Refugees provided with targeted support outside of designated camps have a better chance of finding jobs, economic stability and safety.

That is the main finding in our recently published article in BMJ Global Health looking at what helps displaced families become self-reliant.

To establish what enables refugee households to meet their basic needs for housing, food, health care and education without depending on aid or formal assistance, we analyzed data from the self-reliance index, a tool we helped develop as academic advisers to the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative.

The index, one of the largest known of its kind, looks at the self-reliance of refugees, internally displaced people and host community members across 16 countries. In all, it assesses 12 areas of household life – from employment and savings to health care access and safety.

Across nearly 8,000 households in our data, we found that general levels of self-reliance were extremely low, with most families unable to sustainably meet their basic needs and heavily dependent on aid.

But when we looked at........

© The Conversation