Planning For Ukrainian Refugees

The UN reported this week that over 1.7 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded their free and independent country. Unlike the Syrian refugee crisis of recent years, European countries are, for the most part, welcoming these refugees with open arms. Most Ukrainians have crossed into Poland. The rest have gone to Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia, and other European countries.

Though the refugees are primarily women, children, and elderly who no doubt aspire to one day return to their homes, the reality is that many of these displaced Ukrainians will eventually come to rest, and start a new life, in cities across the continent. This means local governments will play a central role in the debate on how to plan the appropriate mix of shelters, homes, social spaces, and services for their new residents.

So how should these city governments prepare for this mission? 

The world is urbanizing, and so are refugees

Given the increase of refugee movement around the world since 2014, it’s important to begin by zooming out to review some key definitions and noteworthy trends about global forced migration.  

Not all forcefully displaced persons, or forced migrants, are the same. Refugees are persons who have received legal permission to permanently live in another country due to the threat of persecution in their country, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are persons who have forcibly been displaced from their home but seek refuge elsewhere within the same country. Asylum seekers, for their part, are persons who seeks refuge in a different country to their country of origin, but have not received legal status.

There are two trends worth noting about these displaced persons: they are increasingly winding up in urban centers, and they are spending considerable lengths of time in their settlements.

The unprecedented rate of global urbanization today is heightening the role of cities as safe havens for the world’s marginalized. This is particularly true for displaced populations, which by mid-2021 the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates to be more than 84 million, the majority of whom are making their way to cities for safety and economic opportunities. According to 2018 UNHCR data, 58 percent of refugees lived in urban areas, and at least 80 percent of internally displaced persons (IDPs) lived in urban areas. 

Furthermore, the term refugee camp typically connotes a temporary solution. However, refugees are spending significant periods of time in these camps. Therefore, the concept of permanence must be baked into local government planning. 

Cooper's Camp in West Bengal, India, for instance, was first established during the partition in 1947 when a large number of Hindus living in mainly Muslim East Bengal (now Bangladesh) fled across the border. Nearly 70 years on, Cooper's Camp is still home to some 7,000 people.

According to UNHCR, 60 percent of global refugees are in a protracted situation, meaning at least 25,000 refugees from the same country have been living in exile for more than five consecutive years. "Refugees’ camps should be considered more as urban settlements than as rows of shelters," says Rania Aburamadan and her team of researchers whose 2020 study challenges the notion that refugees living in camps are just temporary and transient.

The challenge

Zooming into the situation in Ukraine and Europe today, the scale and magnitude of the challenge ahead is staggering. Wojciech Bakun, mayor of Przemysl, a Polish border town just 8 miles from the Ukraine border, told CBS 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley on March 6 that his town of 60,000 has received an estimated 80,000 refugees since the war started. 

Even if many of these Ukrainian refugees move on to other cities or one day return to their home in Ukraine, Przemysl and other city governments will experience increased demand on existing city services and worsening strains on affordable housing markets, education systems, economic and job opportunities, and the healthcare system.

For recommendations on how cities like Przemysl can receive and integrate these displaced Ukrainians into their community, we can turn to this 2018 report by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development nongovernmental organization.

For starters, city government should "establish a permanent institutional mechanism focused on urban displacement - be it an annual budget line, municipal department, and/or dedicated staff – to address current displacement and plan for future arrivals," the report notes.

City government should also create welcoming institutions with clear messaging about programs and services available to displaced populations, and a budget to expand existing services and/or create new programs based on needs. To fund welcoming institutions, the IRC recommends that "city governments should seek to diversify their financial resources by intentionally pursuing funding opportunities from development banks, traditional and nontraditional humanitarian donors, and national funding sources."

Additionally, the IRC encourages city government to practice inclusive planning, with the main aim "to integrate displaced and marginalized residents as active members of local politics, economies, and society." For instance, city government could support and promote access to employment opportunities and entrepreneurship through trainings, and build links to local private sector and capital.

The 35-page report also provides recommendations on how private sector actors and international humanitarian actors can work with city government for collective action. 

The opportunity

Managing and integrating displaced populations can be challenging and costly, but done well it can have a positive impact on the local economy. 

For example, according to a city representative, New York City’s immigrant population is 38 percent of the overall population but constitutes 45 percent of its workforce. "While the New York City administration invests tens of millions of U.S. dollars in immigration legal services each year," the IRC report notes that "immigrants contributed $195 billion USD to the city’s gross domestic product in 2017."

When the IRC asked cities in their survey about the positive impacts that displaced populations bring to a city, 48 percent of cities cited an expansion of the local economy, 43 percent cited increased cultural diversity, and 40 percent cited an increased workforce.

Bottom line

As European cities welcome displaced Ukrainians, the reality of urban displacement requires an approach that places city government as a central actor, given its legitimacy to oversee the delivery of services within its jurisdiction. 

But city governments will not succeed alone. They will need to lean on financial support from development banks, work with traditional and nontraditional humanitarian actors, leverage European Union funding sources, and apply inclusive planning strategies that are laser-focused on integrating displaced Ukrainians as active members of local politics, economies, and society. 

That is to say, at least until our Ukrainian brothers and sisters have a chance to return to a once more free, independent, homeland.