By Samar Alarif*

Background

In the last two centuries, cities around the world are facing rapid demographic changes. Migration and the so-called refugee crisis contribute to these demographic changes. The rapid demographic change and the increase in the urban population concentrate around affordable housing, education, health, energy and water, transport and waste management, access to other public goods, and social and ethnic separation. Developing countries hosting refugees bear the bulk of the responsibility for responding to your refugees. In 2017, developing regions host 85% of the world’s refugees, while least developed countries host a third of the total number of refugees worldwide. Developing countries face the most severe challenges in development, and these challenges have multiplied with the arrival of the flows of refugees and migrants. Therefore, the discussion is now about the challenges and opportunities related to development, as well as achieving cooperation and sharing responsibilities at the global level. The discussion is also about achieving joint action between actors working in the humanitarian and development fields. However, migration could affect the development rate of the host country by increasing poverty, reducing economic growth, pressuring human and social welfare, and environmental sustainability. On the other hand, migration can foster development when responding to the needs and priorities of host countries, following accountable and responsive governance. This integrates development solutions with effective services delivery.

Migration Socioeconomic Integration and Local Development

Cities around the world are facing rapid return, resettlement, and local integration in the last two centuries. Rapid return, resettlement and local integration are the three core durable solutions for refugees. The focus of this report is related to what is clear from the third track related to local integration as a permanent solution. For local integration for refugees, the refugees are not in physical danger, and they enjoy the freedom of movement, right to sustainable livelihoods (through the unrestricted right to work), access to education or vocational training, access to health facilities, access to housing, and a social network within the host community (where intermarriages are common). There is little distinction in the standard of living between the hosts and refugees.

Applying the approach of development and local integration of migrants and refugees, the international community has recognized the need for effective cooperation between the actors in the field of the humanitarian response to refugee crises and those working in the field of development within host communities. The collaboration between actors would double efficiency and effectiveness, reduce costs, increase government participation and partnerships, and enhance business sustainability.

Countries in developing regions bear the more significant part of the responsibility for hosting refugees. Therefore, the local integration for refugees should be supported by international efforts, solidarity, and shared duties. Donors should recognize the paramount importance of host country priorities and commitment. Desiring to prioritize funding accordingly, otherwise, the basic needs related to the host country’s development may be neglected or considered non-priority.

Migrant integration has gained significant global interest by all the global agendas. The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda’s call to “leave no one behind” related to migrants. The agendas include integration principles, measuring indicators, policies, and strategies. The main integration areas are, (1) social cohesion, (2) employment, (3) civic engagement, (4) social inclusion, (5) education and skills, (6) labour market mobility, (7) family reunion, (8) anti-discrimination, (9) political participation, (11) long-term residence, (12) access to nationality, (13) education, (14) health, (15) transportation, and (16) other services and infrastructure.

Understanding the Migration on the Urban Scale

It is essential to develop the migration management policies within urban planning, intersected with the cross-cutting themes of governance, poverty reduction, gender equity, and human rights. Youth Urban policies should promote social inclusion and spatial integration of migrants in cities and build bridges between migrants and host communities. The policies integrate urban economic development with social cohesion. Furthermore, the migration policy should ease the management between the different levels (international, national, regional, and local) and bring all the urban actors and community stakeholders to act, promote the capacities of local decision-makers, and enhance citizens empowerment and community awareness-raising.

Integration on the neighbourhood scale

Neighbourhoods are the fundamental spatial scale for policy intervention when it comes to social cohesion. Cities become more socially cohesive and balanced by considering that the neighbourhood becomes a positive determinant of the quality of life. The neighbourhoods ensure decent life for families and individuals, depending on national socio-economic and demographic changes and different cultures in urban development. With the increase of population migration in and out of cities, the neighbourhoods depend on how people live in neighbourhoods, such as designing projects to improve the opportunities of children and young people for the future and support of families and integration of migrants. The issues of integration, mobilization, education, and employment have been emphasized to improve the quality of life in the neighbourhood. Policy initiatives that concentrate social capital and enhance social cohesion will only be achieved if there is society integration and inclusion.

Context Analysis: Egypt Migration Status

Egypt is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol. Therefore, Egypt is a country that receives many refugees, mainly from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Palestine. Due to the absence of national asylum procedures, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees manages the refugee file following a memorandum of understanding in 1954 with the Egyptian government. The situation of refugees and asylum seekers in Egypt is affected by circumstances, such as difficult social and economic circumstances. Egypt has no refugee camps. Refugees live in Egypt in the regions together with the Egyptian community. These refugees live all over the country, mainly concentrated in the Greater Cairo, Alexandria Governorates, and Damietta. According to a presidential decree issued in 2012, Syrian and Sudanese refugees access healthcare in public health facilities in Egypt. In addition, according to a presidential decree issued in 2012, Syrian and Sudanese refugees have access to educational facilities and services.

Historically Egypt is a country that has succeeded in providing an appropriate integration environment for Greek and Jewish refugees before the 1950s, despite the ethnic, religious and language differences. In the current situation, Greeks and Jews played a crucial part in cotton, sugar, railway, banking, retail, and many other enterprises. The situation of the Syrian refugees is also unique. They live in urban areas side by side with the Egyptians. There is no physical segregation for the refugees, and the Syrians succeeded in some urban neighbourhoods to achieve a spatial and urban contribution. In addition, the Syrians succeeded to integrate into the food and clothing sectors. But in general, the refugees in Egypt face many challenges, yet the refugees face difficulty in economic integration.

1 METHODS

The paper aims to suggest migration socio-economic integration policies and strategies for the Egyptian case, which help make immigrants and refugees a functioning part of society. Not only socio-economic integration for migrants, but also integration of the migrant’s services within the host country development process. Based on previous studies, the researcher chose urban neighbourhoods as the appropriate scale that can represent the success of integration and immigration management practices and policies.

The main questions to be addressed during the research:

• • Which Socio-Economic integration field of actions, and the possible relevant policy and program activities?
  • How to manage the migration in respect of the host community development priorities?
  • How to manage the migration cross-sectorial and among all the levels, globally to the neighbourhood?
  • On the neighbourhood scale, how to achieve the integration between migrants and the local community?

To address these questions, the following is a literature review for the policy framework and strategies related to migration management, as well as a review and report of relevant policy documents and studies prepared by researchers and the various entities related to the research topic. The paper involves an online questionnaire for 27 migrants living in different neighbourhoods in Egypt. The participants were 13 Syrians,12 Iraqis, and two Sudanese. The questionnaire questions and answers are in the appendix. In addition, the author checked the social media platforms for the migrants and included observations in the analysis.

2 Findings and Recommendations

The Main Socio-Economic challenges

The following is based on the online questionnaire and field surveys done by other scholars. The current common situation in the Egyptian case is the migrants face challenges to feel social cohesion and belong to their neighbourhoods. The existing urban district’s management and social work cannot reply to the diversity of nationalities and migrants with cultural diversity. The over-65s migrants are more vulnerable to social isolation. Also, there is a high rate of unemployment due to education and certification issues. On the other hand, there is an increased need for affordable housing and social facilities, which raise the challenge to develop the innovative social infrastructure to achieve social inclusion for all.

The unemployment among the questionnaire response was 55.6%, and 25% of those who succeeded to get a job depended on their relationships, while eight percent of the respondents got the job through social media groups for migrants’ communities. The migrants’ community’s informal social media groups play a vital role in mobilizing the newcomers, especially by networking for business or social purposes. 95.8% of the respondents were interested in operating a private business, 37.5% for the food sector,16.7% for the textile, 8.4% to start a business as a construction consultant, and the remaining percent have an interest in tourism. Doctors want to practice in medicine, as well as own and drive a taxicab. Asking then which facilities are needed for the business, 54.2% of the respondents voted for fund, 20.8% for registration and legal,16.7% for training, and 8.3% for finding partners.

Entrepreneurship Role and Barriers

According to the Policy Guide on Entrepreneurship for Migrants and Refugees, migrants’ involvement in the host country entrepreneurship ecosystem would create many economic potentials for locals and refugees and promote social cohesion.

• • Creating new business and opening new markets. Migrants bring new business ideas and build networks across countries. For instance, Syrians managed to coordinate their food production business between Syria and the host countries (Egypt, Jordan, Germany, turkey, etc.) between production in an Egyptian factory. They also import materials and labours from Syria, exporting to Europe.
  • Origin country recovery. Entrepreneurship prepares migrants to rebuild their origin country economically after the conflict.
  • Higher social status because of independence and strong contribution to the host community.

In Egypt, refugees and migrants face the barriers of lack of rights to work, non-recognition of foreign qualifications, and skills. This pushes the migrants to integrate themselves in the informal sector. As a result, the migrants face risks, such as exploitations by work owners and legal accountability. Also, Syrian migrants practice entrepreneurship mostly in food and textile sectors, and many Syrian workers who hold certificates in other domains are forced to work in those sectors. The main reason behind that is because migrants are not allowed to access the national entrepreneurship programs funded by the ministries of youth and telecommunications. This is because those ministries are not included in the UN funds for migrants and refugees.

International Partnership and Cooperation to Improve the Integration

Egypt is not a resettlement home for migrants. Egypt is an asylum country to back the origin country after the conflict to transfer to a third country that has agreed to admit them and ultimately grant them permanent residence. The fact that migrants settle would be another country. It is a co-responsibility to provide them with an efficient integration facility, such as cultural orientation, language and vocational training, and programs to promote access to education and employment. International, governmental, and non-governmental organization partners should cooperate in providing the integration services, such as putting in place a clear long-term integration strategy and including provisions for return to origin countries when warranted.

The Power of Mass Media and Social Media

The researcher found a contrast in feedback between Syrians and Iraqis. While all immigrants share the same challenges, many Iraqis exploited locals and government employees. By the researcher’s observation, the Egyptian public opinion of the Syrian refugee’s case was different from other nationalities. The folks’ opinion showed empathy for the Syrians. Egypt created a talk show campaign to mobilize the Syrian migrants within the society. Also, to encourage Syrians, the campaign shed light on the contributions of Syrians to the Egyptian economy. This public mobilization had a reflection on the production of a different experience for Syrians from other nationalities.

According to Samar Ali in “The Image of Syrian Refugees as Reflected by the Sites of Egyptian and Arab Newspapers and Its Relationship to the Egyptian Public’s Attitudes Towards Them,” the reasons for welcoming the Syrian refugees in Egypt were related to two aspects, namely the human aspect. In addition to the respondents’ view of the Syrians as skilled workers, Syrians had a well-known impression for skills in textile and the food industry. The study proved that the work and business partnership between the Egyptians and the Syrian refugees had a role in adopting a positive trend towards refugees, which proved the hypothesis that there is a significant relationship between the public mobility with Syrian refugees and their attitude towards them.

Socio-Economic Integration Field of Actions

The paper identifies ten areas of action for promoting migrants’ integration from a cross-cutting perspective. The ten fields of action are based on global agendas for migration management. Also, the strategies related to neighbourhoods’ social cohesion. As mentioned before, the migration governance policies must respect the host community’s development priorities. The paper recommends linking migration and displacement to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDGs is a global goal that all host countries already follow for their national development plans. Furthermore, goals or fields of action need clear, measurable indicators, and host countries are already familiar with SDGs goals, targets, and indicators. The work of SDGs is mature enough that a country like Egypt has its local SDGs with a clear national understanding and execution of cross-sectorial plans.

Table 1: Socio-Economic integration field of actions, and the possible relevant policy and program activities, and the related SDGs. Sources: (UNDP, 2019) (Hendow, 2019) (Chliova, 2018) (UN, 2018) (Jallow, 2005) (IOM, 2016).

Multi-Level Coordination Challenges

The Migration management in Egypt, like many host countries, has a significant governance fragmentation between the multiple entities responsible for the services, as illustrated in figure (2). The different stakeholders for migration and refugee management in Egypt on the different levels from global to the neighbourhood. The key stakeholder groups are international organizations, governmental entities, civil society, and the private sector. The stakeholder’s role varies between planning, management, monitoring, partners, and funding the migrants and locals.

Potentials are found in mechanisms to enhance vertical and horizontal management and policy coherence in all migration governance and migration interventions and activities. The work at different levels has a top-down levelled governance structure, but it follows a bottom-top structure. The work is meant to enhance the cross-sectorial and interdisciplinary decision making in terms of policy implementation through different ministries and municipal departments.

Building Strong Institutional Partnerships

Multi-level coordination and partnership are crucial. When developing and implementing a development-based approach to displacement, it is essential to speak with and meaningfully involve all relevant stakeholders. These include donors, policymakers, humanitarian agencies, refugees, and businesspeople that help formulate a successful approach tailored to the needs and opportunities of the country. It is essential to establish a special mapping for the institutions and the service providers and prioritize the key partners and stakeholder interests. Table 2 illustrates the key stakeholder interests. Innovations are required to enable key players to regularly consult and engage them in decision making. As an example of promising initiatives, IOM promotes establishing a National Migration Platform (NMP) in Egypt to coordinate migration management at the national level. The Platform will enable transferring the IOM’s long expertise in human mobility to the relevant governmental entities. The Platform enables cooperation with all other stakeholders to discuss evolving migration trends and explores optimal solutions, actions, and policies amongst all actors.

Gathering Information About Migrants in Urban Areas

There is a need to develop a database to visualize the information about migrants, which includes geographic data like residence and employment. A geographical database is useful for planning and management. Supporting the database with outreach digital tools helps to ease the communication and support the migrants to get the services they need. The geographical database maps institutions and service providers, including the different players and offices engaged with local government, which helps to provide services to migrants. The mapping includes the roles and responsibilities of each entity and actor.

Foster Social Cohesion at the Neighbourhood Level

The goal is to stabilize neighbourhoods and strengthen their social cohesion through the activation and intense participation of residents and local stakeholders. Additionally, this should be combined with an investment into the neighbourhoods’ infrastructure. Other goals include:

• • Activating the participation culture by representing the resident’s interests and integrating the neighbourhood’s population in all its diversity in terms (e.g., gender, race, age, or employment status, etc.). This is essential to avoid any needs being neglected.
  • Enhancing the community outreach and promoting participatory planning by integrating everyone in the process.
  • Networking and communicating with actors living in the respective areas, who can get involved in developing their neighbourhood and maintain a continuous dialogue with the neighbourhood.
  • Developing management teams and a governmental administration. These teams mainly rely on the civic society to innovate. People themselves are the best actors who can define and innovate for their needs jointly with the people living in the neighbourhoods. The people can also cooperate with educational institutions, including community centres and housing societies, and collaborate with multiple local actors.
  • Developing spaces for interaction between migrants and communities. Spaces that enable communication foster inclusion to change the perception of host communities, such as public (collective) spaces, which include squares, streets, and parks. Public space policy is fundamental and can provide primary infrastructure of social relations and interactions across diverse communities.

Conclusions

The economic challenges affecting Egypt have a profound impact on all aspects of the lives of refugees and students. The socio-economic conditions have led to difficult and high cost of living to decrease household purchasing power. These conditions exacerbate the levels of vulnerability, which result in helpless refugees. Asylum seekers are unable to obtain the basic needs for their families, and thus, they are dependent on humanitarian aid. Developing an innovative urban management strategy to reply to the socio-economic challenges due to immigration is needed to adapt to present and future challenges. Scholars strongly recommend platforms and protocols to coordinate between the different involved actors. The paper develops recommendations based on the previous work done by global organizations agendas and studies for the Egyptian case. These recommendations enhance the socio-economic status by contributing to the local development in Egypt, as well as mitigate the negative consequences. This also benefits the refugees and immigrants, as well members of the host communities. Different integration policies and landscapes for socio-economic integration are needed to reach social cohesion. The challenges the report highlight include, (1) achieving a better livelihood, enabling self-reliance is necessary, providing economic opportunities to refugees and host communities, (2) implementing legal and institutional reform for business environments, (3) recognizing SMEs (small-to-medium enterprises) and entrepreneurs, (4) promoting services provided by the municipal government, and (5) accessing finance and enterprise support services.

Limitation and Future Study

Seeking both depth and breadth of understanding of the migration management issues and to bridge the research-policy-practice nexus at the local level. The study had to include interviews with entities and stakeholders from all relevant sectors and domains on the local level. The interviews included government officials, international and local NGOs, and CBOs. A more comprehensive understanding would be achieved by choosing a case study method. For example, one can compare three different neighbourhoods, a neighbourhood on the 6th of October, Rehab city, and the 10th of Ramadan, where Syrian migrants live in large groups and manage their business. By comparing three neighbourhoods, one can explore the practices and factors that helped to integrate migrants socially and economically. In addition to that, one can compare participants’ experiences with migrants who live in other neighbourhoods, such as those who live far away from their origin migrant’s community, to explore the integration level on both cases.

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Samar Adel Mohamed Mohamed Alarif is an urban planner and researcher interested in urban management and smart city approaches and strategies. Samar used to work as a teaching assistant and BIM Architect. She got her bachelor’s in architecture from the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University. Samar did her master’s in urban management, Technische Universität Berlin. Samar is interested in integrating the social, political, and technological dimensions to achieve efficient urban performance. Her master thesis title was “The Utilization of Urban/ Building Information Modeling (UIM/BIM) To Achieve Energy Sustainable Facility Management Services: Case Study of Smart University Campus/TU El-Gouna campus”.

Her recent research work includes serving as lead author for the paper “Smart Water Management platform for urban areas, Egypt” in the Second International Conference “Water, Megacities and Global Change”; working as a Student Assistant, Technische Universität Berlin Chair of Urban Resilience and Digitalisation.; assist in the project Smart City Modell projekt Berlin – Smart Water.

References

See generally Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2017, United Nations High Comm’r For Refugees, https://www.unhcr.org/5b27be547.pdf (last visited Sep. 15, 2021).

See generally Maegan Hendow, Bridging Refugee Protection and Development: Policy Recommendations for Applying a Development-Displacement, Int’l Ctr. for Migration Pol’y Dev. (Jan. 2019), https://www.icmpd.org/file/download/48447/file/Bridging%2520refugee%2520protection%2520and%2520development%2520-%2520Policy%2520Recommendations%2520for%2520Applying%2520a%2520
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See generally Karen Jacobsen, The Forgotten Solution: Local Integration for Refugees in Developing Countries 5-34 (Tufts University Working Paper, Paper No. 45, 2001).

See generally Development Approaches to Migration And Displacement: Key Achievements, Experiences and Lessons Learned 2016-2018, United Nations Dev. Program (Oct. 11, 2019), https://www.undp.org/publications/development-approaches-migration-and-displacement-2016-2018.

See generally Elizabeth Chacko & Marie Price, Migrants’ Inclusion in Cities: Innovative Urban Policies and Practices, United Nations Habitat (Jan. 2012), https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/documents/2019-05/migrants_inclusion_in_cities_-_innovative_urban_policies_and_practices.pdf.

See What is Resettlement?, United Nations High Comm’r for Refugees, https://www.unhcr.org/resettlement.html (last visited Sept. 2021).

See International Co-operation Vital to Improve Integration of Refugees, Org. for Econ. Co-Operation and Dev., https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/international-cooperation (last visited Sept. 2021).

See generally Nicola Morrison, Neighbourhoods and Social Cohesion: Experiences from Europe, Int’l Plan. Stud. (July 21, 2010), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13563470305154.

See Hartmut Häussermann et al., Social Urban Development Monitoring 2010, Tech. Inst. Berlin, (Dec. 2020), https://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/planen/basisdaten_stadtentwicklung/monitoring/download/2010/
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See generally Release of the 2021-2022 Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan, United Nations High Comm’r for Refugees (Apr. 6, 2021), https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Release%20of%20the%202021-2022%20Regional%20Refugee%20and%20Resilience%20Plan%206%20April%202021.pdf.

See generally Najat Abdulhaq, Jewish and Greek Communities in Egypt: Entrepreneurship and Business before Nasser (2016).

See David Andres-Vinas et al., RIGHT TO A FUTURE: Empowering Refugees from Syria and Host Governments to Face a Long-Term Crisis, Oxfam Int’l (Nov. 9, 2015), https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/581896/bp-right-to-future-syria-refugees-091115-en.pdf?sequence=7.

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See Nadine Elshokiery, Refugee Response in Egypt: A Public Administration and Policy Perspective (Mar. 20, 2016) (MPA thesis, The American University in Cairo) (on file with the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, The American University in Cairo).

See Nourhan Abdel Aziz, Surviving in Cairo as a Closed-File Refugee: Socio-Economic and Protection Challenges, Int’l Inst. for Env’t and Dev. (Aug. 2017), https://pubs.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/migrate/10837IIED.pdf.

See generally Samar Ali Hassan Mohamed, The Image of Syrian Refugees as Reflected by the Sites of Egyptian and Arab Newspapers and Its Relationship to the Egyptian Public’s Attitudes Towards Them – An Analytical Field Study (2019) (Ph.D. dissertation, Cairo University) (on file with the Department of Journalism, Cairo University).

See generally Chliova, Myrto, Steffen Farny & Virva Salmivaara, Supporting Refugees in Entrepreneurship, Org. for Econ. Co-operation and Dev. (Jan. 2018), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338147136_Supporting_refugees_in_entrepreneurship.

See generally Policy Guide on Entrepreneurship for Migrants and Refugees, United Nations Conf. on Trade and Dev. (Nov. 21, 2018), https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/diae2018d2_en.pdf.

See generally Amadou Tijan Jallow & Sajjad Masood Malik, Handbook for Planning and Implementing: Development Assistance for Refugees (DAR) Programmes, United Nations High Comm’r for Refugees (Jan. 2005), https://www.unhcr.org/44c487872.pdf.

See generally Ingeborg Junge-Reyer, Neighbourhood Management in Berlin: Information on the Program “Socially Integrative City”, Senate Dep’t for Urb. Dev. and Hous. (Oct. 2010), https://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/wohnen/quartiersmanagement/download/qm_broschuere_en.pdf.

See generally Governing Migration and Creating Opportunities: Egypt and IOM, Int’l Org. for Migration (2016), https://egypt.iom.int/sites/egypt/files/IOM%2025%20Years%20-%20ENG.pdf.

See generally LOCAL INCLUSION OF MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES: A Gateway to Existing Ideas, Resources and Capacities for Cities Across the World, United Nations Habitat (2020), https://www.oecd.org/regional/Local-inclusion-Migrants-and-Refugees.pdf.