Unlocking protracted displacement: an Iraqi case study
Dawn Chatty, Nisrine Mansour
The displaced from Iraq now constitute one of the largest refugee populations worldwide. Of the officially estimated 4.5 million displaced Iraqis, about 1.7million are refugees (UNHCR 2010c) and 2.8 million (IDMC 2009, 2010) are internally displaced within their own country. Unlocking this protracted crisis of displacement requires analysis of the perceptions of solutions, durable and not-so-durable, among all stakeholders: Iraqi refugees and exiles, international humanitarian aid agencies, national NGOs and host governments. New approaches to durable solutions mean both revising failed efforts and testing those untried. This study focuses on the local-level perceptions of practitioners, policy makers and Iraqi refugees in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. It is based on desk research and interviews in the field in April and May 2011.