Forced Migration in the OIC Member Countries:
Policy Framework Adopted by Host Countries
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2. Challenges and lessons on implementing poverty alleviation strategies in policy
and practice
Efforts to address vulnerabilities among refugee and asylum seeking populations have
encountered numerous difficulties, not the least of which is the strain such flows often place
on the services in asylum countries. The sheer scale of arrivals has been a challenge in many
countries. While well-functioning systems can cope with a certain level of increase in
demand,12 flows that spike suddenly or reach an unmanageable scale can push services to the
breaking point. Even before this occurs, forced migration flows have the potential to seriously
exacerbate existing weaknesses. Access to education has been particularly difficult for
refugees in Uganda, for example, in large part because school systems have long suffered from
a shortage of capacity to meet the needs even of native-born students. And in Sweden, refugee
flows have exacerbated an already acute housing shortage. More broadly, mainstream systems
are also challenged by refugee and asylum seekers’ unique needs. Interpretation services, for
example, may not be available, and schools may struggle to deal with the needs of language
learners or students with disrupted education backgrounds.
There is also a need for national policymakers to think about the sustainability of systems and
investments, particularly where international organizations and agencies have set up parallel
service systems to meet the additional needs of refugees. In the long term, investing in
national systems, where possible, may be more sustainable, and the availability of
international aid to assist with refugee crises may offer an opportunity to upgrade these
systems more broadly (thus benefiting both natives and refugees). However, investments
must be made in a sustainable way to ensure that services are able to function even after
international support leaves. The situation of Palestinians and UNRWA, which cannot function
without international donor support, offers a cautionary tale. Moreover, with the myriad of
actors and agencies involved in service provision at the national, local, and international
levels, coordination remains key to ensure that efforts aren’t duplicating existing investments.
Finally, many programs and services, particularly in the area of livelihoods, suffer from poor
evaluation and a broad lack of data. At the most basic level, data on the concrete numbers of
refugees and other forced migrants residing in a country are often in dispute. More detailed
demographic data on refugee populations—such as education levels or work histories—is
nearly impossible to find, particularly at the country level. While international organizations
have helped to fill some of these gaps with rapid needs assessments, particularly in emergency
situations, such data is usually limited to the communities targeted for assessments and not
comparable with assessments elsewhere in the country or in neighboring countries. Even less
longitudinal data is available to track the socioeconomic outcomes of refugee populations over
time, in part because refugees may not be included in national surveys (or such surveys may
simply not be available in the host country), making it difficult to evaluate the effects of
poverty alleviation efforts or protection policies over time. There is a need for more
systematic data collection both on refugee populations and on the effects of forced migration
on the communities where they live. Long-term evaluations that examine the actual effects of
programs and investments, not just the number of beneficiaries they serve or their
distribution goals, are essential to making smarter investments going forward.
12 Health care services in Sweden, for example, have reported that while demand has risen markedly, it has not yet had an
impact on their ability to provide timely and quality care.