid offers a clean­er and more con­sis­tent alter­na­tive to diesel gen­er­a­tors, and can poten­tial­ly be used to anchor local mini-grids if the refugee camps are present in the longer term.

Out of all the Rohingya camps, it is strik­ing that the only one that is con­nect­ed to the nation­al elec­tric­i­ty grid, and thus sit­u­at­ed for longer term, is a camp in Tek­naf, where some Rohingya have been around for many years and have essen­tial­ly assim­i­lat­ed into the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty. Per­haps the thought here is that there is “val­ue added” if the Rohingya con­tribute eco­nom­i­cal­ly, so it makes sense to invest in elec­tric­i­ty lines. How­ev­er, this sit­u­a­tion is exceed­ing­ly rare, as the vast major­i­ty of Rohingya can­not move freely out­side the camps and thus are unable to be eco­nom­i­cal­ly independent

His­tor­i­cal­ly, there has not been a sys­tem­at­ic approach to ener­gy sup­ply in con­flict set­tings because they are thought to be short­er term.

While the notion of devel­op­ment is impor­tant for improv­ing liveli­hoods, the devel­op­ment itself must be done dif­fer­ent­ly for the state­less. Tra­di­tion­al forms of eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment do not work for state­less peo­ple who have no means to gain employ­ment. Though there are some cash-for-work pro­grams and recre­ation facil­i­ties set up by aid agen­cies, the vast major­i­ty of Rohingya have noth­ing to do dur­ing the day; their rou­tines are often set around food and aid dis­tri­b­u­tion sched­ules. They are recov­er­ing from unimag­in­able trau­ma. The camps will only con­tin­ue to grow: Rohingya are still cross­ing the bor­der, though at much low­er rates, and there are pro­ject­ed to be 50,000 babies born this year. No amount of aid dis­tri­b­u­tion or tra­di­tion­al notions of devel­op­ment will fix these facts of life for the Rohingya.

Part of the dif­fi­cul­ty in stream­lin­ing devel­op­ment efforts is the insti­tu­tion­al pow­er struc­ture of the camps. Since the exo­dus began in August 2017, the Bangladesh gov­ern­ment has not offi­cial­ly labeled the Rohingya as “refugees.” With­out this label, UNHCR could not head the emer­gency relief oper­a­tions in the camps, as they nor­mal­ly would when refugees are involved. Thus, IOM took over camp oper­a­tions. With­in a few months, UNHCR was allowed to work in the camps and it start­ed co-lead­ing oper­a­tions with IOM. The two human­i­tar­i­an stake­hold­ers now over­see relief oper­a­tions in about 10 sec­tors and work along­side the government’s response to the cri­sis, which includes dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ment agen­cies and the Bangladesh army. This web of agen­cies does not have mutu­al­ly exclu­sive goals, but since they do not nor­mal­ly col­lab­o­rate in this way it has been chal­leng­ing to set­tle on long-term goals.

Anoth­er chal­lenge is that there is no direct guid­ing prin­ci­ple glob­al­ly for how to inte­grate state­less peo­ple, let alone how to devel­op com­mu­ni­ties with them in mind. One of the main guid­ing prin­ci­ples for long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty plan­ning is the UN Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals, a set of 17 goals that aim to end pover­ty with strate­gies that build eco­nom­ic growth and address a range of social needs includ­ing edu­ca­tion, health, and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion. None of the goals explic­it­ly address devel­op­ment for state­less persons.

Inter­na­tion­al NGOs and the UN could adopt a more explic­it­ly rights-based approach to devel­op­ment, espe­cial­ly as more refugee crises and mass migra­tions are pro­ject­ed to occur in the future. This approach would com­bine dif­fer­ent exist­ing con­cepts of inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment, such as capac­i­ty build­ing, human rights, par­tic­i­pa­tion, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty. The goal would be to empow­er the group that can­not exer­cise full rights and to strength­en the capac­i­ty of insti­tu­tions and gov­ern­ments oblig­at­ed to fill these rights. How­ev­er, the main crit­i­cism against the rights-based approach is that it mere­ly incor­po­rates the lan­guage of human rights with devel­op­ment, but does not change the pro­grams being imple­ment­ed. In order for change to take place, gov­ern­ments must be will­ing to accept refugees and migrants, and hold oth­er coun­tries account­able for the process­es that lead to refugees in the first place. Many gov­ern­ments that receive refugees, whether will­ing­ly or not, are not capa­ble of devel­op­ing long-term com­mu­ni­ties for the refugees in their own country.

There are cur­rent­ly about six mil­lion peo­ple in pro­tract­ed dis­place­ment sit­u­a­tions glob­al­ly, and even more migrants, who are not offi­cial­ly giv­en eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal rights by the state. Crises like this will only con­tin­ue to hap­pen at vary­ing scales, whether through eth­nic cleans­ing, envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter, eco­nom­ic cri­sis, or some­thing else. The UN, devel­op­ment agen­cies, NGOs, and some gov­ern­ments are only just begin­ning to rethink how we pri­or­i­tize refugees and migrants and inte­grate them into exist­ing devel­op­ment frame­works. There will be many lessons to learn from the Rohingya cri­sis for years to come. A like­ly one will be how to con­cep­tu­al­ize devel­op­ment for those that have been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly “oth­ered” and persecuted.

Sami­ra Sid­dique is a PhD stu­dent in the Ener­gy and Resources Group at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berkeley 

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