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The CGD Podcast
Refugees, Displacement and Development: What Should the World Do? – Jim Yong Kim and David Miliband
00:20:33
More people are in need and for longer; that’s the global humanitarian crisis in a nutshell. Just before the World Humanitarian Summit, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim and the IRC's David Miliband discuss the blurring of the line between...
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- [00:05]
A
Hello, I'm Rajesh Merchandani and thanks for joining me for this edition of the CGD podcast. Refugees, Displacement and Development. What should the World Do? That was the title of an event we just held at CGD with World Bank President Jim Kim and David Miliband, the President and CEO of irc, the International Rescue Committee. The Syrian refugee crisis has brought into sharp relief the humanitarian challenges the world faces right now. In short, more people are in need and for longer. Some 60 million are displaced around the world. And the average time a person spends as a refugee is now somewhere between 10 and 20 years. In Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, for example, some of the 300,000 Somalis there are have never lived anywhere else. In Lebanon, Syrian refugees now make up a quarter of the population. But even if the current ceasefire turns into peace, those Syrians are not going home anytime soon. Agencies are already spending money on shoring up Lebanon's creaking infrastructure, laying more water pipes, building schools. Wait, isn't that development? Our podcast today is an extract of the conversation I had with Jim Kim and David Miliband. You can watch the video of it on our website Events page. I, I started by asking Dr. Kim what the blurring of development and humanitarian response means for the World Bank.
- [01:32]
B
Raj, thank you for having us here and it's always great to be with David. David and I got together very soon after you took over and we talked about would it be possible for us to work together. And we sort of partly recognized that we were in different worlds. And now of course, we're here together because there is the sense that these worlds have to have to at least talk to each other and then come together in some way that's still not completely clear. But let's go back to the history. So it started out that the International bank for Reconstruction and Development was founded to rebuild Europe. But then the Marshall Plan happened and the Marshall Plan was, I'm sure people in here know what percentage of GDP it was. Anyone of US GDP, 2.7% of US GDP. So it was a massive effort and it worked. And so now you're saying, I mean, you're hearing in the world that maybe it's time to think about what are adequate resources to actually build back these fragile and conflict affected states in a way that will be much more sustainable over time. And maybe the issue is that we haven't invested enough in some of the development activities. Look, you know, we come to this with great humility. I mean, we were, you know, I visited the Dadaab camp in Kenya, but only because I was traveling with Secretary General Ban Kimu. We don't have any, as far as I know anyway, direct involvement in, in humanitarian relief in those camps. But it was the worst place I've ever seen. And I've worked in some of the poorest places. I mean, you know, central Haiti is pretty poor and the highlands of Lesotho is pretty poor. But I've never seen anything that was as stark as that camp. And I think the way the conversation is evolving is that we've gone from 2 billion to 20 plus billion from for humanitarian relief. And we hear that that's nowhere near enough. And if you look at overall ODA being 140 billion, it really forces us all to ask fundamental questions about what we're doing and whether we're ever going to reach the scale that we need to turn these situations around. Now, I say we come at this with humility because I'm not sure that development activities will affect conflict, will have an impact on fragility. Certainly I have no idea whether it will impact extremism. And yet when I just was in Tunisia, there was the very strong sense from the leaders there that the reason six to seven thousand Tunisians have gone on to join ISIS in Libya is because there's no hope, there's no opportunity. The private sector is a mess. They need some sense that their lives are gonna lead somewhere. So that sounds like stuff that we would do. I mean, we work in both the public and the private sector. We are very focused on job creation and everywhere we work. But I think the conversation is still at an early stage. We want to get it, let me put it this way, in order to end poverty and boost share prosperity, we have to deal with fragility and conflict. Our ida, the fund that everyone knows is for the poorest countries, we made a commitment this year that we're going to put 50% of IDA into fragile and conflict affected states, which is a huge increase for us. But it's also a realization that if we don't address these issues, we'll never reach those goals.
- [04:43]
A
Okay, David Middleband, from the perspective of an organization that does work on humanitarian crises, what are the implications of this kind of changing or this blurring between humanitarian relief and development response to you for your organisation? What does it actually mean to bridge that gap?
- [04:56]
C
First of all, I want to say it's an enormous pleasure and privilege to be on a panel with Dr. Kim. I mean, his leadership of the World bank and his ability to rethink its Role and purpose as the facts change around the world is really, I think, exemplary and inspiring. I think we're here together for two reasons, and it's really important to understand the interplay of those two reasons. The first is that 43% of the world's extreme poor now live in conflict and fragile states. And the mandate of the World bank is to tackle poverty. So the geography of poverty has changed fundamentally in the last 15 years. And that's the reason I asked to go and see the president when I started my job at the International Rescue Committee two and a half years ago, that to care about poverty means that there needs to be a care about fragile and conflict states. But the second reason we're here is not about the purpose of a development institution or the purpose of a humanitarian institution. It's to do with the tools that are used. And you said in your introduction, Regis, some really important things about the scale of humanitarian crisis. But for me, that's not actually the main driver that is bringing humanitarians and development people together. The big driver is that the conditions in which humanitarian crisis are taking place and the conditions in the humanitarian conditions in which people are living are changing. So the duration of displacement, which you referred to in passing, 17 years for an average refugee, I think 80% of internally displaced are now out of their own homes for over 20 years. The duration of displacement is changing. The locus of displacement is changing. So we all talk about camps, we or people, the iconic image of a refugee as a camp. But 59% of refugees are in urban areas. So the question of the tools that humanitarians have at their disposal can't be confined to those that the humanitarian sector has developed over the years. We've got to rethink the way in which we do our work. And above all, we've got to think about the balance between social and economic intervention. And I'd go as far as to say that there can't be a sustainable social policy program that has 17 years of duration unless it has an economic component.
- [07:07]
A
Dr. Kim, what is the World bank doing and going to do to respond? What are the new initiatives? What can you tell us about?
- [07:16]
B
You know, Rajesh, as I said, we come to this with great humility. We're new to this world, and so we're learning from organizations like David's. We have been working very closely with unhcr. It started under Antonio Guterres, and Antonio came to us when he was there and said, basically, we're mostly a bunch of lawyers and we're now engaged in development activities that we have no qualifications for. So that kind of brutal honesty was very helpful. And so we're beginning to take steps together in parts of Africa and South Sudan and other places. And I think many of the actors, I hope, are understanding that as we come in, it's not about fighting over resources, it's about expanding the resources that we, that we have. I mean, what, what we do is we leverage. We're, we're, we're an institution that actually has a balance sheet. We have a triple A rating, one of the best in the world, that we can go out to capital markets and raise large amounts of money at relatively very low interest rates. You take that with some of the grant based funding that is available, then you can stretch the dollars and potentially have a much, much larger impact. So that's one of the things we're doing, is financing. I think we, you know, in Jordan we're doing, we're trying to create these special economic zones where we would create jobs both for the Syrian refugees and Jordanians and potentially create a sort of industrial base that may provide all kinds of things to Syria once the peace process is completed, which we hope is as soon as possible. So financing, you know, creating jobs, special economic zones, we will do that. But I think the key is that we need to work with organizations like David's to share risk analysis. And this is something we haven't done. We haven't been very collaborative about talking to each other about where are the places that we think need investment quickly, where in fact, upstream investments in economic development could blunt the potential of conflicts and increasing fragility. I think that we have to have a very different conversation about how to actually try to solve these problems. I think what's happened is that there's been this competition. Humanitarian response is something that tugs at people's heartstrings. And so, you know, I've had this experience in Haiti for a very long time where there, you know, before the earthquake there were 9,000 NGOs in Haiti. And after the earthquake there were very few that were actually functional because, you know, people like to go to Haiti because the images are so stark and they can raise money. But humanitarian response requires us to be as rigorous and evidence based as we can possibly be. And some of the big ones, like David's group, right, they are tackling it more like this is not just sort of charity, that we're such nice people. We go to all these places and we hand out little things. I think we have to be hard on ourselves and ask tough questions about what do we know about things that have worked and things that have not worked?
- [10:22]
C
This point about tough questions is so refreshing and so important and I'm not sure people, I think we need to dramatize it for people. The humanitarian sector doesn't have agreed outcomes for what it's trying to achieve. There is no outcomes framework. The UN Secretary General's report in February called One Humanity was very significant because it referred 60 times to the need for collective outcomes. Even if you look at the sustainable development goals, 17 goals, 179 targets, there isn't a target for education for kids displaced by conflict, there isn't a target for protection for women and girls displaced by conflict. There isn't a target in respect of health. And the danger of so called inclusiveness or universality is that those in greatest need get left behind. So this point about lack of outcomes for people, I don't like to say actually humanitarian sector versus development sector for people in humanitarian need, no collective outcomes. Dr. Kim's point about evidence is just crucial. There have been 2,000 impact evaluations or equivalent studies in development settings since 2006, driving improvements in health, malaria, et cetera, et cetera. Less than 100 in humanitarian settings. So as we construct at IRC, our outcomes and evidence framework, all of our programs will be geared towards survival, health, education, income, and also the power of the beneficiary. And our evidence framework. There's huge gaps in the evidence framework. A desperate lack of strategic investment in evidence making that allows us to drive funding into the highest productivity, highest impact.
- [11:57]
A
What are you?
- [11:58]
C
Well, just so well, we do 40% of all the research and high impact evaluations that have been done in the humanitarian sector, but we're not funded for it properly. And so a sector of the global economy that's a $25 billion sector is not investing in the evidence base that allows us, and maybe this is because of my background in politics, we can't say to the taxpayers that all of our programs are currently evidence based or evidence generating. That's the commitment that we've made in irc. Our commitment is that all, all of our programs will become evidence based or evidence generating because I think that's the only defensible basis on which to be programming. But thirdly, and equally importantly, the third tough question, efficiency is important, but effectiveness is more important. And we say on our website, 93 cents of every dollar goes into programs and in a way that's a crude measure of efficiency and that's fine. But where is the discussion about cost effectiveness that links the inputs to real outcomes and the holy grail of effective public policy is cost effectiveness, not just cost efficiency. And what is opened up by the conversation that Dr. Kim has entered is that those tough questions are going to be addressed by people who know the value of being clear about outcomes, evidence and cost effectiveness. Because around the world over the last 20 years there's been a, I don't know if you'd say a revolution, but there's been a major change in the way poverty has been tackled in stable settings. And we need that same kind of rigorous in humanitarian settings. You said it's not just about virtue, it's not just about being big hearted, it's about being hard headed. And the reason for being hard headed is not because we're desiccated calculating machines. It's because we care about the people who we're actually trying to help. And we want to put our money into the things that will really make a difference for us.
- [13:35]
B
Let me give you one example of this. So you know, we've done study after study after study on the so called conditional cash transfer programs. And when I got into the bank, I asked why do we have so many studies on conditional cash transfer? And, and the honest one said it's because it was so controversial. The idea of actually putting money into the hands of poor people was controversial at the bank. That's not what you do. So study after study after study showed that not only did they have better nutrition, but it actually stimulated the local economy. Children were in school, there were so many good outcomes. The empowerment of women, there's so many good outcomes that now they're in 64 countries. Probably 25 years ago, when I was a protester against the World bank, that was not something that they did right. So the evidence has shifted the work. Now if you look at the humanitarian field, the data I have is that only 6% of all the $25 billion goes directly into the hands of refugees themselves. Now what does that mean when we know how effective it is to just get cash into the hands of local people? I'm not sure.
- [14:44]
A
Later on, the conversation turns to the response of governments around the world to refugee situations. Many European countries have restricted entry or rights to refugees, while Kenya just announced plans to close the Dadaab refugee camp that's operated for more than two decades. Here's what David Miliband thinks about the role of governments.
- [15:04]
C
If it's just about what governments do, it won't happen and it won't work. The truth is that for governments in developing countries but also frankly, for governments in the so called developed world. There's very difficult politics around this, let's not kid ourselves. Very, very difficult politics. And the only way to create some dignity for the refugees and some hope for the local communities, because Dr. Kim's point is incredibly important. The poverty rate in the Turkana region of Kenya, which is in the northwest, where the Kakuma refugee camp is it 92%. I went there last week as well. The poverty around Dadaab is high, higher outside the camp than inside the camp. So let's not forget this. The only way out of this is to make is to create a win win. And the only way to create a win win is to bring resource in from the outside. And that resource can't just be, quote, unquote, more aid. It has to be a different kind of financing. That is the significance of Dr. Kim's entry into this terrain because it creates a new equation that is an equation for refugees and for host communities who are living in a particular place. And the way I would frame it is that the political challenge is to align short term help for refugees with medium term help for the local or national economy and community. If you can't align those two things, then you're not going to get a deal. And so I think that we have to be very, very careful about how we play this. For example, the Kenyan government announced last week that it wants to close the refugee camp. The immediate obvious reaction is that would be a terrible thing because there are 360,000 people in Dadaab. But then you're in a situation where the government is saying let's change a dysfunctional local arrangement and we end up in a situation saying no, no, no, we want to keep the camp. That's not a good discussion to have. What I said was, is there something better? And if it's a conversation about what we as people who are trying to serve refugees and the government of Kenya as people are trying to serve the people who elect them, we should be in common cause going to people like Dr. Kim and saying, or donors and saying we need a different kind of deal. And I can't emphasize enough this point that we've got to get out of a more aid mantra and into a better aid mantra. It's incredibly important because everyone truly knows that the cycle that leads to 25 years of hopelessness for people in Dadaab is not good for Kenya, but it's not good for the refugees either. And the vacancy and sense of loss. I mean, I'll never forget this widow I spoke to last Wednesday, she's got two kids, she's a widow. She arrived in Dadaab refugee camp at the age of two in 1992. So she must be 26 now. She's never lived anywhere else. She's never been in a cash economy. She actually never got any education because there was very little education when she was there. The hopelessness there is just absolutely unending and that's going to take a real imagination to fix.
- [18:08]
B
You know, we're having a conversation right now with the US government and leaders and President Obama in particular has said we need a new platform to be able to support both middle income and poor countries who are dealing with refugee crises and think about it differently. In other words, you know, take whatever cash is available, but then not just sort of make countries more indebted, but use concessional financing to try to create economic opportunities, for example. And we've never had that conversation. I mean the notion of using to for example, crowd in some private capital in that region to create jobs, we've not had that conversation because it's been two separate ones. It's been the development conversation, it's been the humanitarian conversation about Tadaab. The hope is that that the World Humanitarian Summit and this new spirit of working together to try to solve this enormous problem will lead everyone to bring all their tools to the table, all their experiences to the table and we'll come up with ideas that we hadn't thought of before. My sense is it's possible it happened in Jordan and now we're looking at creating special economic zones in Lebanon as well. And if we can continue to innovate and it's not really doing new things, it's just doing things in ways in particular situations that have done in other places but that have just never been thought of as a way of responding to the problem of forced displacement.
- [19:35]
A
World Bank President Jim Kim there and before him, David Miliband, President of the irc, speaking at a recent CGD event on refugees, Displacement and development ahead of the World Humanitarian Summit. CGD's own ideas for how to do better for refugees can be found on our website. Look out for our report co published with ODI on giving more aid as cash to refugees. It's called Doing Cash Better. And also for a recent blog suggesting a humanitarian investment fund as a financial mechanism to turn ordeal into opportunity for those who fled and the countries that would benefit from taking them in. That's all@cgdev.org thanks for listening. I'm Rajesh Merchandani and join me again for the next podcast from the center for Global Development.