Updated October 2026: this post was first published in March 2020 to announce the paper. We have expanded it with a summary drawn from the paper’s executive summary.
By 2019 Ethiopia was in the middle of a major change in how it supports refugees. The government made policy pledges in 2016, issued a roadmap in 2017, drafted the ten-year National Comprehensive Refugee Response Strategy (NCRRS) in 2018, and passed a new Refugees Proclamation in February 2019. In December 2019 it was one of five co-hosts of the Global Refugee Forum. This synthesis paper reviews publicly available research to help refugee stakeholders in Ethiopia build a shared, evidence-based understanding of how to support displacement and durable solutions processes, organised around the objectives of the NCRRS. It was produced in partnership with the Rift Valley Institute, guided by a technical advisory group of ARRA, UNHCR, UNICEF, the World Bank, the British Government, the European Union, DRC, ACF and SOAS, and funded by the European Union.
The refugee situation in 2019
In November 2019 Ethiopia hosted 705,820 refugees. Most live in peripheral regions, often sharing ethnicity, language and kinship with communities across the border. An encampment policy has applied since the 1960s and 1970s, and the out-of-camp policy introduced in 2010 benefited Eritrean refugees almost exclusively and did not include the right to work.
The four NCRRS objectives
- Enhancing capacity and systems to manage sustainable responses for refugees and host communities.
- Making sure refugees and host communities can access and benefit from economic, livelihood and job opportunities.
- Strengthening the capacities of refugees and hosts through better access to water, sanitation and hygiene, nutrition, quality education and health services.
- Gradually increasing shared responsibility for, and opportunities to achieve, voluntary repatriation and resettlement.
What the evidence says across the board
Several themes run through the literature. Formal policy and practice diverge, and practice varies by location. Local realities differ by region, refugee group and even camp, so one-size-fits-all answers mislead, and the term “host communities” may hide more than it explains. Most policy is designed in Addis Ababa or abroad, and the views of refugees and hosts are underrepresented. Discussion has focused on what the reform involves rather than how it will happen, leaving changes in roles, accountability and financing unclear. Coordination at policy and implementation levels is inadequate, and research is often done without reference to other work, with data disaggregated inconsistently.
Where the research gaps are
Research coverage is uneven across the four objectives. Livelihoods (objective 2) is the most studied, but needs a coordinated framework, more private sector engagement and a better balance between the formal and informal economy. Work on services (objective 3) concentrates on education, leaving health, child protection, nutrition and water and sanitation under-researched, along with governance models for integrated services. Repatriation and resettlement (objective 4) needs research with refugees on their choices and aspirations. Capacity and systems (objective 1) is the least researched of all: capacity assessments, accountability and governance models that include refugee voices, and the financing of the shift from humanitarian to development funding are largely missing. Geographically, Afar, Benishangul-Gumuz and Gambella are under-researched while the Somali Region is the most studied. Key concepts, including self-reliance, local integration and sustainability, still need to be defined in the Ethiopian context.
Towards a common research agenda
The paper recommends government leadership of the research agenda, with ARRA coordinating partners and priorities, and a shared understanding of the key concepts. It calls for minimum standards for refugee-related research covering consultation, ethics, transparency, dissemination and data disaggregation; greater participation of local populations, designed to avoid research fatigue; varied dissemination, including an online research portal; a central data repository with privacy safeguards; and a flexible common framework for joint monitoring, evaluation and studies. Researchers, it argues, should consider how their work links to wider research and policy. The paper also serves as an entry point to the literature it reviews, all of which is listed in the government’s Knowledge Management Database, developed with ReDSS support.
Read the full report and the executive summary.
References
ReDSS (2020). Towards a common research agenda: a synthesis paper to inform implementation of the Global Compact on Refugees in Ethiopia. Executive summary. Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat. https://www.regionaldss.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Towards-a-common-research-agenda-EXTRACT.pdf
