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International treaties, conventions, and organizations to protect refugees were established in the aftermath of World War II to protect people escaping targeted persecution by their own governments. However, the nature of cross-border displacement has transformed dramatically since then. Such threats as environmental change, food insecurity, and generalized violence force massive numbers of people to flee states that are unable or unwilling to ensure their basic rights, as do conditions in failed and fragile states that make possible human rights deprivations. Because these reasons do not meet the legal understanding of persecution, the victims of these circumstances are not usually recognized as \"refugees,\" preventing current institutions from ensuring their protection. In this book, Alexander Betts develops the concept of \"survival migration\" to highlight the crisis in which these people find themselves. Examining flight from three of the most fragile states in Africa-Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia-Betts explains variation in institutional responses across the neighboring host states. There is massive inconsistency. Some survival migrants are offered asylum as refugees; others are rounded up, detained, and deported, often in brutal conditions. The inadequacies of the current refugee regime are a disaster for human rights and gravely threaten international security. InSurvival Migration, Betts outlines these failings, illustrates the enormous human suffering that results, and argues strongly for an expansion of protected categories.

Are areas that host encamped refugees more likely to experience communal conflict, and under what conditions? Building on insights from the refugee studies literature suggesting that settling refugees in camps can intensify intercommunal tension in host communities, this article investigates the effect of refugee encampment on the occurrence of communal conflict at the subnational level in sub-Saharan Africa. It first tests for a general relationship between the overall presence and population intensity of encamped refugees and communal conflict before assessing whether this relationship is moderated by local-level characteristics, including interethnic linkages and political and economic marginalization within the host region. The basic findings show that communal conflict occurs more frequently in regions where refugees are camp-settled. Tests for interactive effects indicate that refugee camps have a significant marginal effect on conflict only if they are located in areas with politically marginalized host groups. Origin country/host region ethnic ties are shown to exert significant moderating effects. Moreover, results from an extended set of analyses show that the form of refugee settlement matters, as the presence and population intensity of self-settled refugees are related to decreases in the occurrence of communal conflict.

‘Based on empirical case studies from across sub-Saharan Africa, the contributions in this volume look to provide fresh insights into the unexpected changes, complex agency and persistent dynamism entailed in displacement processes.’ Africa at LSE ‘This book provocatively asks “what does displacement produce?” Juxtaposing the experiences of different actors, drawing on rich ethnographic material, this important new volume strikes a careful balance between highlighting the agency of those often cast as victims and drawing attention to the emergence of vested interests that may perpetuate displacement.’ Oliver Bakewell, University of Oxford ‘Displacement economies are the drivers of the world’s economies! The contributors’ innovative and creative analysis of displacement through the lens of “agency”, relationality and its transformative power is a welcome addition to theories of displacement, which have previously focused on victimhood. This book provides the basis for an alternative reading of the economics and politics of Africa and beyond.’ Mirjam de Bruijn, Leiden University ‘This superb new book brings together a range of deeply experienced contributors to offer new ways of seeing and thinking about “displacement economies”. At the heart of this ambitious, useful book is the insistence that those living in displaced economies are not just living out the effects but engaged in activities that show how displacement is not only disruptive, but productive.’ Christopher Cramer, SOAS, University of London ‘Displacement Economies in Africa offers a fresh analytic perspective on the multiple dislocations brought about by war and crisis in Africa. By theorizing a “relational” rather than “operational” approach, the volume diverges from the conventional perspectives of forced migration studies. With up-to-date examples drawn from across the continent, this collection should be essential reading for students of development, migration and conflict in Africa.’ JoAnn McGregor, Sussex University ‘In a new era of displacement of people from multiple rural and urban sites in Africa, this extremely timely, important and well-crafted collection of detailed field studies takes up both the intended and unexpected material and symbolic effects produced by displacement. Crucial reading!’ Jane I. Guyer, Johns Hopkins University.

Exiled populations, who increasingly refer to themselves as diaspora communities, hold a strong stake in the fate of their countries of origin. In a world becoming ever more interconnected, they engage in 'long-distance politics' towards, send financial remittances to and support social development in their homelands. Transnational diaspora networks have thus become global forces shaping the relationship between countries, regions and continents. This important intervention, written by scholars working at the cutting edge of diaspora and conflict, challenges the conventional wisdom that diaspora are all too often warmongers, their time abroad causing them to become more militant in their engagement with local affairs. Rather, they can and should be a force for good in bringing peace to their home countries. Featuring in-depth case studies from the Horn of Africa, including Somalia and Ethiopia, this volume presents an essential rethinking of a key issue in African politics and development.

The right to housing is an indispensable human right enshrined in some domestic and international legal instruments. Some jurisdictions' constitutions explicitly confer the right to housing as a legal entitlement on all persons.1 Also, the right to housing is recognised as a fundamental right in international instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 19482 and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1966. 3 Underlying the right to housing is the idea that shelter and housing must be guaranteed, especially for those individuals in vulnerable groups of society. 4 However, as the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCR) has noted, “too often violations of the right to housing occur with impunity. This is partly because, at the domestic level, housing is rarely treated as a human right, leaving individuals with little legal recourse to address such violations”.5 In addition to the recurring breach of the right to housing in many jurisdictions, housing and shelter in contemporary times have been largely commodified. 6 The commodification of housing is increasingly impeding accessibility, affordability and the general practical realisation of the right in many countries, especially African countries.7 The antidote, which many believe is key to ensuring adequate housing, is implementing this human right through appropriate government policy and programmes, including national housing strategies that actualise the legal entitlements enshrined in the ICESCR and other international instruments. 8 Essentially, giving effect to the right to housing requires a carefully mapped-out policy framework through which the very tenets of the right (affordability and accessibility) can be achieved.Notwithstanding that in some countries, the right to housing is a clear constitutional duty imposed on the government, practically realising the right to housing requires governments in Africa to have the financial wherewithal to establish a policy or regulatory framework that meets the herculean task of providing affordable, adequate and accessible housing to the marginalised and persons in vulnerable groups. 9 Aside from the financial strength a country a government must possess to actualise the right to housing, the efficacy of the right to housing seems to be hinged on the governmental and political commitment. 10 The situation is dire in countries where the right to housing is not positively expressed as a constitutional right or aspiration that ought to be achieved by governments. This is because, without an explicit constitutional mandate or provision, the practical realisation of the right to housing is hinged on political expediency or preference and the availability of funds. A typical case is the Fourth Republican Constitution of the Republic of Ghana of 1992 (hereafter the “1992 Constitution of Ghana”).The 1992 Constitution ushered Ghana into its Fourth Republic and has been a bedrock of enhancing the respect for fundamental rights and freedom, the rule of law and democracy. 11 Through the 1992 Constitution, the respect for the fundamental rights and freedoms has been entrenched. 12 The 1992 Constitution mandates that all persons (natural and artificial persons), government institutions, and the arms of government put in place mechanisms that give effect to the realisation of the fundamental human rights and freedoms of all persons in Ghana.13 The 1992 Constitution contains a host of fundamental rights and freedoms, such as the right to personal liberty, the right to human dignity, prohibition against discrimination, among others. It also contains several social, cultural, and economic rights, which the Constitution describes as embodying the aspirational goals of successive governments in Ghana. 14 Although there is an express constitutional commitment to uphold various rights and freedoms of all Ghanaians, the right to housing has been one of the rights often relegated to the background and not fully emphasised in statutes and case law.

This aim of this paper is two-fold. The first aim is to expand on a claim that an 'Arc of Insecurity' stretches across sub-Saharan Africa. The second is to explore the difficulties of chronic crises within this arc. The paper will contrast countries that have experienced the following three indicators used to highlight the acute phase of a chronic crisis: conflict-related mortality, displacement and climatic disasters. The second part of the paper discusses 'chronic crisis' situations by utilising a case study of Karamoja, northeast Uganda. Karamoja is characterised by the worst humanitarian and development indicators in Uganda and its problems are indicative of other chronic situations. While countries, or more specifically, situations within countries, can be insecure, every situation remains unique. Responses to chronic situations need to be based on a solid understanding of the political-economic causation of crisis.

The causes and consequences of HIV and AIDS are social are well as biomedical. Given the scale of the pandemic, understanding the social dimensions of HIV and AIDS is vital. One key argument is that there is a link between conflict and the spread of HIV. This appears to be particularly the case for sub-Saharan Africa where high levels of HIV prevalence are matched by violent conflict and state instability. Recent evidence however suggests that HIV prevalence does not always increase in conflict and that in some instances it may even reduce. This article attempts to explain why HIV has not increased in some sub-Saharan conflicts. To do this it moves beyond the use of risk factors to offer a new explanation based on susceptibility and vulnerability. It uses this explanation to examine four cases – Sierra Leone, Angola, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – where conflict did not lead to a significant increase in the prevalence of HIV. The article concludes that, despite the fears of a few years ago, conflict does not readily act as a vector for the spread of HIV, though the potential for this to occur does still exist under certain circumstances.

Such threats as environmental change, food insecurity, and generalized violence force massive numbers of people to flee states that are unable or unwilling to ensure their basic rights, as do conditions in failed and fragile states that make possible human rights deprivations. Because these reasons do not meet the legal understanding of persecution, the victims of these circumstances are not usually recognized as \"refugees,\" preventing current institutions from ensuring their protection. In this book, Alexander Betts develops the concept of \"survival migration\" to highlight the crisis in which these people find themselves.

A case study of the Mozambican conflict is used to illustrate the need to integrate a gender perspective which is historically grounded and which encompasses social relationships between women and men rather than the existing 'impact of conflict on women' approach. This is demonstrated first by examining ways in which postcolonial states have continued constructions of gender which assign women to the private/domestic sphere and then by establishing how security in Southern Africa has been mediated by gendered constraints, whether in peace or war. The specific character of the Mozambican conflict is summarised, as are its outcomes in terms of gender relations which have intensified women's vulnerability. This is then related to an examination of the nature of some of the major humanitarian responses to the Mozambican emergency, where there was a wide divergence between stated policies on gender and practice. It is argued that this 'gender gap' is being perpetuated in some aspects of the reconstruction phase, despite women's enormous contribution to the task of rebuilding Mozambican society.