Maybe in My Backyard: How Refugee-Host Cooperation Promotes Peace and Prosperity

• In Event: New Insights on NGOs in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

How does cooperation foster peace and prosperity among hosts and refugees? I argue that strong economic community institutions are key to peacebuilding as they provide a space for social capital and cooperation to develop between refugees and host communities. I explore these dynamics in the context of cooperation between host communities and refugees in farmer groups in Uganda, as cooperation most commonly emerges through agricultural livelihoods in rural areas in developing countries - where an overwhelming proportion of the world’s refugees are settled. Farmer groups facilitate access to market and credit services, collective sales to gain better prices and mobilization for policies that support agricultural development. While these groups are usually established by farmers themselves, in refugee settlements and host areas, groups are more often created by NGOs. Some NGO-supported farmer groups have a mixture of refugee and host members, while others consist of only refugees or only hosts.

I argue that compared to members in refugee-only or host-only farmer groups, refugees and hosts in mixed groups have more positive attitudes towards each other due to prolonged and consistent interactions, as well as improvements in their livelihoods through cooperation. I also posit that mixed groups are more successful at improving agricultural productivity and income levels of individual members than refugee-only and host-only groups as being in a mixed group increases access to resources for refugees and access to labor for hosts. In addition, I explore how refugees and hosts decide whether to make short or long-term investments in the farmer groups. I test this theory using data collected by NGOs supporting farmer groups and my own original survey and behavioral experiment of villages and refugee settlements with NGO-supported farmer groups. My work contributes to the existing literature on refugee-host relations and civil society’s role in peacebuilding by exploring how community institutions can foster pro-social attitudes and behavior crucial for economic development. In a time when refugee crises and its impacts are often misunderstood and hyperbolized, it is important to illuminate the ways in which refugees and host communities can live peacefully and cooperate productively.

Author

• Rebecca Wai, University of Michigan