Protracted Displacement in the Middle East and North Africa

Overview

Protracted displacement is particularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), driven by complex political, security, and climate dynamics. This series examines innovative approaches and state strategies for addressing long-term displacement — from refugee-led responses in Lebanon to climate-focused diplomacy in Egypt and Jordan, and alternative pathways in the United Arab Emirates — offering lessons on governance, inclusion, and durable solutions.

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Introduction

Around the world, refugee situations are increasingly protracted, with displacement lasting an average of 20 years for refugees and more than 10 years for most internally displaced persons (IDPs). As the prospect of returning to places of origin becomes unlikely, the needs of displaced populations evolve. Beyond immediate subsistence and shelter, people require long-term economic security and access to livelihoods, housing, education and health care, as well as legal protections — areas in which humanitarian organizations are not always equipped to operate effectively. Humanitarian funding structures are also not designed to address protracted displacement, as global attention shifts and support diminishes over time.

For decades, academics and practitioners have highlighted the mismatch between the reality of long-term displacement and the provision of short-term assistance, yet little has changed on the ground.^[1] Despite global efforts to address the persistent underfunding and the hierarchical nature of humanitarian aid — such as the Grand Bargain in 2016 — displaced populations continue to experience the effects of a broken system.^[2] Funding gaps have become even more pronounced, following the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2025, which had previously been the largest donor of humanitarian assistance.^[3]

Protracted displacement is particularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The presence of Syrian refugees, who fled the country’s civil war, reshaped the region’s displacement landscape over the past decade and a half, impacting the politics of neighboring countries, host communities, and the lives of refugees themselves, as well as the way international aid is structured, negotiated, and delivered. Even after the fall of the Assad regime in late 2024, much remains uncertain about whether refugees and internally displaced Syrians will be willing and able to return home, with approximately 5.5 million individuals still displaced in Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan.

More broadly across the region, continuing conflict in Yemen, which began in 2015, has resulted in 4.5 million people internally displaced and 21.6 million in need of humanitarian assistance.^[4] Following years of conflict with ISIS, Iraq still has an internally displaced population of more than a million people, many of whom are unable to return home or fully integrate into new communities, requiring more than humanitarian aid. Since the outbreak of the civil war in 2023, Sudan has experienced the largest displacement crisis in the world but struggles to attract sufficient global attention and resources.^[5] Finally, Palestinians constitute the world’s longest protracted refugee situation, compounded by the Israel-Hamas war that began in 2023 and destroyed the Gaza strip, forcing nearly two million individuals to flee their homes.^[6]

To better understand protracted displacement in the MENA, this series of policy briefs draws on the research of scholars from across the region. The first set of briefs interrogates the political, social, and economic barriers that refugees face to integration in host countries. In Jordan, Ruba Al Akash and Ibrahim Darwish examine what protracted displacement looks like in everyday life for refugees from multiple nationalities, highlighting challenges such as limited access to formal employment, education, and property ownership. Similarly, Josiane Matar introduces the concept of pragmatic integration used by Syrian refugees in Lebanon to illustrate how repeated resilience strategies evolve into more permanent forms of social and economic embeddedness and notes that, in the absence of formal aid or state-led integration policies, refugees rely on each other and localized resource-sharing to survive. Also drawing on fieldwork in Lebanon, Watfa Najdi addresses the barriers that refugee-led organizations face and highlights the gap between localization rhetoric and actual practices in the provision of refugee-related funding.

Two briefs in the series evaluate durable solutions and complementary pathways for refugees. Najwa Belkziz argues that a locally adapted model of complementary pathways in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — a context where asylum and resettlement are unavailable — can expand understanding of the options available to refugees to fill protection gaps. In Turkey, Duygu Altunoğlu Yildiz examines the uneven availability of exceptional citizenship, a selective and discretionary pathway accessible only to a subset of displaced individuals from the MENA, and assesses the extent to which citizenship can deliver durable inclusion.

An additional two briefs consider the question of refugee return, traditionally considered the preferred durable solution by the United Nations. Antea Enna and Ayat Nashwan focus on the 1.5 generation of Syrian refugees in Jordan — those who fled during adolescence and have spent most of their lives in displacement — to explore whether their return aspirations differ from other groups. Ahmet Gümüşbaş argues that the restitution of property is a necessary condition for refugee return and evaluates the restoration of property rights in Syria after the fall of Assad. Drawing on experiences from Iraq and Bosnia, he advocates for the creation of a mass claims commission to facilitate a lasting return process.

The final two briefs examine the macro-level structures of aid, including how some countries leverage refugee hosting to extract domestic benefits and how aid delivery can be improved for displaced populations amid conflict. Gerasimos Tsourapas and Imad El-Anis introduce the term vulnerability diplomacy to describe how states use crisis narratives related to climate and displacement to secure external financial support. Drawing on the experiences of Egypt and Jordan — two countries with longstanding relationships with key international donors — they show that additional resources do not necessarily advance long-term resilience. Rabeh Morrar evaluates political and operational impediments to humanitarian aid delivery in Gaza, both historically and during the ongoing conflict, and argues for context-sensitive practices that can improve outcomes for residents and aid practitioners alike.

Together, this series examines how governments, international humanitarian agencies, non-governmental organizations, and refugees themselves attempt to meet the needs of displaced peoples. It draws on research from specific local contexts to explore how traditional solutions to displacement — return, local integration, and resettlement — operate in practice and how these solutions sometimes fail to meet the needs of refugees in protracted situations. The series also proposes a range of new approaches, including reforms to existing aid structures, international diplomacy, informal integration, and complementary resettlement pathways. Ultimately, in a region facing both familiar and emerging displacement challenges, the series encourages discussion of how regional and global responses to refugees can continue to adapt and improve.

Acknowledgements

This compilation is based on the “Addressing Protracted Displacement in the MENA” workshop hosted at Koç University’s Migration Research Center (MiReKoc) in October 2025. Special thanks are extended to Murat Can Kaya, administrative coordinator at MiReKoc, for his logistical support. In addition to the authors, further thanks are offered to Ayselin Yıldız, faculty member and vice dean for research at Istinye University; Damla Aksel, associate professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bahçeşehir University; and Sedef Turper, assistant professor of international relations at Koç University, for serving as discussants and providing feedback that enriched discussions of these critical topics. Karma Elbadawy, Bela Koshy, and Poema Sumrow, undergraduate students at Rice University, also provided invaluable editorial assistance. The workshop was funded with generous support from the Khudairi Group and the Kelly Day Endowment.

Learn more about the Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) series.

Notes

^[1] Jeffrey Crisp “Mind the Gap! UNHCR, Humanitarian Assistance and the Development Process,” The International Migration Review 35, no. 1 (2001): 168–91, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2676057.

^[2] Irwin Loy, “Why the Grand Bargain’s Future Hinges on Accountability,” The New Humanitarian, October 15, 2024, https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2024/10/15/why-grand-bargain-future-hinges-accountability.

^[3] Sonali Korde, “Strengthening the Humanitarian Sector Brick by Brick,” Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, August 11, 2025, https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/strengthening-humanitarian-sector-brick-brick.

^[4] United Nations Yemen, “UNHCR: Displaced Yemenis Struggle Amidst Growing Needs in Prolonged Crisis,” August 16, 2024, https://yemen.un.org/en/277315-unhcr-displaced-yemenis-struggle-amidst-growing-needs-prolonged-crisis#:~:text=With%204.5%20million%20people%20displaced,have%20endured%20years%20of%20conflict.

^[5] United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “Sudan Situation Report,” October 27, 2024, https://reports.unocha.org/en/country/sudan/.

^[6] Nathan Citino et al., “Generations of Palestinian Refugees Face Protracted Displacement and Dispossession,” Migration Information Source, May 3, 2023, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/palestinian-refugees-dispossession.

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