Migration & Displacement — Publications

British Red Cross: Onward Bound — Evaluating Cash and Voucher Assistance for Migrants on Sahel's Migration Trail

July 2023

Cash and voucher assistance (CVA) can play a significant role in migration programming by providing support and empowering individuals or families who are migrating to meet their needs.

Recognising the value of granting migrants greater autonomy in meeting their immediate needs, humanitarian actors are increasingly turning to cash assistance. Its flexibility has proven effective in supporting migrants' ever-changing circumstances, but its use remains limited.

To better understand the opportunities and challenges of integrating CVA into migration programming, Samuel Hall, in collaboration with the British Red Cross, conducted a study focused on transit migration in the Sahel region—Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mauritania.

Despite their relevance, targeted cash assistance programmes for transit migrants are scarce, resulting in limited impact on their livelihoods. This is partly due to the perception that CVA would influence migrants’ decisions - a perception that evidence collected as part of this research strongly debunks.

To address these challenges, a shift is urgently needed from a country-based approach to a journey-based approach in planning CVA interventions in the Sahel region.

Download Report Here - EN, FR

Download Annexes Here - EN, FR

FAO: Toolkit & Global Lessons Learned for the Sustainable Reintegration of Return Migrants in Rural Areas

April 2023

Samuel Hall conducted a research study for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to undertake a two-part effort to inform policy and programming on sustainable reintegration in rural areas in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. The two outputs of this collaboration include the present lessons learned report that offers the framework, and the associated Rural Reintegration Toolkit that presents the tools for practitioners to improve policy and programming on sustainable reintegration in rural areas.

The aim of the global lessons learned report is to provide a roadmap for collective action in support of returnees in rural areas and rural communities across a range of development settings. While the toolkit aims to support local stakeholders and actors in agrifood systems to integrate rural returnees into programmes and other initiatives to develop the agrifood sector. It provides resources to design and implement programmes and projects to facilitate the reintegration of returnees in rural areas.

Download Global Lessons Learned Report Here

Download Toolkit Here

Samuel Hall - Against The Clock : Our Position On Climate Migration

March 2022

For over ten years, we have worked in fragile and conflict-prone settings across 60+ countries. Many of the places we know, and the communities we work with, are among the most vulnerable to climate change. Our experience tells us that there are several gaps in climate and migration research – gaps that urgently need addressing.

Samuel’s Hall’s latest short paper outlines our position on climate migration. In a context where climate migration has been characterised by some as a ‘worse case scenario’, and yielded by populists and nationalists to stoke fear, there is a need for evidence-based policy-making derived from research that centres the voices of communities.

Focusing on the need for rapid, community-owned and led action, this report nods to local governance initiatives leading climate justice movements across the globe and spotlights some of our key projects and commitments in this area.

Download Position Paper

UNHCR - Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance Mid-Year Post-Distribution Monitoring Report 2021

September 2021

This report presents the results from the 2021 mid-year Post-Distribution (PDM) exercise of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) multi-purpose cash assistance programme in Jordan. Jordan hosts close to three quarters of a million refugees, most living outside of camps. In this context, cash assistance is one of the most important social protection tools in humanitarian response.

Samuel Hall was commissioned by UNHCR to assess the degree to which cash recipients rely on negative coping strategies to meet their basic needs in Jordan. With profiles of interviewed beneficiaries and their spending patterns; the report discusses the impact of the monthly basic needs cash assistance on factors such as negative coping mechanisms, food security, housing, and debt. In the final section, the report discusses the cash recipients’ perceptions of cash transfer modalities and the UNHCR complaints mechanism, followed by a presentation of key monitoring indicators.

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World Bank - Regional Learning on Development Responses to Forced Displacement in the Great Lakes Region: Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia

October 2021

The World Bank commissioned Samuel Hall to develop and coordinate a year-long series of learning events among government representatives from the Great Lakes region to generate a regional dialogue and government-to-government exchange on development responses to forced displacement. Through unique peer-to-peer learning model, the learning series centred on government sharing share their understanding, learning, and best practices on selected topics, with a specific link to wider development responses and planning processes.

Download Event 1 output: Engaging Refugee Hosting Communities (English) (French)
Download Event output: COVAX Distribution (English) (French)
Download Event 2 output: Documentation (English) (French)

Download Event 2 output: Education(English) (French)

Download Event 3 output: Integrated Approaches to Farm-Based Livelihoods (English) (French)

Download Event 3 output: Private Sector Involvement in Non-Farm Livelihoods (English) (French)
Download Event 4 output: Data Collection Mechanisms (English) (French)

Download Event 4 output: Reducing Data Fragmentation (English) (French)

AMIF – Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning of Actions financed by the Asylum Migration Integration Fund (AMIF)

March 2021

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, on behalf of the donors funding RDPP, commissioned Samuel Hall to conduct an evaluation to assess the results and impact of the AMIF-funded activities in Ethiopia and Sudan. AMIF actions aimed at enabling the provision of better protection, assistance and durable solutions for refugees and asylum seekers through improved documentation and robust data storage systems. This involved building a refugee registration system with biometric identification management, real-time data verification capacity and simultaneous identification of protection needs of persons of concern. Not only benefiting refugees, the actions also aimed to improve civil registration more broadly, in particular birth registration, be it among the refugee or host community.

Download Ethiopia Report

Download Sudan Report

Download Synthesis Report

ICMPD – Study on Return, Readmission and Reintegration Programmes in Africa

April 2021

ICMPD commissioned Samuel Hall to examine existing return, re-admission, and reintegration (RRR) programming in Africa. This study involved 1. Overview analysis of legal frameworks at regional, continental, and international levels. 2. An in-depth review of RRR initiatives and programming in 10 African Union (AU) member states. 3. Identification of lessons learned from countries of return, including RRR best practices, standards and procedures. It presents recommendations for sustainable RRR programming to the African Union Commission (AUC), Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and individual AU member states, and will directly inform the development of a continental policy on RRR.

Download Executive Summary (English)

Download Report (English)

Download Executive Summary (French)

Download Report (French)

DELMI – Those who were sent back: Return and reintegration of rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan and Iraq

October 2021

This 2019/2020 study was commissioned by the Swedish Migration Studies Delegation (DELMI), with fieldwork by Samuel Hall. Results are based on 100 interviews with migrants who have returned voluntarily and involuntarily to Afghanistan and Iraq. Respondents answered questions about their lives before arrival to Sweden, the asylum and return process. The study sought to actively embed local researchers and civil society organisations in the research design, to create a deeper evidence-base for advocacy and aid nuanced understanding of the challenges of return decision-making, reintegration and post-return monitoring.

Download Policy Brief

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ILO – Rapid assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on labour markets in Ethiopia: A case study of the Somali and Tigray regions

April 2021

The Somali and Tigray regional states of Ethiopia are among the country’s main regions where refugees have sought shelter, but both face various socio-economic challenges that undermine the livelihoods of both host communities and refugees. Commissioned by the ILO, Samuel Hall assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on displacement-affected labour markets in targeted PROSPECTS intervention areas in the Somali and Tigray regional states, to gather evidence on current local socio-economic environments and inform the design of relevant and context-specific measures.

Download Report

Watch Somali Summary Video

Watch Tigray Summary Video

IOM & UNEP – Identifying Climate Adaptive Solutions to Displacement in Somalia

April 2021

This assessment report created by Samuel Hall for IOM, UNEP, and the Directorate for Environment and Climate Change of the Somali Government explores the interactions between climate change, displacement and urbanisation. It answers two key questions in the context of the Somali cities of Baidoa and Kismayo: What factors trigger climate-induced migration? And what adaptive and transformative solutions may contribute to building resilience amid displacement and climate change – at both the community and policy levels?

A mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. Participatory research ensures that the voices of communities, individual households, and vulnerable populations are clearly and distinctly heard throughout the report.

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HelpAge – COVID-19, Displacement & Older People in Afghanistan

January 2021

Samuel Hall and HelpAge International add a short country report brief focused on the impact of COVID-19 on Afghanistan’s elderly population to a multi-partner series sponsored by UNFPA and coordinated by HelpAge International. Samuel Hall’s contribution is independent and entirely self-funded. The overall objective of this series is to broadly monitor, document, analyse and share how the situation of older people in Asia changes in 2020 as a result of COVID-19, in order to inform programmatic responses and policy advice, post-pandemic. The methodology is geared towards collecting and analysing a wide range of secondary evidence from multiple sources, including academic, UN and INGO studies; government documents and data; key informant interviews; summaries of field data; and media reports.

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AFI – Financial Inclusion of Forcibly Displaced Persons

December 2020

Forcibly displaced persons (FDPs) often lack access to finances – including savings accounts, transfers, loans and insurance. In support of AFI’s “Advancing the Financial Inclusion of FDPs: Putting Recommendations to Practice" , Samuel Hall created a guideline note on how to better include displaced people into National Financial Inclusion Strategies (NFIS) globally. In addition, Samuel Hall and AFI, with support from Strathmore University in Kenya, researched the financial inclusion of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) to produce a series of case studies covering Afghanistan, Mauritania and Rwanda.

Download Guideline Note

Download Case Studies

ILO – Integrated Labour Market Assessment in Jigjiga and Kebribeyah: A Marketplace in Between Resilience and Integration

December 2020

Building on previous ILO work conducted in the Ethiopian regions and in Dadaab, Kenya, the study analysed labour market opportunities and constraints for refugees and hosts in Jigjiga, Somali State through the prism of the Labour Market System (LMS). The analysis is conducted through the lens of decent work opportunities. This means that the study focuses on both the quantity and quality of jobs available for host communities and refugees. As such, the focus is not solely on unemployment patterns, but also and more crucially on the type of jobs occupied by host communities and refugees to measure decent work. Building on the Jijiga study, Samuel Hall was subsequently contracted to replicate the research in the Tigray regional state.

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IOM – Mentoring Returnees: Study on Reintegration Outcomes Through a Comparative Lens

November 2020

IOM commissioned Samuel Hall to conduct the comparative study on reintegration outcomes under the umbrella of the project to Operationalise an Integrated Approach to Reintegration (ORION). Conducted across Senegal, Morocco, and Guinea, the project analyses reintegration outcomes over time and how programming type affects these. The study examines in particular the impact of a pilot mentoring approach, which provides closely targeted psychosocial support on a personalised level to returnees. The outcomes of the study overall seek to contribute to the following three outcomes: 1) Develop tools to promote sustainable reintegration, 2) reinforce evidence based programming, 3) strengthen capacities of local stakeholders in countries of origin to support reintegration.

Download Executive Summary (English)

Download Report (English)

Download Executive Summary (French)

Download Report (French)

UNHCR - Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance Mid-Year Post Distribution Monitoring Report 2020

September 2020

Jordan hosts close to three quarters of a million refugees, most living outside of camps. The majority are vulnerable, unable to independently maintain a dignified life. In this context, UNHCR Jordan’s unconditional monthly basic needs cash assistance programme is a lifeline for many. During the first half of-2020, around 33,000 vulnerable refugee families living in urban areas and mostly but not exclusively from Syria, benefited from monthly assistance in the form of a social cash transfer (unrelated to Covid-19 emergency cash transfers also distributed by UNHCR in the late spring of 2020 and discussed in an annex to this document). Based on a survey administered via telephone to 590 cash transfer recipients, this report presents the results of the mid-year post-distribution monitoring exercise. It contributes to strengthening the evidence-base for policies that address best practices in cash-based transfers and their impact on vulnerability of refugee populations.

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World Bank - Impact of Refugees on Hosting Communities in Ethiopia

August 2020

Commissioned by the World Bank, Samuel Hall (SH) is conducting an analysis of the social dynamics in refugee-hosting areas in Ethiopia. The study aims to help the Ethiopian government to put in place mechanisms to enable refugees to become more self-reliant and better integrated into society and the economy. By collecting data through qualitative methods, the objective of the project is to generate high quality evidence from the field on the social context in refugee-hosting areas and on the social impacts of refugees on hosts in three regions: Addis Ababa, Somali and Gambella regions.

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War Child - Coming Back to Afghanistan: Deported Minors' Needs at a Time of COVID-19

July 2020

Unaccompanied children on the move have become more common. This demographic shift calls for a transition to child-sensitive return programmes and policies – yet despite increased returns and deportations, support has decreased over the last decade in Afghanistan. COVID-19 has increased the risks of returns, and the response to the pandemic remains insufficient to meet the needs at the border - especially for children and women. This research was conducted by Samuel Hall for War Child UK and UNICEF to assess the impact of COVID-19 on minor deportees and returnees. It provides actionable learning to inform more effective and relevant design, implementation, and adjustment of future interventions targeting minor deportees.

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ADSP - A Long Way Home: Obstacles and Opportunities for IDP Return in Afghanistan

January 2020

Building on secondary research and an ethnographic-based primary data collection, this research turns to IDPs in key provinces and districts of return to ask: which factors positively contribute to the ability of IDP populations to return to their places of origin in a manner which is sustainable and dignified? Samuel Hall answers this question by taking a case study approach, zooming in on 1-3 specific theme(s) in each of the areas studied, and building a narrative of local specificities raised by IDPs themselves in group and individual consultations, including interactions with other community representatives as well in the process.

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DRC/NRC/IRC - Unprepared for (re)integration: Lessons Learned from Afghanistan, Somalia, and Syria on Refugee Returns to Urban Areas

January 2020

This research was designed to support the thinking and planning around (re-)integration by identifying obstacles to preparedness of stakeholders for return and (re-)integration in refugee return settings. The study generates operational learning to enable NGOs, UN agencies, donors, government actors, and displacement-affected communities (DACs) to strengthen (re-) integration programming. It does so by reviewing achievements, challenges, opportunities, and critical success factors required for enhancing preparedness in return settings.

Download Executive Summary

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War Child - Coming Back to Afghanistan: Study on Deported Minors’ Return and Reintegration Needs in the Western Region

December 2019

Samuel Hall was commissioned by War Child to conduct a study that provides a comprehensive understanding of the existing Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) regarding the unsafe migration of unaccompanied children to Iran. Primary data collection was conducted in Herat and Badghis provinces. The study also targeted parents and communities of children at risk of unsafe migration or experienced unsafe migration. This study contributes to charting a path forward for a post-deportation protection framework adapted to the protection profiles and needs of unaccompanied minors, their families and communities of return.

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