Statement by António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, on World refugee day 2021.
War, violence and persecution have forced more than 80 million people around the world to flee their homes, leaving everything behind to save themselves and their families. Refugees must begin their lives anew. But for so many, the pandemic has wiped out their livelihoods, led to stigmatization and vilification and exposed them disproportionately to the virus. At the same time, refugees once again demonstrated their invaluable contribution to their adoptive societies as essential and frontline workers. We have a duty to help refugees rebuild their lives. COVID-19 has shown us that we can only succeed if we stand together. On World Refugee Day, I call on communities and governments to include refugees – in health care, education, and sport. We heal together when we all get the care we need. We learn together when we are all given the chance to study. We shine together when we play as a team and respect everyone. On World Refugee Day, I commend the countries that have welcomed refugees. But we need more support – from States, the private sector, communities and individuals – if we are to move together towards a more inclusive future, free of discrimination. The refugees I have met have shown me what it means to rebuild your own life while summoning the strength to enrich the lives of others. As High Commissioner for Refugees for 10 years, I was inspired by their courage, resilience and determination. I thank refugees and displaced persons across the world and reiterate my personal admiration for what they have taught us all about the power of hope and healing. This World Refugee Day and every day, we stand together with refugees.
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.
Highly Vulnerable Yet Largely Invisible, World Bank – UNHCR JointData Center working paper series. December 2020.
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
YUKO UÉBAYASHI (1958 -) Songs of Five Continents for the UN Chamber Music Society (World Premiere)
Professor Carol Wincenc (Flute Solo)
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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