Using data for social and economic inclusion: gender – Chad – private sector
Dear Colleagues,
On November 25th, the world commemorated the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, an initiative that reminds us that abuse of women is still dramatically widespread. Women are estimated to constitute around 47% of refugees and 52% of IDPs around the world, and many suffer from violence. Collecting and analyzing data on this vulnerable population group is both urgent and necessary, to guarantee a better understanding of their socioeconomic status and facilitate their inclusion in programs and policy interventions.
Very little is known on gendered dimensions of forced displacement, often leading to neglect or exclusion. To address this knowledge gap, the World Bank has conducted a new Research Program. We are pleased to dedicate JDC’s Fourth Quarterly Digest to the papers published from the Program, which include eight detailed country investigations and three multi-country studies covering 17 countries. The first part of the Digest discusses the results of four main areas of research (poverty, livelihood, intimate partner violence, and gender norms) while the second part offers summaries of twelve recent papers on the topic. As you read through the material, you will find both counter-intuitive and sometimes inconsistent results from one displacement context to the next, underscoring the importance of country- and sometimes even context-specific analysis.
Socioeconomic inclusion of those forcibly displaced remains an important, cross-disciplinary theme, and it is at the core of the upcoming UNHCR High-Level Officials Meeting. At the meeting, representatives will reflect on what it takes for refugees to achieve self-reliance, including through access to jobs, livelihoods and educational opportunities, and importantly, what are the preconditions necessary for that to happen.
Effectively, statistical recognition can prove to be a first, critical element for a more comprehensive inclusion of vulnerable populations. The newly released World Bank report “Refugees in Chad: The Road Forward”, prepared with the support of the Joint Data Center, aims to achieve this goal. Using data collected in 2018-2019, the report seeks to answer the question: “What can be done to help refugees rebuild their lives and become self-sufficient, and to create an environment in which refugees and host communities can thrive together?” The study proposes a comprehensive analysis of the welfare of refugees and host communities in Chad, and provides policy options to ensure immediate basic livelihoods for refugees in the short term and enhance sustainable income growth in the long term: an important endeavor conducted in a complex environment.
Indeed, better data and statistics is the basis for a new partnership between the IKEA Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and the Joint Data Center, with a focus on economic and financial inclusion. The three of us firmly believe that private sector actors can play a pivotal role in the development of new opportunities for displaced persons and their hosts, but to do so they need better socioeconomic data. Entrepreneurs and investors need to understand the local market and business dynamics in specific displacement contexts, to assess nonfinancial risks, purchasing power, and to understand the skills and employability of these populations.
As always, we welcome feedback and suggestions on the Newsletter, for future editions of the Quarterly Digest or papers to be included in the Literature Review Update. Please don’t hesitate to contact Domenico Tabasso ([email protected]), Zara Sarzin ([email protected]) or myself ([email protected]) directly.
Yours sincerely,
Björn Gillsäter
Head of the Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement