By Jeff Crisp
Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the establishment of programmes that enable refugees to leave their country of first asylum and to take up employment in states where their skills and experience are in demand. This blog provides a critical analysis of the role that such programmes might play in the quest to provide refugees with protection and solutions.
Recent initiatives
The European refugee emergency of 2015-16 triggered a global effort to reappraise and revise the international community’s approach to large-scale movements of people across international borders. This has included initiatives such as the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants, the Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration and the Global Refugee Forum.
A common theme of these efforts has been a recognition by states, especially those of the Global North, that such movements are more difficult to address when they take place in an unpredictable, unplanned and disorganized manner. Rather than waiting for refugees to leave their own country in an independent manner and to claim asylum on arrival in another state, would it not be more effective, efficient and humane to channel refugees into safe and legal routes to countries that are willing to admit them?
This question has become even more pertinent during the past decade, given the growing propensity of refugees to make long. irregular and dangerous journeys from their country of origin and first asylum, passing through a number of states before submitting a claim to refugee status in places that are more secure and which offer better livelihood opportunities.
In response to this scenario, governments and international organizations such as UNHCR and IOM have devoted growing attention to the establishment of programmes that are additional to and different from the state-sponsored refugee resettlement operations that have been in existence since the end of the Second World War. Such ‘complementary pathways’, as they have been labelled by UNHCR, include initiatives such as community-sponsored resettlement programmes, family reunion arrangements, humanitarian visas and corridors, educational scholarships for refugee students and labour mobility programmes for refugees who have skills that are in demand in places other than their country of first asylum.
A number of observations can be made with respect to these labour mobility programmes, which enable employers (usually in the Global North) to hire skilled refugees from countries in the Global South. Administered by specialized organizations such as Talent Beyond Borders, such programmes are supported by the governments of destination countries, an arrangement that facilitates the process of recruitment, relocation, admission and reception.
Independent efforts
First, there is a need to make a distinction between the internationally organized labour mobility programmes examined in this blog and the independent efforts that many refugees make to move on from their country of origin or first asylum and to enter the labour market elsewhere.
For example, large numbers of people displaced by the armed conflicts in Iraq and Syria are known to have found employment or established livelihoods in the Gulf States. In doing so, they have been able to acquire entry visas, as well as residence, work business permits from governments in the region, and have not been obliged to make contact with UNHCR or to seek asylum in the countries to which they have moved.
Little attention has been given to the extent to which such unrecognized and largely uncounted refugees have been able to find adequate protection and solutions by means of their own efforts, and how their situation compares with those who have participated in organized labour mobility programmes. Should the international community be doing more to facilitate such movements, as well as – or instead of – -creating special programmes for this purpose?
Second, while labour mobility programmes have been hailed as a new and innovative approach to the refugee issue, that is not entirely true. After the Second World War, for example, millions of refugees and displaced people were resettled from Europe to countries where their skills were needed, including Australia, Canada, South Africa and the USA. At this time, significant attention was given to the role that refugees could play in meeting labour market needs – an approach that fell out of favour during the Cold War, when, for ideological reasons, UNHCR and its principal donors began to make a sharp distinction between refugees on the one hand and economic migrants on the other.
In the post-Cold War period, some efforts were made to question this distinction. In 2007, for example, UNHCR published a discussion paper which identified the many ways in which refugee and migratory movements were closely interconnected. “It is evident,” the paper stated, “that refugee populations include people whose talents could and should be put to good use.” Five years later, UNHCR attempted to put this principle into practice, convening a joint workshop with ILO on labour mobility for refugees, with the intention of examining “whether and how enhanced labour mobility for refugees could increase opportunities for self-reliance and facilitate access to durable solutions without undermining international refugee law principles.”
The reaction to this proposal was not a particularly positive one, especially from states in the Global North. A Canadian delegate, for example, stated that his country had a well-established refugee resettlement operation, and could not see what added value a labour mobility programme might bring to it. In a private conversation, he said, “for years UNHCR has been telling us to resettle the world’s most vulnerable refugees, but now you are asking us to admit those with the best skills and qualifications. No wonder we are confused.”
Since that workshop was held almost 15 years ago, the world’s most prosperous states have developed a more positive – if still somewhat cautious – attitude towards labour mobility programmes for refugees. As explained earlier, following the European refugee emergency of 2015-16, the industrialized states were increasingly receptive to the notion of channeling refugees and other migrants into safe and legal channels. At the same time, they were beginning to experience important gaps in their labour markets, and were willing to look for new sources of talent.
Pilot projects
Third, and as a result of these developments, a number of states, including Australia, Canada and the UK, have in recent years launched small-scale labour mobility initiatives, usually describing them as ‘pilot projects’. It is not easy to assess their effectiveness. All are still at an early stage of implementation. Academic interest in such programmes has been limited. They have been subjected to few independent evaluations, and much of the information about such programmes has been produced by organizations that have an interest in underlining their success and promoting their expansion.
There is a particular need for further research on the lived experience of refugees who have participated in mobility programmes, a theme that is largely absent from the existing literature. How, for example, did refugees get to know about these initiatives, and how simple or complicated was the recruitment process? What expectations and aspirations did refugees have on joining such programmes and to what extent were they fulfilled? Did they encounter any form of discrimination in the workplace and community, especially in terms of wages and access to public services?
To what extent have refugees recruited by means of such programmes been able to change jobs after arrival in their destination country? What happened to them once their initial employment contract came to an end? And has participation in a labour mobility initiative provided a smooth and secure path to long-term residency and naturalization?
Fourth, in assessing the case for their continuation and expansion, a number of considerations must be taken into account. On the positive slide of the balance sheet, there are evident benefits to be realized from arrangements that enable refugees to make use of and expand their human capital, and to do so in a way that averts the need for them to undertake irregular and dangerous journeys to distant countries that are hostile to undocumented arrivals.
Labour mobility programmes offer refugees an opportunity to escape from the frustrations that inevitably arise in situations of protracted displacement, especially those in countries where refugees are denied access to the labour market and other economic opportunities. By working, developing their skills and earning decent wages, they have the opportunity to send remittances back to relatives left behind in their country of origin or first asylum and, when the time is right, to return and contribute to the development of their homeland.
Scaling up
At the same time, there is a need to be realistic about the limitations and constraints of this approach to the refugee issue. The available evidence suggests that they will prove difficult to scale up, and that the proportion of the world’s refugees able to benefit from them will be very modest. Talent Beyond Borders, for example, the leading organization in this field, currently has around 130,000 people registered on its ‘talent catalogue’. But in the 12 years of its existence it has been able to place just 2,200 refugees in jobs.
Looking to the future, there is a risk that the growth of such programmes will be curtailed by the growing hostility of many prosperous states to the presence of refugees, even if they arrive in an authorized manner, as well as the economic downturn that seems likely to be prompted by the US-Israeli attack on Iran.
The procedures required to establish, administer and monitor labour mobility programmes for refugees appear to be quite complex and costly, especially when calculated on a per capita basis. As they are currently designed, only refugees with a good command of English or another international language will have access to them. To facilitate their expansion, more work will be needed to ensure that the qualifications gained by refugees in their country of origin or first asylum are recognized by destination states.
Finally, while labour mobility programmes for refugees might in some respects be regarded as a welcome form of responsibility-sharing, they can also be seen as a way in which the world’s most prosperous countries deprive some especially deprived communities in the developing world of their most highly-skilled and best educated members. And it is for that reason that the potential for South-South labour mobility programmes for refugees should be explored, a notion pioneered – albeit unsuccessfully – by the Organization of African Unity more than 50 years ago.
Removing barriers
At the same time, greater efforts are required to remove the barriers that prevent refugees from accessing work permits and jobs in their countries of asylum. In too many cases, governments make this difficult if not impossible, clinging to the idea that decent jobs should be reserved for the country’s citizens, and that refugees who are able to support themselves will never go back home.
There is also a lack of clarity with respect to the way that labour mobility programmes relate to the established legal and normative framework for refugee protection and solutions. To what extent do the participants in such programmes have an opportunity to remain and acquire the citizenship of the country to which they have been recruited? Do refugees who find jobs in this way have the right to take their family members with them or to be reunited with them after a reasonable period of time? Is there a risk, as some legal experts have suggested, that refugees who have completed their employment contract in a destination country might be refused readmission to their country of asylum, or be sent back to danger in their country of origin?
Finally, if they are to prove both effective and equitable, labour mobility programmes must recognize that refugees have rights and needs that go well beyond the world of work. It is, of course, a great advantage for a refugee to arrive in a new country with a visa, a work permit and an employment contract.
But the potential of such programmes will not be fulfilled unless adequate attention is given to the longer-term settlement process, enabling refugees who are recruited in this way to become integrated members of the societies that they have joined. While the support of employers, governments and international organizations will be vital, labour mobility programmes for refugees will also require the active engagement of local authorities, public services and civil society institutions.
Dr Jeff Crisp is affiliated to the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, and the Refugee Law Initiative. He was Formerly Head of Policy Development and Evaluation at UNHCR.
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