Refugees in Western Tanzania: The Distribution of Burdens and Benefits Among Local Hosts

Their Suffering, Our Burden? How Congolese Refugees Affect the Ugandan Population

“…Many empirical works have then directly or indirectly built on these thoughts. In a case study about Burundian, Rwandan, and Congolese refugees in Western Tanzania, Whitaker (2002) finds that a number of these general hypotheses hold, e.g., an increase in trade and business, positive effects of relief operations but also altered social dynamics and new diseases. Overall, households and districts that were already better off tended to benefit while others were further marginalised.…”

The impact of Syrian refugees on the labor market in neighboring countries: empirical evidence from Jordan

“…There is ample evidence that governments are inclined to conduct indicative assessments to evaluate the economic and social burdens that these host countries have to shoulder due to the influx of refugees and the increase in hosting costs (Chatty and Marfleet, 2013). This influx comes on the back of already hard-pressed public budgets and public services, which generally results in increased population, stunted economic growth, strained political structures, heightened tensions among host communities and environmental degradation, and increased crime and insecurity (Hein, 1993;Murdoch and Sandler, 2002;Whitaker, 2002;AlixGarcia and Saah, 2010;Reuveny et al, 2010;Gomez et al, 2010). Ruiz and Vargas-Silva (2013) review the literature exploring the impact of forced migration, focusing on both forced migrants and host communities.…”

Economic impact of refugees

“…Some studies suggest that refugees have no significant impact (9). Others suggest heterogeneous impacts, with negative shocks more likely to affect poor host-country households (10)(11)(12). Alix-Garcia and Saah (13) consider the impact of refugee camps on agricultural prices in Tanzania and find positive effects on prices of some agricultural products and a decrease in the price of food distributed in kind at refugee camps.…”