Over the past five years, we have worked with a range of organizations to increase our knowledge and understanding of urban migration.
Our evidence-based field research continues to document and analyze the experience of urban migrants of all kinds, but especially refugees and internally displaced people.
Active Research
For refugees in urban areas, there is little evidence about which humanitarian programs work, what livelihoods initiatives refugees undertake themselves, and where opportunities for programming interventions lie. In September 2010, we began a one-year research project, funded by the US State Dept.’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (BPRM), to develop a profiling methodology intended to capture livelihood, integration, and vulnerability data on displaced people in urban settings. According to the Hyogo Framework for Action, disasters affect over 200 million people annually, causing significant loss of lives, forced migration, and disruption of livelihoods and institutions. The trend over the past 15-20 years points to a greater frequency of environmental, climatic, political, and economic hazards and therefore a growing risk for vulnerable populations worldwide. Though disasters affect everyone, often the impact disproportionately falls on poor countries and the poor and marginalized people within. Refugees and migrants in transit countries like Egypt are linked into wider diaspora networks that help support them, and in turn enable the migrants to support their families and communities back home. In this study we will explore the significance of these transnational linkages, particularly remittances, for Sudanese refugees and migrants in Cairo.
Recent Publications
Teaching and Academics
Related courses offered by faculty at the FIC, and taught at either the School of Nutrition or the Fletcher School, include: The R&FMP is partnered with Forced Migration programs at two African universities: These partnerships include joint research programs, and provide exchanges of faculty, students and interns, as well as materials and other teaching support.
African University Partnerships

