industryterm:public services

#effondrement #collapsologie #catastrophe #fin_du_monde #it_has_begun #Anthropocène #capitalocène

On l’ajoute donc à la troisième compilation :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/680147

Ils se sont « trompés » pour l’empire romain... On peut le faire aller jusqu’en 1453 (prise de Constantinople).

L’Empire Byzantin alors ?
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/759085

Oui mais c’est le même empire. D’ailleurs les arabes au sud-est (et peut-être même les ottomans plus tard) les ont toujours appelés romain. Justinien a fait regrouper toutes leurs lois et décisions de justice en un livre (le Digeste). C’était les lois de ses prédécesseurs i.e. les empereurs romains.

A New Deal for Refugees

Global policies that aim to resettle and integrate displaced populations into local societies is providing a way forward.

For many years now, groups that work with refugees have fought to put an end to the refugee camp. It’s finally starting to happen.

Camps are a reasonable solution to temporary dislocation. But refugee crises can go on for decades. Millions of refugees have lived in their country of shelter for more than 30 years. Two-thirds of humanitarian assistance — intended for emergencies — is spent on crises that are more than eight years old.

Camps are stagnant places. Refugees have access to water and medical care and are fed and educated, but are largely idle. “You keep people for 20 years in camps — don’t expect the next generation to be problem-free,” said Xavier Devictor, who advises the World Bank on refugee issues. “Keeping people in those conditions is not a good idea.” It’s also hard to imagine a better breeding ground for terrorists.

“As long as the system is ‘we feed you,’ it’s always going to be too expensive for the international community to pay for,” Mr. Devictor said. It’s gotten more and more difficult for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to raise that money; in many crises, the refugee agency can barely keep people from starving. It’s even harder now as nations turn against foreigners — even as the number of people fleeing war and violence has reached a record high.

At the end of last year, nearly 70 million people were either internally displaced in their own countries, or had crossed a border and become a refugee. That is the largest number of displaced in history — yes, more than at the end of World War II. The vast majority flee to neighboring countries — which can be just as badly off.

Last year, the United States accepted about 30,000 refugees.

Uganda, which is a global model for how it treats refugees, has one-seventh of America’s population and a tiny fraction of the wealth. Yet it took in 1,800 refugees per day between mid-2016 and mid-2017 from South Sudan alone. And that’s one of four neighbors whose people take refuge in Uganda.

Bangladesh, already the world’s most crowded major nation, has accepted more than a million Rohingya fleeing ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. “If we can feed 160 million people, then (feeding) another 500,00-700,000 …. We can do it. We can share our food,” Shiekh Hasina, Bangladesh’s prime minister, said last year.

Lebanon is host to approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees, in addition to a half-million Palestinians, some of whom have been there for generations. One in three residents of Lebanon is a refugee.

The refugee burden falls heavily on a few, poor countries, some of them at risk of destabilization, which can in turn produce more refugees. The rest of the world has been unwilling to share that burden.

But something happened that could lead to real change: Beginning in 2015, hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees crossed the Mediterranean in small boats and life rafts into Europe.

Suddenly, wealthy European countries got interested in fixing a broken system: making it more financially viable, more dignified for refugees, and more palatable for host governments and communities.

In September 2016, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously passed a resolution stating that all countries shared the responsibility of protecting refugees and supporting host countries. It also laid out a plan to move refugees out of camps into normal lives in their host nations.

Donor countries agreed they would take more refugees and provide more long-term development aid to host countries: schools, hospitals, roads and job-creation measures that can help both refugees and the communities they settle in. “It looked at refugee crises as development opportunities, rather than a humanitarian risk to be managed,” said Marcus Skinner, a policy adviser at the International Rescue Committee.

The General Assembly will vote on the specifics next month (whatever they come up with won’t be binding). The Trump administration pulled out of the United Nations’ Global Compact on Migration, but so far it has not opposed the refugee agreement.

There’s a reason refugee camps exist: Host governments like them. Liberating refugees is a hard sell. In camps, refugees are the United Nations’ problem. Out of camps, refugees are the local governments’ problem. And they don’t want to do anything to make refugees comfortable or welcome.

Bangladesh’s emergency response for the Rohingya has been staggeringly generous. But “emergency” is the key word. The government has resisted granting Rohingya schooling, work permits or free movement. It is telling Rohingya, in effect, “Don’t get any ideas about sticking around.”

This attitude won’t deter the Rohingya from coming, and it won’t send them home more quickly. People flee across the closest border — often on foot — that allows them to keep their families alive. And they’ll stay until home becomes safe again. “It’s the simple practicality of finding the easiest way to refuge,” said Victor Odero, regional advocacy coordinator for East Africa and the Horn of Africa at the International Rescue Committee. “Any question of policies is a secondary matter.”

So far, efforts to integrate refugees have had mixed success. The first experiment was a deal for Jordan, which was hosting 650,000 Syrian refugees, virtually none of whom were allowed to work. Jordan agreed to give them work permits. In exchange, it got grants, loans and trade concessions normally available only to the poorest countries.

However, though the refugees have work permits, Jordan has put only a moderate number of them into jobs.

Any agreement should include the views of refugees from the start — the Jordan Compact failed to do this. Aid should be conditioned upon the right things. The deal should have measured refugee jobs, instead of work permits. Analysts also said the benefits should have been targeted more precisely, to reach the areas with most refugees.

To spread this kind of agreement to other nations, the World Bank established a $2 billion fund in July 2017. The money is available to very poor countries that host many refugees, such as Uganda and Bangladesh. In return, they must take steps to integrate refugees into society. The money will come as grants and zero interest loans with a 10-year grace period. Middle-income countries like Lebanon and Colombia would also be eligible for loans at favorable rates under a different fund.

Over the last 50 years, only one developing country has granted refugees full rights. In Uganda, refugees can live normally. Instead of camps there are settlements, where refugees stay voluntarily because they get a plot of land. Refugees can work, live anywhere, send their children to school and use the local health services. The only thing they can’t do is become Ugandan citizens.

Given the global hostility to refugees, it is remarkable that Ugandans still approve of these policies. “There have been flashes of social tension or violence between refugees and their hosts, mostly because of a scarcity of resources,” Mr. Odero said. “But they have not become widespread or protracted.”

This is the model the United Nations wants the world to adopt. But it is imperiled even in Uganda — because it requires money that isn’t there.

The new residents are mainly staying near the South Sudan border in Uganda’s north — one of the least developed parts of the country. Hospitals, schools, wells and roads were crumbling or nonexistent before, and now they must serve a million more people.

Joël Boutroue, the head of the United Nations refugee agency in Uganda, said current humanitarian funding covered a quarter of what the crisis required. “At the moment, not even half of refugees go to primary school,” he said. “There are around 100 children per classroom.”

Refugees are going without food, medical care and water. The plots of land they get have grown smaller and smaller.

Uganda is doing everything right — except for a corruption scandal. It could really take advantage of the new plan to develop the refugee zone. That would not only help refugees, it would help their host communities. And it would alleviate growing opposition to rights for refugees. “The Ugandan government is under pressure from politicians who see the government giving favored treatment to refugees,” Mr. Boutroue said. “If we want to change the perception of refugees from recipients of aid to economic assets, we have to showcase that refugees bring development.”

The World Bank has so far approved two projects — one for water and sanitation and one for city services such as roads and trash collection. But they haven’t gotten started yet.

Mr. Devictor said that tackling long-term development issues was much slower than providing emergency aid. “The reality is that it will be confusing and confused for a little while,” he said. Water, for example, is trucked in to Uganda’s refugee settlements, as part of humanitarian aid. “That’s a huge cost,” he said. “But if we think this crisis is going to last for six more months, it makes sense. If it’s going to last longer, we should think about upgrading the water system.”

Most refugee crises are not surprises, Mr. Devictor said. “If you look at a map, you can predict five or six crises that are going to produce refugees over the next few years.” It’s often the same places, over and over. That means developmental help could come in advance, minimizing the burden on the host. “Do we have to wait until people cross the border to realize we’re going to have an emergency?” he said.

Well, we might. If politicians won’t respond to a crisis, it’s hard to imagine them deciding to plan ahead to avert one. Political commitment, or lack of it, always rules. The world’s new approach to refugees was born out of Europe’s panic about the Syrians on their doorstep. But no European politician is panicking about South Sudanese or Rohingya refugees — or most crises. They’re too far away. The danger is that the new approach will fall victim to the same political neglect that has crippled the old one.

▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/opinion/refugee-camps-integration.html

#Ouganda #modèle_ougandais #réinstallation #intégration

avec ce commentaire de #Jeff_Crisp sur twitter :

“Camps are stagnant places. Refugees have access to water and medical care and are fed and educated, but are largely idle.”
Has this prizewinning author actually been to a refugee camp?

▻https://twitter.com/JFCrisp/status/1031892657117831168

Appreciating Uganda’s ‘open door’ policy for refugees

While the rest of the world is nervous and choosing to take an emotional position on matters of forced migration and refugees, sometimes closing their doors in the face of people who are running from persecution, Uganda’s refugee policy and practice continues to be liberal, with an open door to all asylum seekers, writes Arthur Matsiko

▻http://thisisafrica.me/appreciating-ugandas-open-door-policy-refugees

Is Uganda the best place to be a refugee?

The country’s unusual open policy gives refugees land, education and a chance to work – but instability in neighbouring nations is putting pressure on resources

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/60d9e5ed986a76d81b3b446c49156524b1e719e8/0_201_4545_2727/master/4545.jpg?w=620&q=20&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&dpr=2&s=9f17cdb6bd7ee3e59b0bd6cd18d74852

Why Uganda is a model for dealing with refugees

Uganda’s population of some 500,000 refugees can work, vote and start businesses

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/20161029_BLP504.jpg

Uganda farming classes transform refugees into entrepreneurs

Trained to expand their rice and pepper harvests, Congolese refugees in Uganda use earnings to start new businesses and become more self-reliant.

http://www.unhcr.org/thumb1/581314023.jpg

Uganda : An Oasis Of Light For Refugees Fleeing War

PAGRINYA REFUGEE SETTLEMENT, Uganda – Ayen looked directly into my eyes as she gripped her children’s hands tightly, calmly recounting the moment she was forced to flee her home in South Sudan in the middle of the night after rebels murdered her husband and eldest son in her presence.

▻http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/uganda-an-oasis-of-light-for-refugees-fleeing-war_us_581b5b06e4b0f1c

The Reality Behind Uganda’s Refugee Model

Uganda has been hailed as a world leader in dealing with refugees. African Great Lakes expert David Kigozi argues that praise for progressive policies must be tempered with the harsher reality that many refugees actually experience in the country.

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2017/05/30/the-reality-behind-ugandas-glowing-reputation

Why a Ugandan farmer gave land to a refugee

In less than a year, a camp in northern Uganda has taken in more refugees than any other in the world, and all of them from war-torn South Sudan.

▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-40365249
#modèle_ougandais #terre

Is Uganda the world’s best place for refugees?

Once refugees themselves, Ugandans look to ‘return the good’ to people fleeing war in South Sudan by offering land and help

▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/01/is-uganda-worlds-best-place-for-refugees-south-sudan?platform=hootsuite

The refugee scandal unfolding in Uganda

Uganda, the country with the world’s fastest growing refugee burden, is failing to secure the help it needs to care for those forced across the border from South Sudan by war and hunger.

►https://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2017/07/25/refugee-scandal-unfolding-uganda

How can countries help refugees while also raising their GDP? Let them work.

Uganda is an eye-opening example of how displaced people can lift up a nation, say economics professor Paul Collier and refugee researcher Alexander Betts.

▻http://ideas.ted.com/how-can-countries-help-refugees-while-also-raising-their-gdp-let-them-wor

Ouganda. La générosité intéressée du pays le plus ouvert du monde aux réfugiés

L’Ouganda est le pays qui accueille le plus de réfugiés. Un million de Sud-Soudanais fuyant la guerre s’y sont installés. Mais cette noble intention des autorités cache aussi des calculs moins avouables : l’arrivée massive de l’aide internationale encourage l’inaction et la #corruption.

▻https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/ouganda-la-generosite-interessee-du-pays-le-plus-ouvert-du-mo

Refugees in Uganda to benefit from Dubai-funded schools but issues remain at crowded settlement

Dubai Cares is building three classrooms in a primary school at Ayilo II but the refugee settlement lacks a steady water supply, food and secondary schools, Roberta Pennington writes from Adjumani

https://www.thenational.ae/image/policy:1.681241:1512391298/Na05-Uganda4.jpg?f=16x9&w=1024&$p$f$w=75cf968#.jpg

FUGA DAL SUD SUDAN. LUIS, L’UGANDA E QUEL PEZZO DI TERRA DONATA AI PROFUGHI

Luis zappa, prepara dei fori per tirare su una casa in attesa di ritrovare la sua famiglia. Il terreno è una certezza, glielo ha consegnato il Governo ugandese. Il poterci vivere con i suoi cari non ancora. L’ultima volta li ha visti in Sud Sudan. Nel ritornare a casa sua moglie e i suoi otto figli non c’erano più. É sicuro si siano messi in cammino verso l’Uganda, così da quel giorno è iniziata la sua rincorsa. É certo che li ritroverà nella terra che ora lo ha accolto. Quella di Luis è una delle tante storie raccolte nei campi profughi del nord dell’Uganda, in una delle ultime missioni di Amref, in cui era presente anche Giusi Nicolini, già Sindaco di Lampedusa e Premio Unesco per la pace. 



Modello Uganda? Dell’Uganda il mondo dice «campione di accoglienza». Accoglienza che sta sperimentando da mesi nei confronti dei profughi sud sudanesi, che scappano da uno dei Paesi più drammaticamente in crisi al mondo. Sono 4 milioni le persone che in Sud Sudan hanno dovuto lasciare le proprie case. Chi muovendosi verso altri Paesi e chi in altre regioni sud sudanesi. In questi ultimi tempi arrivano in Uganda anche persone che fuggono dalla Rep. Democratica del Congo.

▻https://www.amref.it/2018_02_23_Fuga_dal_Sud_Sudan_Luis_lUganda_e_quel_pezzo_di_terra_donata_ai_pro

As Rich Nations Close the Door on Refugees, Uganda Welcomes Them

President Trump is vowing to send the military to stop migrants trudging from Central America. Europe’s leaders are paying African nations to block migrants from crossing the Mediterranean — and detaining the ones who make it in filthy, overcrowded camps.

But Solomon Osakan has a very different approach in this era of rising xenophobia. From his uncluttered desk in northwest Uganda, he manages one of the largest concentrations of refugees anywhere in the world: more than 400,000 people scattered across his rural district.

He explained what he does with them: Refugees are allotted some land — enough to build a little house, do a little farming and “be self-sufficient,” said Mr. Osakan, a Ugandan civil servant. Here, he added, the refugees live in settlements, not camps — with no barbed wire, and no guards in sight.

“You are free, and you can come and go as you want,” Mr. Osakan added.

As many nations are securing their borders and turning refugees away, Uganda keeps welcoming them. And they keep coming, fleeing catastrophes from across this part of Africa.

In all, Uganda has as many as 1.25 million refugees on its soil, perhaps more, making it one of the most welcoming countries in the world, according to the United Nations.

And while Uganda’s government has made hosting refugees a core national policy, it works only because of the willingness of rural Ugandans to accept an influx of foreigners on their land and shoulder a big part of the burden.

Uganda is not doing this without help. About $200 million in humanitarian aid to the country this year will largely pay to feed and care for the refugees. But they need places to live and small plots to farm, so villages across the nation’s north have agreed to carve up their communally owned land and share it with the refugees, often for many years at a time.

“Our population was very few and our community agreed to loan the land,” said Charles Azamuke, 27, of his village’s decision in 2016 to accept refugees from South Sudan, which has been torn apart by civil war. “We are happy to have these people. We call them our brothers.”

United Nations officials have pointed to Uganda for its “open border” policy. While the United States, a much more populous nation, has admitted more than three million refugees since 1975, the American government settles them in the country after they have first been thoroughly screened overseas.

By contrast, Uganda has essentially opened its borders to refugees, rarely turning anyone away.

Some older Ugandans explain that they, too, had been refugees once, forced from their homes during dictatorship and war. And because the government ensures that spending on refugees benefits Ugandans as well, younger residents spoke of how refugees offered them some unexpected opportunities.

“I was a farmer. I used to dig,” Mr. Azamuke said. But after learning Arabic from refugees from South Sudan, he got a better job — as a translator at a new health clinic that serves the newcomers.

His town, Ofua, is bisected by a dirt road, with the Ugandans living on the uphill side and the South Sudanese on the downhill side. The grass-thatched homes of the Ugandans look a bit larger and sturdier, but not much.

As the sun began to set one recent afternoon, a group of men on the Ugandan side began to pass around a large plastic bottle of waragi, a home brew. On the South Sudanese side, the men were sober, gathered around a card game.

On both sides, the men had nothing but tolerant words for one another. “Actually, we don’t have any problems with these people,” said Martin Okuonzi, a Ugandan farmer cleaning his fingernails with a razor blade.

As the men lounged, the women and girls were still at work, preparing dinner, tending children, fetching water and gathering firewood. They explained that disputes did arise, especially as the two groups competed for limited resources like firewood.

“We’ve been chased away,” said Agnes Ajonye, a 27-year-old refugee from South Sudan. “They say we are destroying their forests.”

And disputes broke out at the well, where Ugandan women insist they should be allowed to skip ahead of refugees.

“If we hadn’t given you the land you live on, wouldn’t you be dying in Sudan?” said Adili Chandia, a 62-year-old refugee, recounting the lecture she and others got from a frustrated Ugandan woman waiting in line.

Ugandan officials often talk about the spirit of Pan-Africanism that motivates their approach to refugees. President Yoweri Museveni, an autocratic leader who has been in power for 32 years, says Uganda’s generosity can be traced to the precolonial days of warring kingdoms and succession disputes, when losing factions often fled to a new land.

This history of flight and resettlement is embedded in some of the names of local groups around western Uganda, like Batagwenda, which means “the ones that could not continue traveling.”

The government encourages the nation to go along with its policy by directing that 30 percent of foreign aid destined for refugees be spent in ways that benefit Ugandans nearby. So when money for refugees results in new schools, clinics and wells, Ugandans are more likely to welcome than resent them.

For Mr. Museveni, hosting refugees has given him relevance and political capital abroad at a time when he would otherwise have little.

A former guerrilla fighter who quickly stabilized much of his country, Mr. Museveni was once hailed as an example of new African leadership. He was relatively quick to confront the AIDS epidemic, and he invited back Ugandans of Indian and Pakistani descent who had been expelled during the brutal reign of Idi Amin in the 1970s.

But his star has fallen considerably. He has clung to power for decades. His security forces have beaten political opponents. Freedom of assembly and expression are severely curtailed.

Even so, Uganda’s openness toward refugees makes Mr. Museveni important to European nations, which are uneasy at the prospect of more than a million refugees heading for Europe.

Other African nations also host a significant number of refugees, but recent polls show that Ugandans are more likely than their neighbors in Kenya or Tanzania to support land assistance or the right to work for refugees.

Part of the reason is that Ugandans have fled their homes as well, first during the murderous reign of Mr. Amin, then during the period of retribution after his overthrow, and again during the 1990s and 2000s, when Joseph Kony, the guerrilla leader who terrorized northern Uganda, left a trail of kidnapped children and mutilated victims.

Many Ugandans found refuge in what is today South Sudan. Mark Idraku, 57, was a teenager when he fled with his mother to the area. They received two acres of farmland, which helped support them until they returned home six years later.

“When we were in exile in Sudan, they also helped us,” Mr. Idraku said. “Nobody ever asked for a single coin.”

Mr. Idraku has since returned the favor, loaning three acres to a South Sudanese refugee named Queen Chandia, 37. Ms. Chandia said the land — along with additional plots other Ugandans allow her to farm — has made all the difference.

Her homestead of thatched-roof huts teemed with children tending their chores, grinding nuts into paste and maize into meal. Ms. Chandia is the mother of a girl and two boys. But over the years, as violence hollowed out her home country, Ms. Chandia started taking in the orphaned children of relatives and friends. Now 22 children call her “mom.”

A refugee for nearly her entire life, Ms. Chandia arrived in Uganda as a young girl nearly 30 years ago. For years, she worried about being expelled.
Image

“Maybe these Ugandans will change their minds on us,” she said, describing the thought that plagued her. Then one day the worry stopped.

But Mr. Osakan, the administrator who oversees refugee affairs in the country’s extreme northwest, is anxious. There is an Ebola outbreak over the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mr. Osakan fears what might happen if — or when — a refugee turns up in Uganda with the dreaded illness.

“It would destroy all the harmony between refugees and host communities,” he said, explaining that it would probably lead to calls to seal the border.

For now, the border is very much open, although the number of refugees arriving has fallen significantly. In one of the newer settlements, many of the refugees came last year, fleeing an attack in a South Sudanese city. But some complained about receiving too little land, about a quarter acre per family, which is less than previous refugees had received.

“Even if you have skills — in carpentry — you are not given a chance,” said one refugee, Simon Ludoru. He looked over his shoulder, to where a construction crew was building a nursery school. The schoolhouse would teach both local Ugandan and South Sudanese children together, but the workers were almost entirely Ugandan, he said.

At the construction site, the general contractor, Sam Omongo, 50, said he had hired refugees for the job. “Oh, yes,” he exclaimed.

How many?

“Not a lot, actually,” he acknowledged. “I have about three.” Mr. Omongo called one over.

“Are you a refugee?” Mr. Omongo asked the slight man.

“No, I’m from Uganda,” he said softly. His name was Amos Chandiga, 28. He lived nearby and owned six acres of land, though he worked only four of them. He had lent the other two to a pair of refugees.

“They asked me, and I gave it to them,” Mr. Chandiga explained. He patted his chest. “It comes from here, in my heart.”

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/29/world/00refugees1/merlin_145673475_8c42e47d-e665-40f5-a021-704bfd702dcb-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp#.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/22/world/00refugees8/merlin_145674360_f6c51f09-28e1-4edb-a3c2-cb2642ba0889-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp#.jpg

Uganda: a role model for refugee integration?

Uganda hosts the largest refugee population in Africa and is, after Turkey and Pakistan, the third-largest refugee recipient country worldwide. Political and humanitarian actors have widely praised Ugandan refugee policies because of their progressive nature: In Uganda, in contrast to many other refugee-receiving countries, these are de jure allowed to work, to establish businesses, to access public services such as education, to move freely and have access to a plot of land. Moreover, Uganda is a pilot country of the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF). In this Working Paper the authors ascertain whether Uganda indeed can be taken as a role model for refugee integration, as largely portrayed in the media and the political discourse. They identify the challenges to livelihoods and integration to assess Uganda’s self-reliance and settlement approach and its aspiration towards providing refugees and Ugandan communities receiving refugees with opportunities for becoming self-reliant. Drawing on three months of field research in northern and southern Uganda from July to September of 2017 with a particular focus on South Sudanese refugees, the authors concentrate on three aspects: Access to land, employment and education, intra- and inter-group relations. The findings show that refugees in Uganda are far from self-reliant and socially integrated. Although in Uganda refugees are provided with land, the quality and size of the allocated plots is so poor that they cannot earn a living from agricultural production, which thus, rather impedes self-reliance. Inadequate infrastructure also hinders access to markets and employment opportunities. Even though most local communities have been welcoming to refugees, the sentiment has shifted recently in some areas, particularly where local communities that are often not better off than refugees feel that they have not benefitted from the presence of refugees....

▻https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/62871

Uganda has a remarkable history of hosting refugees, but its efforts are underfunded

Uganda has agreed to a request from the United States to temporarily accommodate 2,000 refugees from Afghanistan while Washington processes their applications to live in the US. The move underscores the reputation Uganda has of being progressive on refugee issues. Refugee expert Dr Evan Easton-Calabria provides insights into why.
When did Uganda start hosting refugees?

Uganda has a long history of hosting refugees. This started in the early 1940s with Polish refugees who fled from Nazi-occupied Europe. The Nakivale refugee settlement – formed in 1959 – in southwest Uganda is the oldest refugee camp in Africa.

Uganda also hosts huge numbers of refugees. In the mid-1950s almost 80,000 Sudanese refugees, fleeing the first civil war, sought refuge in the country. They were only the first of many waves of refugees from different neighbouring countries to arrive. Uganda has hosted significant numbers of refugees ever since.

Today, almost 1.5 million refugees live in Uganda, making it the top refugee-hosting country in Africa and one of the top five hosting countries in the world.

Its longstanding ‘open-door’ policy has benefited it both politically and financially, with hundreds of millions of donor funds provided each year for humanitarian and development projects. These target both refugees and locals. While Kenya, for example, has received Euros 200 million in humanitarian aid from the European Union since 2012, Uganda has received this much from the EU in just over four years.
Is the country more progressive towards refugees than its neighbours?

Uganda’s policies towards refugees have been hailed as progressive. It has even been called “the world’s best place for refugees”.

Refugees have the right to work and freedom of movement, thanks to Uganda’s 2006 Refugee Act and 2010 Refugee Regulations, which provide a strong legal and regulatory framework for refugee rights.

Refugees have the right to the same social services as Ugandans, including health care and free primary education. They are not confined to camps but can also live in urban areas. The country has, therefore, received a lot of positive attention for ‘fostering’ the self-reliance of refugees.

However, despite rights on paper in Uganda, refugees still struggle.

They are not legally recognised as refugees if they live in cities besides the capital, Kampala. As ‘self-settled’ urban refugees, they risk being misclassified as economic migrants. Lacking official refugee status (unless they have been registered in a settlement), urban refugees also often lack assistance.

Although refugees in Uganda are economically diverse – one study even identified over 70 different types of livelihoods activities by refugees in Uganda – for many in settlements, subsistence farming is their primary livelihood. But, despite plots of land being provided in settlements, many don’t have enough land to farm on and soil quality is often low. This means that, for many, farming is no longer a viable livelihood. This shows that liberal refugee policies, like those promoting self-reliance in Uganda, must be backed with adequate resources if they are to be more than just words on paper.

Comparatively, Uganda’s neighbours – such as Kenya and Ethiopia – have traditionally been more restrictive. Kenya relies on a system of encampment, where most refugees live in camps, and Ethiopia has only recently expanded its out-of-camp policy to all refugees and aslyum-seekers, although regulatory gaps remain. Nevertheless, it’s important to note that both are major refugee-hosting countries. They host far more refugees than many western (and wealthier) countries. Kenya hosts over half a million refugees, mainly from Somalia and South Sudan. Ethiopia hosts over 788,000 and is the third largest refugee-hosting country in Africa.
How effectively does Uganda manage its refugee community?

‘Effectiveness’ is an interesting word in this context. On one hand, Uganda provides an important foundation in terms of providing the legal infrastructure to allow many refugees to lead independent lives. But refugees also enter a challenging context: Uganda struggles to provide adequate services for its own citizens and unemployment is high. It has one of the world’s lowest rankings in the Human Capital Index.

In addition, the 2021 presidential election saw increased political and social unrest which has led to the violation of rights such as the freedom of assembly and expression for citizens and other residents, including refugees. While many Ugandans have welcomed refugees, there are increasing accounts of overburdened cities and strains on resources, like firewood, in some parts of the country.

The corruption of humanitarian aid is also a problem, with UNHCR Uganda accused of mismanaging tens of millions of dollars in 2016-2017. This illustrates the clear need for effective financial management so that refugees can actually be helped.

There is also another important question of responsibility. Despite the positive attention the international community has given the country, donor funds have not often matched the praise. If schools and health facilities are crowded, in part because of refugees, the responsibility to provide additional support should not fall on a refugee-hosting country such as Uganda alone. Limited resources mean limited management. As of June, the 2020-2021 Uganda Refugee Response Plan was only 22% funded, leaving a shortfall of US$596 million to cover all sectors ranging from protection to food security to sanitation.
Does it look likely that Uganda will continue in its role as a leading refugee destination?

Uganda has had a strong commitment to hosting refugees for over 70 years –- about the same length that the 1951 Refugee Convention has existed. A spirit of pan-Africanism and first-hand understanding of displacement by many Ugandans have all contributed to its willingness to host refugees. Its recent temporary accommodation of Afghan refugees indicates that it is interested in continuing this role.

That said, no country should host refugees without significant international support. Many refugee response plans, such as Uganda’s, remain significantly underfunded even as displacement rises and challenges – such as the COVID-19 pandemic – remain. Even though Uganda receives a significant amount of money, it’s not enough to support the number of people arriving as evidenced by a funding appeal by refugee response actors in June this year.

Mechanisms such as the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework offer a means to channel resources and increase collaboration on refugee hosting. But it is important to consider what displacement in Central, Eastern, and the Horn of Africa would look like if Uganda closed its borders. Uganda is making an effort in a neighbourhood where few other countries have the same enthusiasm.

▻https://theconversation.com/uganda-has-a-remarkable-history-of-hosting-refugees-but-its-efforts

Pas de version française? A comparer avec ça:

Petition for an increased #EU #Budget for #Research and Innovation
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/722667

We, the undersigned scientists, concerned citizens, innovators welcome the general structure and ambition of the proposal for an increased European Research and Innovation budget – a significant increase in a difficult situation. However, we believe that it falls short of the effort required of Europe to face the growing geopolitical challenges as well as the very high level of competition now set notably by Asian countries: gross domestic spending on R&D in the EU as percentage of GDP, which is below 2% and lags behind Korea (4.2%), Taiwan (3.3%), Japan (3.1%), USA (2.8%), China (2.1%, and constantly rising). There is a serious danger that the situation will force many promising young scientists to leave Europe, and that Europe will become less attractive for foreign scientists.

As we are well aware, in the next decade Europe will have to rely more on its own forces to promote its values and its leadership. An cohesive Europe will need to invest in what counts for strengthening our societies, our economies, our security and our efforts in order to tackle the major global challenges of our planet. An ambitious research and innovation policy, engaging society as a whole, represents a large European added value, and will be decisive in increasing its cohesiveness.

Chercheurs de gauche vs. chercheurs de droite?

#Science #Université #Europe

‘Secular stagnation’ meets the ‘GDP fetish’

Tim Jackson introduces his new CUSP working paper ‘The Post-Growth Challenge’, in which he discusses the state of advanced economies ten years after the crisis. Our attempts to prop up an ailing capitalism have increased inequality, hindered ecological innovation and undermined stability, he argues.

This week saw the launch of #System_Error a documentary #film from the prize-winning German Director #Florian_Opitz, who has made something of a reputation for himself critiquing the flaws in 21st century capitalism. The film explores our obsession with economic growth through the testimony of some of its most vociferous advocates. It’s a fascinating insight into the ‘GDP fetish’ that has dominated economic policy for over sixty years despite long-standing critiques to the contrary. Opitz’s film is a testament to the tenacity of the growth paradigm – even half a century later.

If there’s one thing that might really throw a spanner in the works it’s that economic growth as we know it is slowly slipping away. Growth rates in advanced economies were declining already even before the crisis. The day after the film’s première in Berlin, former US treasury secretary, Larry Summers writing in the FT defended his contention (first advanced five years ago) that the growth rates expected by economists and yearned for by politicians may be a thing of the past. Sluggish growth, he has argued, is not simply the result of short-term debt overhang in the wake of the financial crisis but might just turn out to be the ‘new normal’. It’s an argument that has support, not only from other mainstream pundits, but also from national statistics: UK growth slumped to another five year low in the first quarter of 2018.

Most reactions to the absence of growth consist in trying to get it back again as fast as possible – whatever the cost. Low interest rates, cheap money, inward investment, bank bailouts, government stimulus, land-grabs, tax havens, fiscal austerity, customs partnerships – you name it. Some of these things didn’t even make sense when put together. But at least they divert us from an inconvenient truth: that the future might look very different from the past. Were it not for a climate destabilised by carbon emissions, oceans which will soon contain more plastic than fish and a planet reeling from species loss a thousand times faster than any at time in the last 65 million years, it might not matter that they don’t add up. But is throwing good money after bad (so to speak) an effective strategy, even in its own right, when so much is still uncertain?

How can we be sure that these increasingly desperate measures will work at all? We’ve been trying most of them for well over a decade, to very little avail. The best we’ve managed, claims Summers, is to stop things falling apart by throwing everything but the kitchen sink at monetary expansion and oscillating between stimulus and fiscal tightening (mostly the latter) as political preference dictates. The end result is a somewhat frightening sense, as the IPPR recently pointed out, that when the next crisis hits there will be neither fiscal nor monetary room for manoeuvre.

In our latest CUSP working paper, I explore the dynamics of this emerging ‘post-growth challenge’. I believe it demands both a deeper understanding of how we got here and a wider palette of colours from which to paint the possibilities for our common future. The paper examines the underlying dynamics of secular stagnation, on both the demand and the supply side, and discusses its relationship to labour productivity growth, rising debt and resource bottlenecks.

The toughest element in this challenge, not yet fully addressed on either the political left or the right, is the relationship between declining growth and social equity. The coordinates of inequality are now plain to see in the stagnant wage rate and declining living conditions of ordinary people. ‘Thousands upon thousands’ of people flocked to this year’s TUC march in London, making it abundantly clear that persistent inequality is threatening political stability. According to TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady ‘there is a new mood in the country; people have been very patient, but now they are demanding a new deal.’

We have addressed the mathematics of this relationship in depth elsewhere. What we found was unexpected. The rising inequality that has haunted advanced economies in recent years wasn’t inevitable at all. Nor is it inevitable in the future. The problem lies, as I argue more specifically in this paper, not in secular stagnation itself but in our responses to it. Specifically, I suggest that rising inequality is the result of our persistent attempts to breathe new life into capitalism, in the face of underlying fundamentals that point in the opposite direction. Our growth fetish has hindered ecological innovation, reinforced inequality and exacerbated financial instability. Prosperity itself is being undone by this allegiance to growth at all costs.

What’s clear now is that it’s time for policy-makers to take the ‘post-growth challenge’ seriously. Judging by the enthusiastic reception from the 900 or so people who attended the première of System Error in Berlin, such a strategy might have a surprising popular support.

https://i2.wp.com/www.cusp.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/TJ-Postgrowth-challenge.jpg?w=1000&ssl=1#.jpg

#SYSTEM_ERROR

Why are we so obsessed with economic growth, despite knowing that perpetual growth will kill us in the end? SYSTEM ERROR looks for answers to this principal contradiction of our time and considers global capitalism from the perspective of those who run it. In this manner, the film not only makes the absurdity of our growth-centered system uncomfortably perceptible, but also strikingly questions the seemingly irrefutable rules of the game within a bigger context.

https://filmsfortheearth.org/storage/app/media/filmsdb/covers/System-Error-cover.jpg

Europe, It’s Time to End the Growth Dependency

Petition text

The pursuit of economic growth is not environmentally sustainable, and it is failing to reduce inequalities, foster democracy and ensure well-being of citizens. We call on the European Union, its institutions, and member states to:
1. Constitute a special commission on Post-Growth Futures in the EU Parliament. This commission should actively debate the future of growth, devise policy alternatives for post-growth futures, and reconsider the pursuit of growth as an overarching policy goal.
2. Prioritise social and environmental indicators. Economic policies should be evaluated in terms of their impact on human wellbeing, resource use, inequality, and the provision of decent work. These indicators should be given higher priority than GDP in decision-making.
3. Turn the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) into a Stability and Wellbeing Pact. The SGP is a set of rules aimed at limiting government deficits and national debt. It should be revised to ensure member states meet the basic needs of their citizens, while reducing resource use and waste emissions to a sustainable level.
4. Establish a Ministry for Economic Transition in each member state. A new economy that focuses directly on human and ecological wellbeing could offer a much better future than one that is structurally dependent on economic growth.

https://www.wemove.eu/sites/wemove.eu/files/webform/campaign/post_growth_beyond_growth_final.png

Degrowth: A Call for Radical Abundance

When orthodox economists first encounter the idea of degrowth, they often jump to the conclusion that the objective is to reduce GDP. And because they see GDP as equivalent to social wealth, this makes them very upset.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I reject the fetishization of GDP as an objective in the existing economy, so it would make little sense for me to focus on GDP as the objective of a degrowth economy. Wanting to cut GDP is as senseless as wanting to grow it.

The objective, rather, is to scale down the material throughput of the economy. From an ecological standpoint, that’s what matters. And indeed some orthodox economists might even agree. Where we differ is that while they persist in believing (against the evidence) that this can be done while continuing to grow GDP, I acknowledge that it is likely to result in a reduction of GDP, at least as we presently measure it. In other words, if we were to keep measuring the economy by GDP, that’s what we would see in a degrowth scenario.

And that’s okay.

It’s okay, because we know that human beings can thrive without extremely high levels of GDP.

There are many pieces to this argument, but I want to focus on one here in particular. One of the core claims of degrowth economics is that by restoring public services and expanding the commons, people will be able to access the goods that they need to live well without needing high levels of income.

Take London, for instance. Housing prices in London are astronomically high, to the point where a normal one-bedroom flat can cost upwards of $1 million. These prices are fictional; they are largely a consequence of financial speculation and quantitative easing. Now imagine if the government were to cap the price of housing at half its present level. Prices would still be outrageously high, but Londoners would suddenly be able to work and earn significantly less than they presently do without suffering any loss to their quality of life. Indeed, they would gain in terms of time they could spend with their friends and family, doing things they love, improvements to their health and mental well-being, etc.

The fictionally high prices of housing in London require that people work unnecessarily long hours to earn unnecessary money simply in order to access decent shelter – which they were previously able to access with a fraction of the income. The consequence of this imperative is that everyone is forced to contribute unnecessarily to expanding the juggernaut of production, the output of which must in turn find an outlet in the form of ever-increasing consumption.

This is a problem that’s as old as capitalism itself. And it has a name: enclosure.

Ellen Wood argues that the origins of capitalism lay in the enclosure movement in England, during which wealthy elites walled off the commons and systematically forced peasants off the land in a violent, centuries-long campaign of dispossession. This period saw the abolition of the ancient “right to habitation”, once enshrined in the Charter of the Forest, which guaranteed that ordinary people should have access to the resources necessary for survival.

Suddenly, England’s peasants found themselves subject to a new regime: in order to survive they had to compete with each other for leases on the newly privatized land. And the leases were allocated on the basis of productivity. So in order to retain their access to leases, farmers had to find ways to extract more and more from the earth, and from labor, even if it was vastly in surplus to need. If they didn’t, and if they lost their leases, they could face starvation. And of course this same force, the imperative of ever-increasing productivity, was also at work in the industrial sector.

In other words, the birth of capitalism required the creation of scarcity. The constant creation of scarcity is the engine of the juggernaut.

The same process unfolded around the world during European colonization. In South Africa, colonizers faced what they called “The Labour Question”: How do we get Africans to work in our mines and on our plantations for paltry wages? At the time, Africans were quite content with their subsistence lifestyles, where they had all the land and the water and the livestock they needed to thrive, and showed no inclination to do back-breaking work in European mines. The solution? Force them off their land, or make them pay taxes in European currency, which can only be acquired in exchange for labor. And if they don’t pay, punish them.

Scarcity is the engine of capitalist expansion.

And, crucially, the scarcity was artificially created. Created by elite accumulation, backed up by state violence. In both England and South Africa, there was no actual scarcity. The same land and forests and resources remained, just as they had always been. But they were locked up. Enclosed. In order to regain access to the means of survival, people had no choice but to participate in the juggernaut.

Today, we feel the force of scarcity in the constant threat of unemployment. We must be ever-more productive at work or else lose our jobs to someone who will be more productive than we are. But there is a paradox: as productivity rises, less labor is needed. So workers get laid off and find themselves with no means of survival. Victims of artificial scarcity. And the state, desperate to reduce unemployment, must then find ways to grow the economy in order to create new jobs, just so that people can survive.

And all of us workers join in the choir: Give us growth! We need jobs!

Scarcity creates recruits to the ideology of growth.

Even people who are concerned about ecological breakdown, which is most of us, are forced to submit to this logic: if you care about human lives, then you must call for growth. We can deal with the environment later.

But there will be no later, because the problem of scarcity is never solved. Whenever scarcity is about to be solved, it is always quickly produced anew. Think about it: for 150 years, economists have predicted that “In the very near future our economy will be so productive and replete that we will all have to work no more than a few hours a day.” But the prediction never comes true. Because capitalism transforms even the most spectacular productivity gains not into abundance and human freedom, but into scarcity.

It’s strange, isn’t it? The ideology of capitalism is that it is a system that generates immense abundance (so much stuff!) But in reality it is a system that relies on the constant production of scarcity.

This conundrum was first noticed back in 1804, and became known as the Lauderdale Paradox. Lauderdale pointed out that the only way to increase “private riches” (basically, GDP) was to reduce what he called “public wealth”, or the commons. To enclose things that were once free so that people have to pay in order to access them. To illustrate, he noted that colonialists would often even burn down trees that produced nuts and fruits so that local inhabitants wouldn’t be able to live off of the natural abundance of the earth, but would be forced to work for wages in order to feed themselves.

We see this happening today in the endless waves of privatization that have been unleashed all over the world. Education? Healthcare? Parks? Swimming pools? Social Security? Water? All social goods must be privatized – they must be made scarce. People must be made to pay in order to access them. And in order to pay, they will of course have to work, competing with each other in the labor market to be ever-more productive.

This logic reaches its apogee in the contemporary vision of austerity. What is austerity, really? It is a desperate attempt to re-start the engines of growth by slashing public investment in social goods and social protections, chopping away at what remains of the commons so that people are cast once again at the mercy of starvation, forced to increase their productivity if they want to survive. The point of austerity is to create scarcity. Suffering – indeed, poverty – must be induced for the sake of more growth.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We can call a halt to the madness – throw a wrench in the juggernaut. By de-enclosing social goods and restoring the commons, we can ensure that people are able to access the things that they need to live a good life without having to generate piles of income in order to do so, and without feeding the never-ending growth machine. “Private riches” may shrink, as Lauderdale pointed out, but public wealth will increase.

In this sense, degrowth is the very opposite of austerity. While austerity calls for scarcity in order to generate growth, degrowth calls for abundance in order to render growth unnecessary.

Degrowth, at its core, is a demand for radical abundance.

▻https://www.localfutures.org/degrowth-a-call-for-radical-abundance

Venezuela. L’Amérique latine cherche une solution à sa plus grande #crise_migratoire

Les réunions de crise sur l’immigration ne sont pas l’apanage de l’Europe : treize pays latino-américains sont réunis depuis lundi à Quito pour tenter de trouver des solutions communes au casse-tête migratoire provoqué par l’#exode_massif des Vénézuéliens.

https://www.courrierinternational.com/sites/ci_master/files/styles/image_original_765/public/assets/images/venezuela_2.png?itok=BH3X41ls#.jpg

Bataille de #chiffres et guerre d’images autour de la « #crise migratoire » vénézuélienne

L’émigration massive qui touche actuellement le Venezuela est une réalité. Mais il ne faut pas confondre cette réalité et les défis humanitaires qu’elle pose avec son instrumentalisation, tant par le pouvoir vénézuélien pour se faire passer pour la victime d’un machination que par ses « ennemis » qui entendent se débarrasser d’un gouvernement qu’ils considèrent comme autoritaire et source d’instabilité dans la région. Etat des lieux d’une crise très polarisée.

C’est un véritable scoop que nous a offert le président vénézuélien le 3 septembre dernier. Alors que son gouvernement est avare en données sur les sujets sensibles, Nicolas Maduro a chiffré pour la première fois le nombre de Vénézuéliens ayant émigré depuis deux ans à 600 000. Un chiffre vérifiable, a-t-il assuré, sans toutefois donner plus de détails.

Ce chiffre, le premier plus ou moins officiel dans un pays où il n’y a plus de statistiques migratoires, contraste avec celui délivré par l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM) et le Haut-Commissariat aux Réfugiés (HCR). Selon ces deux organisations, 2,3 millions de Vénézuéliens vivraient à l’étranger, soit 7,2% des habitants sur un total de 31,8 millions. Pas de quoi tomber de sa chaise ! D’autres diasporas sont relativement bien plus nombreuses. Ce qui impressionne, c’est la croissance exponentielle de cette émigration sur un très court laps de temps : 1,6 million auraient quitté le pays depuis 2015 seulement. Une vague de départs qui s’est accélérée ces derniers mois et affectent inégalement de nombreux pays de la région.
Le pouvoir vénézuélien, par la voix de sa vice-présidente, a accusé des fonctionnaires de l’ONU de gonfler les chiffres d’un « flux migratoire normal » (sic) pour justifier une « intervention humanitaire », synonyme de déstabilisation. D’autres sources estiment quant à elles qu’ils pourraient être près de quatre millions à avoir fui le pays.

▻https://www.cncd.be/Bataille-de-chiffres-et-guerre-d
#statistiques #guerre_des_chiffres

La formulation est tout de même étrange pour une ONG… : pas de quoi tomber de sa chaise, de même l’utilisation du mot ennemis avec guillemets. Au passage, le même pourcentage – pas si énorme …– appliqué à la population française donnerait 4,5 millions de personnes quittant la France, dont les deux tiers, soit 3 millions de personnes, au cours des deux dernières années.

Ceci dit, pour ne pas qu’ils tombent… d’inanition, le Programme alimentaire mondial (agence de l’ONU) a besoin de sous pour nourrir les vénézuéliens qui entrent en Colombie.

ONU necesita fondos para seguir atendiendo a emigrantes venezolanos
▻http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/mundo/onu-necesita-fondos-para-seguir-atendiendo-emigrantes-venezolanos_25311

El Programa Mundial de Alimentos (PMA), el principal brazo humanitario de Naciones Unidas, informó que necesita 22 millones de dólares suplementarios para atender a los venezolanos que entran a Colombia.

«Cuando las familias inmigrantes llegan a los centros de recepción reciben alimentos calientes y pueden quedarse de tres a cinco días, pero luego tienen que irse para que otros recién llegados puedan ser atendidos», dijo el portavoz del PMA, Herve Verhoosel.
[…]
La falta de alimentos se convierte en el principal problema para quienes atraviesan a diario la frontera entre Venezuela y Colombia, que cuenta con siete puntos de pasaje oficiales y más de un centenar informales, con más de 50% de inmigrantes que entran a Colombia por estos últimos.

El PMA ha proporcionado ayuda alimentaria de emergencia a más de 60.000 venezolanos en los departamentos fronterizos de Arauca, La Guajira y el Norte de Santander, en Colombia, y más recientemente ha empezado también a operar en el departamento de Nariño, que tiene frontera con Ecuador.
[…]
De acuerdo con evaluaciones recientes efectuadas por el PMA entre inmigrantes en Colombia, 80% de ellos sufren de inseguridad alimentaria.

Le grand #exode

Plus d’un million et demi de Vénézuéliens ont fui leur pays depuis trois ans. Un mouvement migratoire au moins aussi intense que celui qu’a connu l’Europe en 2015. Et qui provoque, lui aussi, des turbulences sur son passage. Coup d’œil sur la plus grande #vague de migration humaine que l’Amérique latine ait jamais connue.

▻http://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/61c2076f-32d8-40c9-ad8d-e6e186b8bfae__7C___0.html

Migrants du Venezuela vers la Colombie : « ni xénophobie, ni fermeture des frontières », assure le nouveau président colombien

Le nouveau président colombien, entré en fonction depuis hier (lundi 8 octobre 2018), ne veut pas céder à la tentation d’une fermeture de la frontière avec le Venezuela.

https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/martinique/sites/regions_outremer/files/styles/top_big/public/assets/images/2018/10/09/exode-886124.jpeg?itok=kWAxwO2D#.jpg

Fleeing hardship at home, Venezuelan migrants struggle abroad, too

Every few minutes, the reeds along the #Tachira_River rustle.

Smugglers, in ever growing numbers, emerge with a ragtag group of Venezuelan migrants – men struggling under tattered suitcases, women hugging bundles in blankets and schoolchildren carrying backpacks. They step across rocks, wade into the muddy stream and cross illegally into Colombia.

This is the new migration from Venezuela.

For years, as conditions worsened in the Andean nation’s ongoing economic meltdown, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans – those who could afford to – fled by airplane and bus to other countries far and near, remaking their lives as legal immigrants.

Now, hyperinflation, daily power cuts and worsening food shortages are prompting those with far fewer resources to flee, braving harsh geography, criminal handlers and increasingly restrictive immigration laws to try their luck just about anywhere.

In recent weeks, Reuters spoke with dozens of Venezuelan migrants traversing their country’s Western border to seek a better life in Colombia and beyond. Few had more than the equivalent of a handful of dollars with them.

“It was terrible, but I needed to cross,” said Dario Leal, 30, recounting his journey from the coastal state of Sucre, where he worked in a bakery that paid about $2 per month.

At the border, he paid smugglers nearly three times that to get across and then prepared, with about $3 left, to walk the 500 km (311 miles) to Bogota, Colombia’s capital. The smugglers, in turn, paid a fee to Colombian crime gangs who allow them to operate, according to police, locals and smugglers themselves.

As many as 1.9 million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2015, according to the United Nations. Combined with those who preceded them, a total of 2.6 million are believed to have left the oil-rich country. Ninety percent of recent departures, the U.N. says, remain in South America.

The exodus, one of the biggest mass migrations ever on the continent, is weighing on neighbors. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, which once welcomed Venezuelan migrants, recently tightened entry requirements. Police now conduct raids to detain the undocumented.

In early October, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, Colombia’s foreign minister, said as many as four million Venezuelans could be in the country by 2021, costing national coffers as much as $9 billion. “The magnitude of this challenge,” he said, “our country has never seen.”

In Brazil, which also borders Venezuela, the government deployed troops and financing to manage the crush and treat sick, hungry and pregnant migrants. In Ecuador and Peru, workers say that Venezuelan labor lowers wages and that criminals are hiding among honest migrants.

“There are too many of them,” said Antonio Mamani, a clothing vendor in Peru, who recently watched police fill a bus with undocumented Venezuelans near Lima.
“WE NEED TO GO”

By migrating illegally, migrants expose themselves to criminal networks who control prostitution, drug trafficking and other rackets. In August, Colombian investigators discovered 23 undocumented Venezuelans forced into prostitution and living in basements in the colonial city of Cartagena.

While most migrants are avoiding such straits, no shortage of other hardship awaits – from homelessness, to unemployment, to the cold reception many get as they sleep in public squares, peddle sweets and throng already overburdened hospitals.

Still, most press on, many on foot.

Some join compatriots in Brazil and Colombia. Others, having spent what money they had, are walking vast regions, like Colombia’s cold Andean passes and sweltering tropical lowlands, in treks toward distant capitals, like Quito or Lima.

Johana Narvaez, a 36-year-old mother of four, told Reuters her family left after business stalled at their small car repair shop in the rural state of Trujillo. Extra income she made selling food on the street withered because cash is scarce in a country where annual inflation, according to the opposition-led Congress, recently reached nearly 500,000 percent.

“We can’t stay here,” she told her husband, Jairo Sulbaran, in August, after they ran out of food and survived on corn patties provided by friends. “Even on foot, we must go.” Sulbaran begged and sold old tires until they could afford bus tickets to the border.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has chided migrants, warning of the hazards of migration and that emigres will end up “cleaning toilets.” He has even offered free flights back to some in a program called “Return to the Homeland,” which state television covers daily.

Most migration, however, remains in the other direction.

Until recently, Venezuelans could enter many South American countries with just their national identity cards. But some are toughening rules, requiring a passport or additional documentation.

Even a passport is elusive in Venezuela.

Paper shortages and a dysfunctional bureaucracy make the document nearly impossible to obtain, many migrants argue. Several told Reuters they waited two years in vain after applying, while a half-dozen others said they were asked for as much as $2000 in bribes by corrupt clerks to secure one.

Maduro’s government in July said it would restructure Venezuela’s passport agency to root out “bureaucracy and corruption.” The Information Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“VENEZUELA WILL END UP EMPTY”

Many of those crossing into Colombia pay “arrastradores,” or “draggers,” to smuggle them along hundreds of trails. Five of the smugglers, all young men, told Reuters business is booming.

“Venezuela will end up empty,” said Maikel, a 17-year-old Venezuelan smuggler, scratches across his face from traversing the bushy trails. Maikel, who declined to give his surname, said he lost count of how many migrants he has helped cross.

Colombia, too, struggles to count illegal entries. Before the government tightened restrictions earlier this year, Colombia issued “border cards” that let holders crisscross at will. Now, Colombia says it detects about 3,000 false border cards at entry points daily.

Despite tougher patrols along the porous, 2,200-km border, officials say it is impossible to secure outright. “It’s like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket,” said Mauricio Franco, a municipal official in charge of security in Cucuta, a nearby city.

And it’s not just a matter of rounding up undocumented travelers.

Powerful criminal groups, long in control of contraband commerce across the border, are now getting their cut of human traffic. Javier Barrera, a colonel in charge of police in Cucuta, said the Gulf Clan and Los Rastrojos, notorious syndicates that operate nationwide, are both involved.

During a recent Reuters visit to several illegal crossings, Venezuelans carried cardboard, limes and car batteries as barter instead of using the bolivar, their near-worthless currency.

Migrants pay as much as about $16 for the passage. Maikel, the arrastrador, said smugglers then pay gang operatives about $3 per migrant.

For his crossing, Leal, the baker, carried a torn backpack and small duffel bag. His 2015 Venezuelan ID shows a healthier and happier man – before Leal began skimping on breakfast and dinner because he couldn’t afford them.

He rested under a tree, but fretted about Colombian police. “I’m scared because the “migra” comes around,” he said, using the same term Mexican and Central American migrants use for border police in the United States.

It doesn’t get easier as migrants move on.

Even if relatives wired money, transfer agencies require a legally stamped passport to collect it. Bus companies are rejecting undocumented passengers to avoid fines for carrying them. A few companies risk it, but charge a premium of as much as 20 percent, according to several bus clerks near the border.

The Sulbaran family walked and hitched some 1200 km to the Andean town of Santiago, where they have relatives. The father toured garages, but found no work.

“People said no, others were scared,” said Narvaez, the mother. “Some Venezuelans come to Colombia to do bad things. They think we’re all like that.”

▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-migration-insight/fleeing-hardship-at-home-venezuelan-migrants-struggle-abroad-too-idUSKCN1MP

Avec ce commentaire de #Reece_Jones:

People continue to flee Venezuela, now often resorting to #smugglers as immigration restrictions have increased

#passeurs #fermeture_des_frontières

’No more camps,’ Colombia tells Venezuelans not to settle in tent city

Francis Montano sits on a cold pavement with her three children, all their worldly possessions stuffed into plastic bags, as she pleads to be let into a new camp for Venezuelan migrants in the Colombian capital, Bogota.

Behind Montano, smoke snakes from woodfires set amid the bright yellow tents which are now home to hundreds of Venezuelans, erected on a former soccer pitch in a middle-class residential area in the west of the city.

The penniless migrants, some of the millions who have fled Venezuela’s economic and social crisis, have been here more than a week, forced by city authorities to vacate a makeshift slum of plastic tarps a few miles away.

The tent city is the first of its kind in Bogota. While authorities have established camps at the Venezuelan border, they have resisted doing so in Colombia’s interior, wary of encouraging migrants to settle instead of moving to neighboring countries or returning home.

Its gates are guarded by police and officials from the mayor’s office and only those registered from the old slum are allowed access.

“We’ll have to sleep on the street again, under a bridge,” said Montano, 22, whose children are all under seven years old. “I just want a roof for my kids at night.”

According to the United Nations, an estimated 3 million Venezuelans have fled as their oil-rich country has sunk into crisis under President Nicolas Maduro. Critics accuse the Socialist leader of ravaging the economy through state interventions while clamping down on political opponents.

The exodus - driven by violence, hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicines - amounts to one in 12 of the population, placing strain on neighboring countries, already struggling with poverty.

Colombia, which has borne the brunt of the migration crisis, estimates it is sheltering 1 million Venezuelans, with some 3,000 arriving daily. The government says their total numbers could swell to 4 million by 2021, costing it nearly $9 billion a year.

Municipal authorities in Bogota say the camp will provide shelter for 422 migrants through Christmas. Then in mid January, it will be dismantled in the hope jobs and new lodgings have been found.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DstiowtXcAQXQ8S.jpg

#camps #camps_de_réfugiés #tentes #Bogotá #Bogotà

Creativity amid Crisis: Legal Pathways for Venezuelan Migrants in Latin America

As more than 3 million Venezuelans have fled a rapidly collapsing economy, severe food and medical shortages, and political strife, neighboring countries—the primary recipients of these migrants—have responded with creativity and pragmatism. This policy brief explores how governments in South America, Central America, and Mexico have navigated decisions about whether and how to facilitate their entry and residence. It also examines challenges on the horizon as few Venezuelans will be able to return home any time soon.

Across Latin America, national legal frameworks are generally open to migration, but few immigration systems have been built to manage movement on this scale and at this pace. For example, while many countries in the region have a broad definition of who is a refugee—criteria many Venezuelans fit—only Mexico has applied it in considering Venezuelans’ asylum cases. Most other Latin American countries have instead opted to use existing visa categories or migration agreements to ensure that many Venezuelans are able to enter legally, and some have run temporary programs to regularize the status of those already in the country.

Looking to the long term, there is a need to decide what will happen when temporary statuses begin to expire. And with the crisis in Venezuela and the emigration it has spurred ongoing, there are projections that as many as 5.4 million Venezuelans may be abroad by the end of 2019. Some governments have taken steps to limit future Venezuelan arrivals, and some receiving communities have expressed frustration at the strain put on local service providers and resources. To avoid widespread backlash and to facilitate the smooth integration of Venezuelans into local communities, policymakers must tackle questions ranging from the provision of permanent status to access to public services and labor markets. Done well, this could be an opportunity to update government processes and strengthen public services in ways that benefit both newcomers and long-term residents.

▻https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/legal-pathways-venezuelan-migrants-latin-america

Venezuela: Millions at risk, at home and abroad

Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world and is not engulfed in war. Yet its people have been fleeing on a scale and at a rate comparable in recent memory only to Syrians at the height of the civil war and the Rohingya from Myanmar.

As chronicled by much of our reporting collected below, some three to four million people have escaped the economic meltdown since 2015 and tried to start afresh in countries like Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. This exodus has placed enormous pressure on the region; several governments have started making it tougher for migrants to enter and find jobs.

The many millions more who have stayed in Venezuela face an acute humanitarian crisis denied by their own government: pervasive hunger, the resurgence of disease, an absence of basic medicines, and renewed political uncertainty.

President Nicolás Maduro has cast aside outside offers of aid, framing them as preludes to a foreign invasion and presenting accusations that the United States is once again interfering in Latin America.

Meanwhile, the opposition, led by Juan Guaidó, the president of the National Assembly, has invited in assistance from the US and elsewhere.

As aid becomes increasingly politicised, some international aid agencies have chosen to sit on the sidelines rather than risk their neutrality. Others run secretive and limited operations inside Venezuela that fly under the media radar.

Local aid agencies, and others, have had to learn to adapt fast and fill the gaps as the Venezuelan people grow hungrier and sicker.

https://assets.irinnews.org/s3fs-public/styles/responsive_large/public/venezuela_feb2019_1352.jpg?PoYmMQplrq8BMWzMVybDXJ4tG8uiNPkO&itok=WHDWj980#.jpg

▻https://www.irinnews.org/special-report/2019/02/21/venezuela-millions-risk-home-and-abroad
#cartographie #visualisation

Leaving Home Through a Darkened Border

I’m sitting on the edge of a boat on the shore of the Grita river, a few kilometers from the Unión bridge. The border between San Antonio del Tachira (Venezuela) and Cucuta (Colombia), one of the most active in Latin America, is tense, dark and uneasy. I got there on a bus from Merida, at around 4:00 a.m., and people were commenting, between WhatsApp messages and audios, that Maduro had opened the border, closed precisely the last time I went through in a violent haze.

Minutes after I got off the bus, I could see hundreds standing in an impossible queue for the Venezuelan immigration office, at Boca de Grita. Coyotes waited on motorbikes, telling people how much cheaper and faster it’d be if they paid to cross through the side trail. I approached the first motorbike I saw, paid 7,000 Colombian pesos (a little over $2) and sleepily made my way through the wet, muddy paths down to the river.
Challenge 1: From Merida to the border

Fuel shortages multiplied the bus fares to the border in less than a month; the few buses that can still make the trip are already malfunctioning. The lonely, dark roads are hunting grounds for pirates, who throw rocks at car windows or set up spikes on the pavement to blow tires. Kidnapping or robberies follow.

The bus I was in stopped several times when the driver saw a particularly dark path ahead. He waited for the remaining drivers traveling that night to join him and create a small fleet, more difficult to attack. The criminals are after what travelers carry: U.S. dollars, Colombian pesos, Peruvian soles, gold, jewelry (which Venezuelans trade at the border for food or medicine, or a ride to Peru or Chile). “It’s a bad sign to find a checkpoint without soldiers,” the co-driver said, as he got off to stretch his legs. “We’ll stop here because it’s safe; we’ll get robbed up ahead.” Beyond the headlights, the road was lost in dusk. This trip usually takes five hours, but this time it took seven, with all the stops and checkpoints along the way.
Challenge 2: Across the river from Venezuela to Colombia

Reaching the river, I noticed how things had changed since the last time I visited. There was no trace of the bottles with smuggled fuel, barrels, guards or even containers over the boats. In fact, there weren’t even that many boats, just the one, small and light, pushed by a man with a wooden stick through muddy waters. I was the only passenger.

The paracos (Colombian paramilitaries) were in a good mood. Their logic is simple: if Maduro opened the border, lots of people would try to cross, but since many couldn’t go through the bridge due to the expensive bribes demanded by the Venezuelan National Guard and immigration agents, this would be a good day for trafficking.

The shortage of fuel in states like Tachira, Merida and Zulia destroyed their smuggling of incredibly cheap Venezuelan fuel to Colombia, and controlling the irregular crossings is now the most lucrative business. Guerrillas and paracos have been at it for a while, but now Venezuelan pro-Maduro colectivos, deployed in Tachira in February to repress protests, took over the human trafficking with gunfire, imposing a new criminal dynamic where, unlike Colombian paramilitaries, they assault and rob Venezuelan migrants.

A woman arrives on a motorbike almost half an hour after me, and comes aboard. “Up there, they’re charging people with large suitcases between 15,000 and 20,000 pesos. It’s going to be really hard to cross today. People will grow tired, and eventually they’ll come here. They’re scared because they’ve heard stories, but everything’s faster here.”

Her reasoning is that of someone who has grown accustomed to human trafficking, who uses these crossings every day. Perhaps she’s missing the fact that, in such a critical situation as Venezuela’s in 2019, most people can no longer pay to cross illegally and, if they have some money, they’d rather use it to bribe their way through the bridge. The binational Unión bridge, 60 km from Cucuta, isn’t that violent, making it the preferred road for families, pregnant women and the elderly.

Coyotes get three more people on the boat, the boatman sails into the river, turns on the rudimentary diesel engine and, in a few minutes, we’re on the other side. It’s not dawn yet and I’m certain this is going to be a very long day.

“I hope they remove those containers from the border,” an old man coming from Trujillo with a prescription for insulin tells me. “I’m sure they’ve started already.” After the failed attempt to deliver humanitarian aid in February, the crossing through the bridges was restricted to all pedestrians and only in a few exceptions a medical patient could be let through (after paying the bribe). The rest still languishes on the Colombian side.
Challenge 3: Joining the Cucuta crowd

I finally reach Cucuta and six hours later, mid-afternoon, I meet with American journalist Joshua Collins at the Simón Bolívar bridge. According to local news, about 70,000 people are crossing it this Saturday alone.

The difference with what I saw last time, reporting the Venezuela Live Aid concert, is astounding: the mass of Venezuelans lifts a cloud that covers everything with a yellowish, dirty and pale nimbus. The scorching desert sunlight makes everyone bow their heads while they push each other, crossing from one side to the other. There’s a stagnant, bitter smell in the air, a kind of musk made of filth, moisture and sweat.

Joshua points to 20 children running barefoot and shirtless after cabs and vehicles. “Those kids wait here every day for people who want to cross in or out with packs of food and merchandise. They load it all on their shoulders with straps on around their heads.” These children, who should be in school or playing with their friends, are the most active carriers nowadays, working for paramilitaries and colectivos.

The market (where you can buy and sell whatever you can think of) seems relegated to the background: what most people want right now is to cross, buy food and return before nightfall. The crowd writhes and merges. People shout and fight, frustrated, angry and ashamed. The Colombian police tries to help, but people move how they can, where they can. It’s unstoppable.

The deepening of the complex humanitarian crisis in the west, plus the permanent shortage of gasoline, have impoverished migrants to a dangerous degree of vulnerability. Those who simply want to reach the border face obstacles like the absence of safe transportation and well-defined enemies, such as the human trafficking networks or the pro-Maduro criminal gangs controlling the roads now. The fear of armed violence in irregular crossings and the oppressive tendencies of the people controlling them, as well as the growing xenophobia of neighboring countries towards refugees, should be making many migrants wonder whether traveling on foot is a good idea at all.

Although the border’s now open, the regime’s walls grow thicker for the poor. This might translate into new internal migrations within Venezuela toward areas less affected by the collapse of services, such as Caracas or the eastern part of the country, and perhaps the emergence of poor and illegal settlements in those forgotten lands where neither Maduro’s regime, nor Iván Duque’s government hold any jurisdiction.

For now, who knows what’s going to happen? The sun sets over the border and a dense cloud of dust covers all of us.

▻https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2019/06/11/leaving-home-through-a-darkened-border

#guerre_aux_pauvres
Ca me fait pensé à une statistique que j’avais croisé sur les morts par overdose entre USA, GB et France. Je croi que c’était une émission de radio sur la crise des opioïdes.
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/695685#message695699
Les USA c’etait de l’ordre de 65000 de morts par an (2016 je croi), GB entre 4000 et 5000 et la France moins de 1000. Rapporté à la population (qui est à peu près la même) la différence entre France et GB est énorme.
voire ici aussi : ▻https://seenthis.net/messages/665835

En parlant d’incendie… Ça me rappelle celui de la tour Grenfell.
Et, en plus, il faudrait que cela soit secret…
▻https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/16/towers-with-grenfell-style-cladding-at-risk-of-arson-and-terrorism

Les aides sociales, des « trappes à inactivité » selon Gérald Darmanin

Le ministre de l’action et des comptes publics a estimé mardi que le système social français doit être revu pour inciter davantage au retour à l’emploi.

▻https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2018/05/29/les-aides-sociales-des-trappes-a-inactivite-selon-gerald-darmanin_5306349_82

Dans une note interne que Le Monde s’est procurée, la direction du budget donne « plusieurs pistes d’économies », proposant notamment de ne plus indexer le niveau des aides à l’évolution des prix ou de conditionner l’obtention de certains minima sociaux à « des démarches actives de recherche » d’un poste.

Le comité d’experts Cap 22 doit également remettre dans les prochaines semaines un rapport sur la réforme de l’Etat listant les pistes d’économie possibles.

Et voila ce que ces ** vont voté cet été.

#ville #surveillance #smart_cities

#Urban_matter #villes #Barcelone

En réponse à ceci sans doute ►http://syriadirect.org/news/power-struggle-between-regime-kurdish-self-administration-plays-out-in-

Famine in Yemen: A primer

Warnings of famine in Yemen are coming hard and fast these days, with UN Relief Chief Mark Lowcock telling the Security Council on Tuesday that “there is now a clear and present danger of an imminent and great big famine engulfing” the country.

The truth is that Yemen has been teetering on the edge of famine for much of its more than three and a half years of war, and while food prices have recently shot up thanks to a collapsing currency, this is not the first time humanitarians have rung the alarm bells.

Back in November 2017, the Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels and their allies temporarily closed Yemen’s air, land, and sea borders in response to a rocket sent by the Houthis towards Riyadh. Eighteen NGOs issued a statement then expressing concern that “the humanitarian situation is extremely fragile and any disruption in the pipeline of critical supplies such as food, fuel, and medicines has the potential to bring millions of people closer to starvation and death”.
The blockade was later eased and some aid was allowed in, but as we pointed out at the time, when it comes to averting famine, commercial imports are more important than relief supplies.

https://i.imgur.com/UjH62S9.png

In most of Yemen, shops and markets still sell food. But many people simply don’t have the money to buy it. Yemen’s currency has been in freefall since September, causing a spike in food and fuel prices and even further impacting the average Yemeni’s ability to purchase what they need to survive.

https://i.imgur.com/4CX8PIE.png

Millions of hungry people live in Yemen. The UN now estimates that 14 million Yemenis, half the country, could soon be in what it calls “pre-famine” conditions; that means they will rely on aid to survive. That number may rise even more if Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hodeidah is closed by fighting; the coalition is currently intensifying an offensive on Houthis in the city.

But declaring a famine is a technically complicated process, as this account from South Sudan illustrates:

We don’t yet know if and when famine will be declared. Analysts are reviewing market, health, and nutrition surveys from across Yemen to determine if the situation crosses the technical threshold of “famine”. In order to avoid false alarms and crying wolf, strict requirements must be met before a situation can be designated a famine. And even that declaration can still be held up or delayed by political concerns – governments and warring parties typically don’t want to admit to a famine on their watch.

In 2011, the UN declared the first famine of the 21st century in Somalia, caused by war, drought, and restricted relief access. The announcement was met by a wave of new funding, international media and diplomatic attention, and more determined efforts to work through blockages. The declaration, based on the same Integrated Phase Classification methodology that Yemen analysts are using, had no automatic effect but galvanised an international response, including $1.25 billion in 2011. Any famine declaration is an admission of failure: later studies showed that about half of an estimated 260,000 Somali deaths took place before the pronouncement.

For now, just when an official declaration of famine will come, if it comes at all, is still unclear. What we know for sure: malnutrition can be deadly, and right now it’s making some Yemenis more susceptible to diseases like cholera and diphtheria.

▻https://www.irinnews.org/news/2018/10/24/famine-yemen-primer
#alimentation #nourriture #prix #blé

‘They say we don’t pay taxes’: Undocumented tax-paying migrants living in the #UK

By making it easier for undocumented migrants to become documented, states would better enable migrants to harness their capacity and lead fulfilled lives. Efficient means to becoming regular migrants is in the best interest for everyone. The state is already benefiting from the contributions of many undocumented migrants that are not officially recognised. By simplifying the processes of regularisation, the state also benefits from the additional possibility of increased tax contributions from those undocumented migrants not currently paying any tax. Regularising the status of Yaa Mansa and those like her that I encountered in my research would be a strong step towards a more beneficial situation not only for the undocumented migrant, but also for their country of origin and for their host country.

▻https://www.imi.ox.ac.uk/blog/2018they-say-we-don2019t-pay-taxes2019-undocumented-tax-paying-migrants-li
#Angleterre

Recent waves of immigrants to the UK have contributed far more in taxes than they received in benefits

In the national debate about the pros and cons of immigration, the impact on the UK’s tax and welfare system and overall public finances is perhaps the single most important economic issue. We have recently seen claims that immigrants from Europe “free-ride” on the benefits and health system. These stories result in demands that, not only should their access to benefits and public services be restricted, but also that immigration from European Union (EU) countries should be restricted.

▻http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/revealed-immigrants-put-34-more-into-public-finances-than-they-take-out

There is no evidence that EU migrants reduce wages for British workers

Immigrants from other EU countries do not reduce average wages for UK-born workers. So said the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), a crack team of independent economists that advises the government on immigration policy, in an interim report published today.

▻https://www.freemovement.org.uk/migration-advisory-committee-eu-migrants-interim-report

Ici le lien pour télécharger le rapport :
▻https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eea-workers-in-the-uk-labour-market-interim-update

How immigrants affect jobs and wages

In the UK, studies suggest that immigration has a small impact on average wages but more significant impacts along the wage distribution - low-waged workers lose while medium and high-paid workers gain

▻https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-and-jobs-labour-market-effects-immigration
#salaire #travail

Immigration and the Welfare State: Immigrant and Native Use Rates and Benefit Levels for Means-Tested Welfare and Entitlement Programs

The federal government spent about $2.3 trillion in 2016 on the welfare state, an amount equal to approximately 60 percent of all federal outlays in that year.1 A full $1.5 trillion of those expenditures went to the entitlement programs of Social Security and Medicare, whose intended beneficiaries are the elderly, while the other $800 billion went to means-tested welfare benefits, whose intended beneficiaries are the poor.2 Overall, immigrants are less likely to consume welfare benefits and, when they do, they generally consume a lower dollar value of benefits than native-born Americans. Immigrants who meet the eligibility thresholds of age for the entitlement programs or poverty for the means-tested welfare programs generally have lower use rates and consume a lower dollar value relative to native-born Americans.3 The per capita cost of providing welfare to immigrants is substantially less than the per capita cost of providing welfare to native-born Americans.

▻https://www.cato.org/publications/immigration-research-policy-brief/immigration-welfare-state-immigrant-native-use-rates#full

Positive economic impact of UK immigration from the European Union: new evidence

European immigrants to the UK have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, helping to relieve the fiscal burden on UK-born workers and contributing to the financing of public services – according to new research by the UCL Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).

▻https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1114/051114-economic-impact-EU-immigration
#impact_économique

THE LONG - TERM ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF REDUCING MIGRATION : THE CASE OF THE UK MIGRATION POLICY

▻http://www.niesr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/publications/dp420.pdf

Global migration’s impact and opportunity

Migration has become a flashpoint for debate in many countries. But #McKinsey Global Institute research finds that it generates significant economic benefits—and more effective integration of immigrants could increase those benefits.

▻http://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Global%20Themes/Employment%20and%20Growth/Global%20migrations%20impact%20and%20opportunity/png_Web_MGI_Migration_ex1_v2.ashx
▻http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/employment-and-growth/global-migrations-impact-and-opportunity?platform=hootsuite

Migration can help to forge a more prosperous world, says World Bank

Movement of people from poor to rich countries could drive economic growth and boost battle against global poverty, claims World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim

▻https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/oct/07/migration-more-prosperous-world-bank-global-monitoring-report-2015-16
#banque_mondiale

Myth: Refugees are a burden

Europe is now struggling with the most severe crisis of refugees in decades, as millions of people flee violence in Syria and Iraq. Even as German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel outlined a proposal this week to place 160,000 refugees in nearly two dozen countries, he acknowledged that the plan was merely “a drop in the ocean.” Germany alone expects to receive 800,000 applications from asylum seekers this year. The U.S. government announced Thursday it would take in 10,000.

▻http://www.ticotimes.net/2015/09/11/myth-refugees-are-a-burden?platform=hootsuite