25.11.21 - On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, our founder Nassim Majidi was invited to speak at a roundtable at the French Sénat on the current situation for women in Afghanistan, and actions that can be taken by France and the international community in response.

Nassim explored the multi-faceted impact of the current humanitarian crisis on Afghan women, alongside the widespread risk of gender-based violence. She also highlighted the barriers Afghan women and girls are facing in accessing family reunification programmes, and the disparity between men and women in terms of possession of legal identity documents.

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02.11.21: Nassim Majidi, co-founder of Samuel Hall took part in the recent ‘Afghan Refugees’ roundtable, organised by the Migration And Refugees Research Network at Oxford Brookes University. The wide ranging discussion covered current challenges for displaced Afghans – both within and outside of the country.

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25.10.2021 - The Norwegian Centre for Humanitarian Studies (NCHS) recently hosted a webinar exploring the paradoxes of protection emerging from the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and the implications for humanitarian action and geopolitics. Samuel Hall co-founder Nassim Majidi joined an expert panel that included Arne Strand (Chr. Michelsen Institute), Orzala A Nemat (Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit), Kristian Berg Harpviken (Peace Research Institute Oslo), Kristin Bergtora Sandvik (Peace Research Institute Oslo and University of Oslo), and Katja Lindskov Jacobsen (University of Copenhagen). The panel discussed the emergency rationale underpinning the narrative that the only sensible thing to do was “to leave asap”, the need for international standards of protection, the impact of the chaotic humanitarian evacuations on the protection of refugees, and the consequences of leaving behind digital devices and biometric data.

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29.09.2021 - The collapse of the Afghan government has brought displacement in Afghanistan into sharp focus. Samuel Hall co-founder Nassim Majidi joined this webinar, organised by the Graduate Institute Geneva’s Global Migration Centre, to critically examine what the Taliban’s recent takeover in Afghanistan means for migration and displacement in the country and the broader region.

The webinar was moderated by the Graduate Institute Geneva’s Prof. Vincent Chetail. Nassim was joined by Prof. Md Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi (University of Tehran), Dr Marie McAuliffe (IOM, Head of Migration Research Division), and Prof. Alessandro Monsutti (Graduate Institute Geneva).

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23.09.2021 - Marion Guillaume, Samuel Hall’s Children & Youth pillar lead, spoke at the launch event for the EU-IOM’s new monitoring toolkit, ‘Monitoring Toolkit and Good Practices for the Sustainable Reintegration of Child Returnees’. The toolkit, developed and field-tested by Samuel Hall in Ethiopia, Georgia, Honduras, Iraq and Nigeria, promotes a child-focused approach for both understanding and measuring the sustainable reintegration of child returnees in the economic, social and psychosocial dimensions. The Toolkit puts forth a set of practical tools that take into account the diverse experiences faced by child returnees across those dimensions.

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24.08.2021 - Samuel Hall co-founder Nassim Majidi, joining MPI's Hanne Beirens and UNHCR's Aurvasi Patel, spoke on this MPI webinar, organised in response to recent events in Afghanistan. Fleeing political instability and potential economic collapse, many thousands of Afghan civilians have began to, and will continue to, flee their homes and seek refuge, both internally and abroad. This conversation sought to explore Europe's possible responses to the situation in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries. Nassim outlined, amongst other points, the vital importance of granting Afghans Prima Facie refugee status, and the need for civil society, the private and public sectors to mobilise, make demands, and take action to protect Afghans.

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15.07.2021 - Speaking to the IGAD 2021 Conference, Nassim Majidi presented preliminary findings from a study, conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Samuel Hall, on the experiences of returnee reintegration in rural areas in Kenya, Afghanistan, Moldova, Nepal, Senegal, and Tunisia.

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28.06.2021 - This technical workshop, organised by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), aimed to advance understanding on how to strengthen links between academic research and operational approaches to better identify, understand and address drivers of human mobility across the humanitarian, development, and peace nexus. Building on existing partnerships between IOM and academic institutions, the workshop facilitated the exchange of conceptual approaches to drivers of migration and displacement, available data sources and information gaps, and discussions on how the analysis and understanding of drivers can be integrated into broader, cross-cutting humanitarian and sustainable development assessments. The ultimate goal was to better inform policy and program interventions. Nassim presented key findings from Samuel Hall's February 2021 report, a collaboration with IOM and UNEP, on Identifying Climate Adaptive Solutions to Displacement in Somalia.

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24.06.21 - Most countries closed their borders over the pandemic, but for asylum seekers, deportation continued all over the world. More and more often, they are returned to the same life-threatening conditions that they fled. To mark World Refugee Day on 20 June 2021, and the launch of Open Democracy’s multimedia project 'Parallel Journeys', Samuel Hall co-founder joined a discussion chaired by Preethi Nallu on returns without reintegration. Her fellow panellists included Léa Yammine of Lebanon Support and international human trafficking expert Claudio Formisano.

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29.04.2021 - Jared Owuor, Samuel Hall’s Regional Operations Manager for East & Horn of Africa, presented Samuel Hall's contribution, under "Digital connectivity and entrepreneurship in refugee camps and settlements", to the ILO Report entitled "Digital refugee livelihoods and decent work". Samuel Hall provided a case study to the report titled "Digital access among refugees in East Africa: Implications for digital livelihoods provision". This was based on the project “Innovating Mobile Solutions for Refugees in East Africa: Opportunities and Barrier to Using Mobile Technology and the Internet in Kakuma Refugee Camp and Nakivale Refugee Settlement" (2018). Available at https://bit.ly/3hm2dEn

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15.04.2021 - The 2nd Kenya Think Tanks Symposium was held online. Organised by the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), the symposium brought together more than 50 Kenyan think tanks, officials and representatives from research and learning institutions. Jared Owuor, Samuel Hall's Regional Operations Manager for East & Horn of Africa, participated as a discussant in the Plenary Panel Session on "Adaptive Policy Research and Analysis in the COVID 19 era".

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14.04.2021 - The Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (RSRI - https://www.refugeeselfreliance.org/) is a coalition of organisations, government agencies, foundations, research institutes, and other partners. Samuel Hall is a founding member. The Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative works on advancing self-reliance through three main pillars: programming, measurement, and advocacy. Regular learning calls with members of the community of practice. (implementers, academia, think tanks, donors...). On this call, Samuel Hall’s pillar lead for Data Standards & Analytics, presents her research looking at cash programming and Self-Reliance in Jordan followed by a discussion.

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11.03.2021 - This event was the third part of Sciences Po's yearly conference cycle titled: “2015-2020: 5 years of a migration crisis? A report by region”. The event reflected on migration in South Asia with a special focus on the situation in Afghanistan and neighboring countries (Pakistan and Iran). Samuel Hall co-founder Nassim Majidi (Researcher at CERI/Sciences Po), was joined by Christopher David Foulkes (Scholar of migration, Former Programme Support Officer for the IOM in Afghanistan), Umar Farooq (Journalist covering migration in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia) and Samira Tika Bavand (Protection Cluster Co-lead at the Norwegian Refugee Council).

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27.01.2021 - Nassim Majidi, Co-Director and Migration Pillar Lead and Joy Paone, IOM project manager, were invited to give a presentation on the results of the ‘Study on Reintegration Outcomes through a Comparative Analysis’ (ORION) for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The presentation covered previous IOM -Samuel Hall collaborations such as: the ‘Setting Standards for an Integrated Approach to Reintegration’ under the MEASURE project which led to development of this current study. Moreover, the presentation covered the implications derived from the results obtained from the ORION study and key takeaways for policy makers and implementers.

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21.01.2021 - Nassim Majidi, Co-Director and Migration Pillar Lead was invited to moderate a webinar composed of key actors from European and African countries which make up the Rabat Process. The objective of the webinar was to identify lessons learned and best practices from each member state of the Rabat process, understand the implications and opportunities concerning the EU’s new Pact on Migration and Asylum and take stock of the effect of COVID-19 on return and reintegration and possible solutions.

Yaoundé, Cameroon

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12.01.2021 - The Migration Policy Institute hosted a virtual workshop with key actors on return and reintegration to discuss the implications of the EU’s strategy on return and reintegration, as part of the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. Nassim Majidi, Co-Director and Migration Pillar Lead was invited to lead a discussion on the link between reintegration, development cooperation and local development. Nassim led a discussion which touched upon clarifying what development cooperation means, what are the gaps in current practice and what are the areas that need to be prioritized such as social protection for returned migrants and the enhancement of locally-led interventions.

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15.10.2020 - Nassim Majidi, Co-Director and Migration Pillar Lead was invited to be a panelist at the launch of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report: 'Sustainable Reintegration of Returning Migrants: A Better Homecoming'. The multi-country peer reviewed project, conducted by the OECD in collaboration with German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) examined the multi-valent factors that contribute to sustainable reintegration with the aim of improving programming, design, evaluation, and monitoring of reintegration initiatives. As a panelist Nassim highlighted the need for longitudinal evaluations, greater synergy between development cooperation and reintegration initiatives, greater reliance on local expertise and the pursuit of complementary solutions. In addition, Samuel Hall contributed two background papers concerning reintegration outcomes in Senegal and Afghanistan that fed into the OECD report.

Paris, France

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07.10.2020 - Nassim Majidi, Co-Director and Migration Pillar lead, together with Camille Kasavan, Migration Pillar Project Manager presented the results of the ‘Study on Reintegration Outcomes through a Comparative Analysis. The study commissioned by IOM in the context of the ORION project funded by the UK Department for International Development, was conducted by Samuel Hall and the University of Sussex. The study aimed to assess how different factors can impact the reintegration of returning migrants, and to identify the most effective reintegration support practices in Guinea, Morocco and Senegal, with a specific focus on the mentoring approach piloted under the ORION Project. The Webinar is organized by the EU-IOM Knowledge Management Hub in partnership with Samuel Hall and the University of Sussex.

Geneva, Switzerland

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12.11.2020 - Nassim Majidi, Co-Director and Migration Pillar Lead has been invited to present her research paper: ‘Assuming Reintegration, Experiencing Dislocation - Returns from Europe to Afghanistan’, which was selected to feature in the United Nations University- CRIS special issue journal ‘Reintegration in International Migration’. Nassim will present her paper among other selected authors to key stakeholders in a dissemination webinar organised by the United Nations University- CRIS. Nassim’s paper complicates the notion that existing social networks directly translates into positive reintegration outcomes. Taking the case study of returns from Europe to Afghanistan, Nassim provides a more nuanced view of the role of social networks in fostering the reintegration of returnees.

Brugge, Belgium

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15.09.2020 - Nassim Majidi, Co-Director and Migration Pillar Lead was invited to speak at the International Symposium on: ‘Return Migration and Implications for Policy and Practice: Global, Regional and National Multi-stakeholder Perspectives’. The Symposium was sponsored by IMISCOE as part of one of its Research Initiatives ‘Revisiting Return Migration in Shifting Geopolitics’. Nassim’s presentation concerned South-South return migration, particularly the double marginalisation that migrants face when they do not express a sense of belonging during their migration cycle or upon their return. Drawing on research conducted by Samuel Hall, Nassim presents the different ways in which the phenomenon of double marginalisation can occur among migrants and returnees in different contexts across different countries of the Global South such as: Senegal, Guinea, Afghanistan, Iran and Libya. Nassim rounds off her presentation by outlining the blind-spots in research and policy that arise if the phenomenon of double marginalisation is neglected, before concluding with recommendations researchers and policy makers can follow.

Lancashire, United Kingdom

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