Does Shelter Assistance Reduce Poverty in Afghanistan?

Abstract

Forced migration, often resulting from violent conflict, imposes large economic costs on both sending and receiving countries, on those agencies that coordinate humanitarian services and most importantly upon the forced migrants themselves. Programs encouraging the return of refugees are therefore potentially crucial interventions, which can result in all parties benefiting. In this paper, we assess the UNHCR post-return shelter assistance program in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2011, the country most affected by refugee movements, where no less than one-third of the population is a returnee. We are motivated by the fact that the resolution of lost housing and property is commonly understood as a key ingredient in sustainable return and reintegration. Given the infeasibility of randomizing shelter assistance to those repatriated, we implement a variety of matching techniques to insulate our results from selection biases. Adopting a multidimensional approach, our results show that shelter assistance reduces multidimensional poverty by around six percent. This reduction in poverty is driven by particular indicators of deprivation including dietary diversity, food security and heating, all of which are shown to fall by five to six percent depending on the matching specification. The former results are particularly encouraging in the context of Afghanistan given the prevalence of chronic malnutrition in the country.

Evaluation of the Obstacles to Developing the Aynak Copper Mine in Afghanistan

“…This study assessed the degree of administrative capacity, labor investment, labor productivity, capital investment, efficiency of capital, terroristic activities, and issues of religion in relation to the developing process of the Aynak Copper Mine project in Afghanistan. In line with previous research on economic collaboration [2,[22][23][24] and Afghanistan [1, [25][26][27][28], the major finding of this current research is that the progressive process of developing the Aynak Copper Mine project is strongly associated with the factors of DAC, TAs, and RIs. One of the most significant results showed that a lack of strong administrative capacity may be an obstacle in developing the Aynak Copper Mine.…”

“…As Table 1 shown, we collected data from the six groups of stakeholders and then we placed them into five categories: None or few (0-20), not too much (21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40), neutral (41-60), partial (61-80), and very much (81-100). Among the 2563 responses related to the DAC, 62 people (2.4%) realized that the Afghan Government has no or few DACs to influence the development process of the Aynak Copper Mine, and 524 (20.4%) considered that there is not too much the DAC of the Afghan Government can do with the development of the Aynak Copper Mine.…”

To Specialize or Diversify: Agricultural Diversity and Poverty Dynamics in Ethiopia

“…We fill this research gap by providing some of the first clear, rigorous quantitative evidence on these policies. 1 In the spirit of recent literature designed to assess the impact of specific development programs (Bezu, Kassie, Shiferaw, & Ricker-Gilbert, 2014;Jodlowski, Winter-Nelson, Baylis, & Goldsmith, 2016;Larsen & Lilleør, 2014;Loschmann, Parsons, & Siegal, 2015;Mendola & Simtowe, 2015), we formulate our research question as a test of the impact of diversity in crop cultivation on household poverty in Ethiopia.…”

Repatriation of Afghan refugees from Iran: a shelter profile study

“…For the past decade, Afghanistan has consistently been one of the main countries of origin receiving returnees globally (Majidi 2017). In 2011, around one-third of the population in Afghanistan were returnees (Loschmann et al 2015). Despite their large population, the living situation of Afghan returnees is one of the most understudied areas in the forced migration field (Majidi 2017).…”

“…Among minimum standards of living, access to a covered living area is a fundamental human need and an essential element in the provision of protection, dignity, and identity for returnees (Babister and Kelman 2002). Moreover, access to a covered living area could be an essential element for households' livelihood and socio-economic development (Babister and Kelman 2002;Crea et al 2017;Loschmann et al 2015). In the harsh winters and hot summers of Afghanistan, access to shelter could be a crucial factor for survival.…”