Background paper: COVID-19 in the context of forced displacement: perspectives from the Middle East and East Africa
This background paper presents considerations on how the COVID-19 pandemic is accentuating existing vulnerabilities of populations forcibly displaced by war (refugees, asylum-seekers, internally-displaced and stateless persons), in settings across East Africa and the Middle East. In addition to the devastating health threat the pandemic poses, lockdown measures imposed by governments to reduce transmission are having outsized effects on forcibly displaced populations, further entrenching poverty, xenophobia and creating new humanitarian protection issues. With the exceptional physical distancing requirements of this pandemic adding impetus to a global drive towards the localisation of humanitarian responses, the authors also describe some of the local responses to COVID-19 mounted by forcibly displaced communities and humanitarian actors early in the epidemic. The paper ends by offering suggestions for how greater inclusion could help address vulnerabilities of displaced people to COVID-19.
This paper offers the following recommendations on how humanitarian agencies and governments can support local actors during this pandemic to reduce vulnerabilities created by COVID-19:
- Promote holistic public health responses which address multiple vulnerabilities related to COVID-19.
- Use research to tailor responses.
- Adopt a whole-of-society approach to COVID-19.
- Support organisations led by forcibly displaced people.
- Support local peace-making and ceasefire efforts.