Forced migration understood in the broadest sense is a challenging and complex topic, encompassing different groups of people, fleeing from persecution or conflict, escaping environmental change, natural or human made disasters, migrating because of development projects or being deported or trafficked. Only a sub-set of these persons falls within UNHCR’s mandate, which includes refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons and internally displaced persons (IDPs). Existing approaches based on humanitarian, human rights and security perspectives need to be complemented with a development perspective. This is particularly true in the cases where forces driving migration intermingle with economic factors.

The Thematic Working Group (TWG) will contribute to clarifying the links between forced migration and development, focusing on areas where there are knowledge gaps, including on:

• Interactions between economic and non-economic drivers of migration
• Remittance behaviour of refugees, in particular, personal transfers sent to and from refugees
• Impacts of refugees and IDPs on host communities and host countries
• Economic opportunities (e.g., access to labor markets) and rights (e.g., access to health and education) for refugees and IDPs
• Treatment of refugees and IDPs under the national law of a host country or an origin country, drawing on KNOMAD’s current Migration and the Law project.