Abstract
Cities, towns and urban areas host a majority of 25 million global refugees. In case of the Syrian civil war, of the 5 million Syrians who have fled the country, 85 per cent settled in and around urban centres. Most Syrians reside in the region, with up to 2 million living in Lebanon and Jordan.
As the average duration of displacement is lengthening, what are the effects on the wellbeing of urban refugee and host populations, and how are these effects mediated? This seminar will present findings from a recently completed systematic review study for Jordan and Lebanon. It investigates diverse ‘modalities of reception’ governing legal status, housing and economic participation, to highlight the key roles that public policy and practice play in generating gendered wellbeing outcomes. It further considers implications for an emerging urban humanitarian-development nexus.
Biography
Dolf te Lintelo is a Research Fellow and Co-leader of the Cities Cluster at IDS. Dolf’s research explores the governance and micro-political processes shaping formal/informal relationships in cities and the ways in which these affect poverty and wellbeing outcomes. Recent work includes analysis of: policy and everyday forms of regulation of street vendors in India; the wellbeing of informal workers in urban informal settlements in Bangladesh; and the ways in which modalities of reception in cities in Jordan and Lebanon shape wellbeing outcomes for Syrian refugees and host communities.
