FORUM: 'TOGETHER WE CAN ACHIVE EVERYTHING" World Refugee Day 2021.
Measuring the socio-economic fallout of COVID-19 on displaced populations.
COVID-19 exposed the lack of timely, robust and operationally relevant data on household socioeconomic welfare for most countries – and the need for a way to collect these in the new environment created by the pandemic. In response, soon after the onset of the pandemic, the World Bank launched an ambitious initiative to collect nationally representative socio-economic data using high-frequency monitoring surveys using mobile phones. In turn, the World Bank–UNHCR Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement (JDC) explored the feasibility of expanding these household panel surveys of national populations to include statistically representative subsamples of forcibly displaced households.
The JDC was inaugurated in October 2019 to synergize World Bank and UNHCR work on data. Specifically, it seeks to facilitate collection,analysis and dissemination of anonymized primary socio-economic microdata on forcibly displaced populations and their hosts. An extended report on these data is expected to be released around World Refugee Day 2021. Because the data are not harmonized, point estimates should not be compared between countries. Rather, the results here illustrate crosscountry trends that are substantively similar or dissimilar. panel surveys of national populations to include statistically representative subsamples of forcibly displaced households
As of April 2021, the JDC has supported analyses of COVID-related phone survey data in Bangladesh and Yemen, and data collection and analyses Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Iraq. Similarly, World Bank and UNHCR teams came together in Kenya130 and Uganda131 to conduct the phone survey on refugee households that is comparable to the respective national phone surveys. Local adaptations vary the timing, number of rounds and content of each survey wave across the eight countries.
The results from these seven countries are neither globally representative nor causal in their attribution of observed outcomes to the pandemic. Nevertheless, they aim to be as statistically representative of defined national and forcefully displaced populations in those countries as possible.While not conclusive, these timely, contemporaneous, high-quality socio-economic microdata are instructive in understanding the range of welfare challenges experienced during COVID-19. The pandemic’s effects are a function of individual and country initial economic conditions and drivers of displacement, so the experience of a particular displaced person or population may be inconsistent with these results. While the samples are representative of households that can be reached by mobile phone, most of the analyses apply re-weighting techniques to make the statistics as representative as possible of the full national and displaced populations, including those not reachable by phone.
General trends in this piece are based on all countries (of the seven) that had included the indicator in their public briefs; statistics presented from specific countries reflect the range of the countries’ experiences. Drawing on a conceptual model developed in a JDC working paper on the theorized socio-economic effects of COVID-19 on those affected by forced displacement, the results presented here follow indicators on income, living standards and coping strategies to give general trends and illustrative statistics on the range of experiences of displaced and host communities during the pandemic.
Socio-economic implications of COVID-19
Income loss
Displaced people are at risk of losing income from both labour and non-labour sources, such as assistance or remittances. Indeed, total income likely has decreased for large shares of displaced households in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Uganda and Yemen. But there is a wide range in the share of households affected. Compared to before the pandemic, 89 per cent of refugee households in Uganda reported reductions in total income, versus 27 per cent of those in Ethiopia.
Labour income: Host and forcibly displaced households experienced lower levels of employment and decreases in labour income during the pandemic. For nearly all countries analysed, employment rates among displaced populations were lower than among host communities. In Djibouti, for example, 83 per cent of national households’ main income earners worked in January 2021 compared to only 54 per cent of main income earners from the displaced sample. However, in Yemen, employment losses were similar for displaced and host households. In Iraq, unemployment among IDP households in camps was much higher than for hosts or IDPs not living in camps. Movement restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19 would likely have the largest economic fallout on employment and income for casual labourers and informal workers. Consequently, restrictions may have disproportionately affected forcibly displaced populations in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya, where a large share of workers are informal. Labour market recovery is uneven. In Ethiopia, the labour market has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels for nationals, but it is still 10 percentage points lower for refugees. Employment in Kenya saw a 7–10 percentage point increase in the five months ending in November 2020 for both hosts and refugees, but a 40-percentage point gap still remained between the two groups. And although Ugandans’ employment has returned to pre-lockdown levels, employment among refugees has not, even though refugees reported being more excluded from the labour market before the pandemic.
Non-labour income: Displaced households’ nonlabour income often waned during the pandemic. Remittance income generally decreased, but assistance income was more mixed. While still a main source of income in Djibouti and Ethiopia, remittances decreased after the onset of the pandemic for both refugee and host households. Nearly half of refugee households in Ethiopia received foreign remittances, but by September 36 per cent of those households had experienced a drop in the total value of those remittances. A similar scenario unfolded in Djibouti where 36 per cent of refugees in settlements received remittances and help from friends; of those, 32 per cent saw the value of those remittances decline. Government and international assistance also represent a large share of refugee and host nonlabour income, helping both groups cope with the socio-economic shocks associated with the pandemic. Government safety nets and international assistance programmes increased for most households in Ethiopia and Uganda. And while assistance in Ethiopia did decrease from September to October 2020 for refugees, it shrank for a far greater share of the national population.
Shocks and coping strategies Loss of labour and non-labour income places severe stress on households. Displaced households experienced harsh socio-economic shocks related to the pandemic and adopted different coping mechanisms across these eight countries surveyed. In Uganda, every refugee household suffered at least one negative shock in each round of data collection, compared to 42 per cent of Ugandans who did not experience any shock between March and June 2020. In Uganda as elsewhere, increases in the price of food items consumed was by far the most commonly experienced shock; employment, illness, and agricultural losses were also by some. Households generally coped with these shocks using three main strategies: (1) reduction in food and non-food consumption; (2) assistance from family and friends; and (3) assistance from government and nongovernment actors.
Lower living standards Reductions in food and non-food consumption were frequently reported by both displaced and nondisplaced households in all eight surveyed countries. Deficiencies in nutrition, health and education incurred during the pandemic may have long-term negative repercussions on the well-being of affected populations by impairing human capital formation. Food security: Access to food was a common concern for both forcibly displaced and host households throughout the pandemic in these countries. Host households were typically more likely to be able to access food than displaced households in Djibouti, Iraq, Kenya, Uganda and Yemen. Households pointed to decreases in income and increases in food prices over the pandemic period as the reasons for decreased food security in those countries. The persistence of food insecurity and inadequate diet may presage a severe, and possibly prolonged, impact of COVID-19 on health beyond direct infection. Families facing food shortages adopt elements of all three coping strategies. In Kenya, more than three quarters of refugee households reduced meals, and adults in half of refugee households went without food so that children could eat. Receiving assistance from personal networks was common in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Iraq and Uganda. And cash, food and food stamp assistance from governments, international partners and NGOs also played an important role in mitigating some of the negative effects of the pandemic – particularly for refugee households Djibouti, Ethiopia and Uganda. In Ethiopia, refugee households can purchase food items more readily than host households – likely as a result of the assistance refugees typically receive.
Education: The pandemic may also have long-lasting ramifications by sharply reducing access to education. Pandemic lockdowns restricted participation in learning activities for both host and displaced children in Ethiopia, Iraq and Uganda. Refugee children often showed remarkable resilience in keeping with their studies. The few displaced children enrolled in school prior to the pandemic were likely to continue engagement in educational activities. Prior to the pandemic, enrolment rates in Ethiopia were higher among the national population than among refugees; however, among all children previously enrolled, refugees were more likely to engage in learning activities during the pandemic. Still, refugee educational engagement dwindled as the pandemic wore on in Ethiopia. Only 1 in 5 host households with school-age children in Iraq were able to engage in any learning activities, yet they were still twice as likely to do so as IDP households. When countries begin to allow schools to reopen, that progress may be slow and uneven. A month after schools in Ethiopia started to reopen, less than 10 per cent of refugee households with school-age children indicated that their child’s school was open.
Health care: Displaced populations in all seven countries indicated significant challenges accessing health services when they needed it.
This is a clear public health concern – particularly during a pandemic. Displaced households typically faced greater challenges than non-displaced households in accessing medical care in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Iraq. Where such data were collected – Djibouti,. Ethiopia and Uganda – the “inability to pay” was overwhelmingly the most common reason given by both displaced and non-displaced households for why they could not access health care
Notwithstanding the many concurrent challenges faced by Yemen, Figure 32 suggests the influence of the pandemic on health care access is clearly visible. Prior to March 2020, the share of respondents with poor access to health care was on a downward trend for both IDPs and the host community, but the pandemic erased those gains with a 12-15 percentage point jump in March which only started to decrease at the end of the year.
Insights for data collection: Survey results during COVID-19 for these eight contexts have yielded four important observations regarding data collection and data systems: • In the face of large health and socio-economic shocks like the pandemic, the need for timely data on displaced populations is particularly acute. A shock’s repercussions frequently differ between displaced and host communities. Monitoring their welfare facilitates appropriately differentiated responses. • Flexibility while maintaining statistical rigour with phone surveys is possible – when the conditions are right. Reliable statistics require a robust sampling strategy, sampling frame and carefully derived weights. • The need to shift from face-to-face data collection during the pandemic demonstrated that highfrequency phone surveys can be a useful tool. These methods can be innovatively applied to collect data on difficult-to-reach populations and can reduce data production time and cost – although often at the expense of survey length and the inability to control the interview environment to pursue sensitive topics. Though not without significant challenges in overcoming sampling and selection bias, phone surveys are a useful complement to face-to-face surveys in filling data gaps. • Finally, an inclusive agenda in which forcibly displaced populations are integrated into data collected by national statistical systems can build capacity and make it possible to incorporate the needs of displaced populations into operational planning.
Looking forward:The pandemic has compounded immediate and longer-term challenges to household welfare. Phone survey data indicates well-being generally has deteriorated, sometimes drastically. Yet there is important variation across socio-economic indicators, countries and even across forcibly displaced groups within a country. Recovery from the pandemic is likely to be slow and, just as with its impacts, uneven across countries, populations and dimensions of well-being. The full extent of human and economic costs to households and countries may not be known for some time, but it will certainly be felt for years to come as the effects of income loss, food insecurity and foregone education reverberate for a generation
United Nations Chamber Music Society Virtual Concert in Celebration of World Refugee Day 2021
VIRTUAL GLOBAL LAUNCH:
Sunday, 20 June 2021
9:00am EST (New York Time)
4:00pm EEST (Amman, Jordan Time)
Watch the performance: United Nations
UN Global YouTube;
UN WebTV;
UNHCR Global Youtube;:
UNHCR Jordan Facebook.
On the occasion of World Refugee Day on Sunday, 20 June 2021, the UN Chamber Music Society of the United Nations Staff Recreation Council (UNCMS), in partnership with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), will hold a pre-recorded virtual concert, which will also be broadcasted in Jordan, which is home to hundreds of thousands refugees. Refugees and other displaced populations belong to the most marginalized and vulnerable members of society. They are particularly at risk during the time of the coronavirus disease outbreak, because they often have limited access to water, sanitation systems and health facilities.
Music is a symbolizes love and peace, and holds the power to highlight the plight of the refugees. In celebration of World Refugee Day, and in honour of the refugees all around the world, the music programme will open with music featuring Jordanian Singer, Leen Alfaqih; as well as the world premiere of the Songs of Five Continents for the UN Chamber Music Society, composed by Yuko Uébayashi, as well as beautiful repertoire composed and performed by classically trained Syrian musicians. Founded in 2016, the UNCMS is dedicated to promoting the UN goals at large - through the universal language of music.
Message
H.E. Mr. António Guterres
UN Secretary-General
Remarks
Filippo Grandi
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Melissa Fleming
UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications
UN Chamber Music Society
of the United Nations Staff Recreation Council
Brenda Vongova, Artistic Director
Featuring Syrian MUSICIANS and SPECIAL GUEST Artists
Leen Alfaqih (Jordanian Singer)
Carol Wincenc (Flutist) ● Yuko Uébayashi (Composer)
PROGRAMME
I. Opening
“Hadi Ya Bahr”
Leen Alfaqih (Jordanian Singer)
Brenda Vongova (Piano), Abigail Hong (Violin), James Kang (Viola), Derek Louie (Cello)
II. Hope for Refugees
Basilius Alawad (1994 - ) From a Refugee’s Memory (World premiere)
Basilius Alawad (Cello)
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873 - 1943) 2 Pieces, TN ii/22: No. 2 Romance in A Major
Amin Helou (Piano); Angela Boutros (Piano); Brenda Vongova (Piano)
III. Songs of Five Continents
Naoko Nakajima (Violin I), Hana Mundiya (Violin II), Noémie Chemali (Viola), Derek Louie (Cello), Logan May (Bass), Sooh Jeon (Flute), Lucian Avalon (Oboe), Chai Lee (Harp), Brenda Vongova (Piano)
SPECIAL THANKS
UN Department of Global Communications
UN Refugee Agency
UNHCR Jordan
UNHCR New York Office
Artwork of Poster:
Nabil Jubouri, Iraqi refugee artist in Amman
VERY SPECIAL THANKS
KlavierHaus
Sujatri Reisinger
Video Production of “Hadi Ya Bahr”
Dylan Louie, Director of Photography
Audio Production
VIRTUA CREATIVE
Edward Bilous, Artistic Director and Producer
Anran Qian, Music Editor
Keren Plowden, Production Coordinator
Greg Kalember, Mix Engineer
Video Editing
Rebecca Dixuan Bai, Video Editor
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Support the UN Refugees Agency by donating to
https://donate.unhcr.org/
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