Refugees and Humanitarian Support in the Global South: Challenges in Repatriation and Social Cohesion

At the end of 2022, 108.4 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide due to conflict, persecution, and human rights violations and 35.3 million were refugees. Low and middle-income countries hosted 76% of these refugees and others needing protection and shelter. This has created substantial economic and other pressure on the host countries. In many cases, the sympathetic attitude of the host communities has turned into dissatisfaction and tension, for example, in the case of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and other neighboring countries. Growing funding constraints are also evident and put stress on the economies of low and middle-income countries, with existing economic challenges, in managing refugees.

Moreover, refugee repatriation halted for many years in several country contexts, putting the lives of refugees in uncertainty in host countries. Despite all these difficulties, social integration has been another possibility to provide better living conditions, while peaceful co-existence between the host and refugee community has become a concern. Under such a context, this Research Topic aims to bring together original scholarly articles to understand these conditions in various locations in the Global South.

This Research Topic aims to address the critical and challenging areas of refugee management from host community perspectives in the Global South. The article collection mainly focuses on bringing out the experiences of the host countries in the Global South on various pertinent areas of refugee management. Understanding the perspectives of host communities in the Global South is essential as they are hosting the largest forcibly displaced population worldwide. This would also provide a scope for identifying and addressing the needs and gaps of refugee management in the Global South.

The Research Topic calls for original papers mainly from three broader areas. First is refugee management; how do the host country communities deal with different socio-economic challenges, including governance of refugees and managing international humanitarian aid? Second is repatriation with dignity; how do the host communities address and negotiate with the source countries for voluntary, dignified and safe repatriation? Third is social cohesion with the host community; how is the idea of peaceful co-existence or integration addressed? Finally, what lessons can be learned from various countries' perspectives on refugee management? In addressing these areas, we are particularly interested in receiving original evidence-based/ primary research-based articles from various contexts of the Global South and beyond.