Answering the Call: Forcibly Displaced During the Pandemic

This second issue of the JDC Working Paper Series on the welfare of Forced Displacement takes stock of what is known about the experience of forcibly displaced and their hosts during the pandemic. It summarizes projections of the expected socioeconomic impact of the pandemic on those affected by forced displacement, using data from simulations and scenarios developed by other researchers. The paper also highlights results from high frequency phone surveys – based on more than 90,000 interviews – covering eight country-level data collection exercises in Bangladesh, Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kenya, Uganda, and Yemen.

Surveys in these eight developing countries suggest that the socioeconomic wellbeing of both forcibly displaced and host populations have deteriorated in most countries during COVID-19. The forcibly displaced have suffered setbacks in health access, education, wages and employment, non-labor income, and food security.