Refugee resettlement: global dynamics, local challenges

Event overview

Around 22.5 million people around the world have been displaced across international borders by armed conflict, persecution or human rights violations. UNHCR estimates that two thirds of this population have been living in long-term, protracted displacement. For these refugees, and others with certain vulnerabilities, resettlement is the only opportunity for permanent settlement in a country that can meet their protection needs. But only a small fraction of them are resettled each year. In 2016, for instance, of the estimated 1.5 million refugees in need of resettlement, less than 190.000 were resettled. This accounts for roughly 16 percent of refugees who needed resettlement and for about one percent of refugees in total.

Resettlement programs are constrained by national politics, as exemplified by the reduction in places offered by the US, historically the largest country of resettlement. Refugees who have been referred to resettlement have to meet often stringent entry requirements, go through long periods waiting in countries of asylum, and face sometimes challenging conditions upon reception in countries of resettlement.

For this Breakfast Briefing, Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre with the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations invite you to a discussion on the global dynamics and local challenges of refugee resettlement. We will ask; what is it like to be a refugee undergoing resettlement?  Who is resettled, how, when and why? And what are the challenges and opportunities posed by refugee resettlement for Coventry and the rest of the UK?

Speakers:

• Abdulmunem Radwan | Community Participation Officer, Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre
• Professor Michael Collyer |University of Sussex
• Amanda Salomonsson |Resettlement and Integration, International Organisation for Migration (IOM)

The event will be chaired by Toni Soni, acting Director of Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre

To book your place or for any further information please email events.CTPSR@coventry.ac.uk. For directions see here.