2016 Solutions Alliance Annual Report

The Solutions Alliance is pleased to share its 2016 Annual Report summarising the past year's operational and policy engagements and governance reform. The Report provides an overview of activities and an approach for building on the momentum provided by the numerous new policies and initiatives endorsed in 2016.

> Read the Report

December 2016 Governing Board meeting

9 December 2016: The Solutions Alliance Governing Board recently met to review the new mechanisms and frameworks that emerged from 2016 events. Given this evolving context, the Board agreed to use 2017 to calibrate the work of the Solutions Alliance and develop an interim one-year strategy for 2017 to guide the Solutions Alliance through this transition.

> Review the summary of the meeting

Solutions Alliance Technical Support:

Informing a Displacement-Sensitive Development Plan for Turkey

19-20 October 2016: The Head of Secretariat, Niels Harild, led discussions during a workshop entitled, “Forced Displacement and Development”, organised in Ankara by the ICMPD. The event provided 40 Turkish officials an opportunity to learn more on how to effectively include displaced persons within their country’s development planning.

The Solutions Alliance plans to continue expanding its expert and technical services to better support actors responding to displacement.

> More information on the workshop

Engaging the Private Sector:

Town Hall Meeting on Entrepreneurship

& Migration

15 November 2016: Members of the Solutions Alliance Engaging the Private Sector Thematic Group - including representatives from SPARK and UNDP - presented their work during a Town Hall Meeting on Entrepreneurship and Migration. The event was composed of two panels on supporting self-reliance and entrepreneurship among those effected by displacement and marked Global Enrepreneurship Week.

> Find out more about the event

"Yes" In my Backyard? The Economics of

Refugees & Their Social Dynamics in

Kakuma, Kenya

February 2017: The World Bank and UNHCR recently released an "eye-opening" study analysing the economic and social impact of refugees in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp on their Turkana hosts. Giving the Solutions Alliance perspective, Niels Harild adds the following:

"This economic analysis is an important part supporting the emergence of a long-term visionary and courageous policy towards refugees in the Kakuma area. This policy encourages new refugees to be self-reliant from the start and promotes socio economic development in the area benefiting both host communities and refugees. This would reduce needs for humanitarian support and allow UNHCR to focus on core protection issues and to use its life-saving resources where most needed. It would allow refugees a meaningful life until they return and the host community will see long-term benefits for their hospitality and the host government would see economic development in an impoverished remote area. This is truly innovative and important for global refugee policy evolution."

> Read the report online

Updates related to Forced Displacement

Events

European Migration Forum, European Commission and the European Economic and Social Committee, Brussels, 2-3 March 2017
Beyond Crisis: Rethinking Refugee Studies, Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford, 16-17 March 2017
Bond Conference 2017, London, 20-21 March 2017

Documents

Forcibly Displaced: Toward a Development Approach Supporting Refugees, the Internally Displaced, and Their Hosts, World Bank, September 2016
Inter-Agency Durable Solutions Initiative: Profile and Response Plan of Protracted IDP Settlements in Herat, Afghanistan, October 2016
Refugee Economies: Forced Displacement and Development, University of Oxford, November 2016
Accessing 'Home' - Refugee Returns to Towns and Cities: Experiences from Côte d'Ivoire and Rwanda, Church World Service, December 2016
Early Solutions Planning in Displacement: What can be done to promote, support and facilitate solutions processes in the early stages of displacement?, IRC & ReDSS, December 2016