East & Southern Africa — Publications

IIED: Participatory Forum on Protracted Displacement in an Urban World

December 2023

Navigating the complexities of protracted displacement, our urban-focused study spans four countries: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Jordan. As part of a global consortium, Samuel Hall collaborates with academic and practice partners for in-depth research.

Our extensive engagement, including five participatory forums in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, addresses the multifaceted challenges faced by displaced populations. Through a consensus-building approach, we've crafted a city note presenting key findings and recommendations. The project delves into crucial aspects like economic well-being, access to basic services, psychosocial well-being, and perceived safety.

The insights gained contribute to policy recommendations, emphasising local integration, employment opportunities, legal documentation, and infrastructure improvements. Our commitment extends beyond data collection; we aim to sustain the participatory forums, fostering collaboration among government authorities, NGOs, and UN/INGOs for lasting impact.

Read the city note here

Find the PowerPoint for the Closing Event: Participatory Forum on Protracted Displacement in an Urban World here

Equal Partnerships: African Intermediary Cities as Actors and Partners in Urban Migration Governance. City Report: Garissa- Kenya

November 2023

The Equal Partnerships project led by Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Centre for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg, Research on Migration, Displacement, and Integration (MFI), United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG Africa), German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) and Samuel Hall with support from Robert Bosch Stiftung explores the opportunities and challenges of collaborative, urban migration governance in African intermediary cities.

As part of this project, Samuel Hall developed a city report exploring urban migration governance in Garissa, Kenya. Home to approximately 500,000 inhabitants, Garissa is a major economic hub. It holds significance in urban migration and displacement, especially in relation to regional conflicts, economic dynamics, climate change, and environmental decline.

We conducted a stakeholder mapping exercise to take stock of actors addressing migration and displacement . Further, to explore partnerships and cooperation gaps and opportunities, we conducted participatory field research with the county of Garissa and organised a local workshop in June 2022 and February 2023. Our research found that multiple actors cooperate on migration and displacement-related issues.

This report presents the outcomes of the stakeholder mapping, identifies opportunities and challenges of cooperative action on migration, and concludes with concrete policy recommendations for strengthening multi-stakeholder partnerships to address migration in the urban context.

Read the city report here

Find other city reports developed as part of this project here.

Read our policy paper here.

East & Southern AfricaSamuel HallNovember 16, 2023Equal Partnerships, report, Migration, displacement, Kenya, Urban

IOM - Development of a Monitoring Toolkit and Review of Good Practices for the Sustainable Reintegration of Child Returnees

August 2021

This study was commissioned in the framework of the EU–IOM Knowledge Management Hub under the “Pilot Action on Voluntary Return and Sustainable, Community-Based Reintegration” project, funded by the European Union and implemented by IOM. The two recognized that while understanding of and evidence around the sustainable reintegration of adults has been growing, the same is not true for children – despite the fact that children are returning, alone or with families, to the very same reintegration contexts. Building on a monitoring approach for adult returnees developed in a 2017 Samuel Hall – IOM research project, this study addresses the information gap around children’s reintegration experiences.

Download Executive Summary

Download Report

Download Toolkit

ILO – Towards decent work for young refugees and host communities in the digital platform economy in Africa

August 2021

Samuel Hall worked with the University of Edinburgh, commissioned by the ILO's Youth Employment Sector and the PROSPECTS partnership, to conduct a study to characterise the nature of platform-related opportunities in Africa. The report focuses on digital labour platforms (gig work) and e-commerce, developing an overview of the level of access, and identifying initiatives that these opportunities. Samuel Hall conducted 36 Interviews in Uganda, Kenya and Egypt to identify the key drivers, levers and constraints that catalyse and/or hold back the growth of the platform economy in Africa in the future. It accounts for COVID-19 implications, with a focus on labour market implications.

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AMIF – Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning of Actions financed by the Asylum Migration Integration Fund (AMIF)

March 2021

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, on behalf of the donors funding RDPP, commissioned Samuel Hall to conduct an evaluation to assess the results and impact of the AMIF-funded activities in Ethiopia and Sudan. AMIF actions aimed at enabling the provision of better protection, assistance and durable solutions for refugees and asylum seekers through improved documentation and robust data storage systems. This involved building a refugee registration system with biometric identification management, real-time data verification capacity and simultaneous identification of protection needs of persons of concern. Not only benefiting refugees, the actions also aimed to improve civil registration more broadly, in particular birth registration, be it among the refugee or host community.

Download Ethiopia Report

Download Sudan Report

Download Synthesis Report

ICMPD – Study on Return, Readmission and Reintegration Programmes in Africa

April 2021

ICMPD commissioned Samuel Hall to examine existing return, re-admission, and reintegration (RRR) programming in Africa. This study involved 1. Overview analysis of legal frameworks at regional, continental, and international levels. 2. An in-depth review of RRR initiatives and programming in 10 African Union (AU) member states. 3. Identification of lessons learned from countries of return, including RRR best practices, standards and procedures. It presents recommendations for sustainable RRR programming to the African Union Commission (AUC), Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and individual AU member states, and will directly inform the development of a continental policy on RRR.

Download Executive Summary (English)

Download Report (English)

Download Executive Summary (French)

Download Report (French)

RDPP – Progressive Effects Evaluation of the Regional Development and Protection Programme (RDPP) in the Horn of Africa: 2018-2020

April 2021

The Regional Development and Protection Programme (RDPP) is a European programme to create evidence-based, innovative and sustainable protection and development approaches for refugees and their host communities in Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda. The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs contracted the Learning and Evaluation Team (LET), co-led by Samuel Hall and MDF with Maastricht University and ECDPM, to conduct a progressive effects evaluation over a three-year period, with a baseline in 2018, and an endline in 2020. The RDPP objectives focus on capacity building, protection, integrated services, and socio-economic development for displacement affected communities. The LET implemented a combined quantitative and qualitative evaluation to assess progress on each domain and conclude on the relevance, coordination, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of the RDPP in the Horn of Africa.

Download Endline LET Executive Summary

Download Endline LET Synthesis Report

Download Endline LET Report (Ethiopia)

Download Endline LET Report (Kenya)

Download Endline LET Report (Somalia)

Download Endline LET Report (Sudan)

Download Endline LET Report (Uganda)

Download Baseline LET Report (Consolidated)

Download Baseline LET Report (Ethiopia)

Download Baseline LET Report (Kenya)

Download Baseline LET Report (Somalia)

Download Baseline LET Report (Sudan)

Download Baseline LET Report (Uganda)

ILO – Rapid assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on labour markets in Ethiopia: A case study of the Somali and Tigray regions

April 2021

The Somali and Tigray regional states of Ethiopia are among the country’s main regions where refugees have sought shelter, but both face various socio-economic challenges that undermine the livelihoods of both host communities and refugees. Commissioned by the ILO, Samuel Hall assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on displacement-affected labour markets in targeted PROSPECTS intervention areas in the Somali and Tigray regional states, to gather evidence on current local socio-economic environments and inform the design of relevant and context-specific measures.

Download Report

Watch Somali Summary Video

Watch Tigray Summary Video

IOM & UNEP – Identifying Climate Adaptive Solutions to Displacement in Somalia

April 2021

This assessment report created by Samuel Hall for IOM, UNEP, and the Directorate for Environment and Climate Change of the Somali Government explores the interactions between climate change, displacement and urbanisation. It answers two key questions in the context of the Somali cities of Baidoa and Kismayo: What factors trigger climate-induced migration? And what adaptive and transformative solutions may contribute to building resilience amid displacement and climate change – at both the community and policy levels?

A mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. Participatory research ensures that the voices of communities, individual households, and vulnerable populations are clearly and distinctly heard throughout the report.

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AFI – Financial Inclusion of Forcibly Displaced Persons

December 2020

Forcibly displaced persons (FDPs) often lack access to finances – including savings accounts, transfers, loans and insurance. In support of AFI’s “Advancing the Financial Inclusion of FDPs: Putting Recommendations to Practice" , Samuel Hall created a guideline note on how to better include displaced people into National Financial Inclusion Strategies (NFIS) globally. In addition, Samuel Hall and AFI, with support from Strathmore University in Kenya, researched the financial inclusion of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) to produce a series of case studies covering Afghanistan, Mauritania and Rwanda.

Download Guideline Note

Download Case Studies

ILO – Integrated Labour Market Assessment in Jigjiga and Kebribeyah: A Marketplace in Between Resilience and Integration

December 2020

Building on previous ILO work conducted in the Ethiopian regions and in Dadaab, Kenya, the study analysed labour market opportunities and constraints for refugees and hosts in Jigjiga, Somali State through the prism of the Labour Market System (LMS). The analysis is conducted through the lens of decent work opportunities. This means that the study focuses on both the quantity and quality of jobs available for host communities and refugees. As such, the focus is not solely on unemployment patterns, but also and more crucially on the type of jobs occupied by host communities and refugees to measure decent work. Building on the Jijiga study, Samuel Hall was subsequently contracted to replicate the research in the Tigray regional state.

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World Bank - Impact of Refugees on Hosting Communities in Ethiopia

August 2020

Commissioned by the World Bank, Samuel Hall (SH) is conducting an analysis of the social dynamics in refugee-hosting areas in Ethiopia. The study aims to help the Ethiopian government to put in place mechanisms to enable refugees to become more self-reliant and better integrated into society and the economy. By collecting data through qualitative methods, the objective of the project is to generate high quality evidence from the field on the social context in refugee-hosting areas and on the social impacts of refugees on hosts in three regions: Addis Ababa, Somali and Gambella regions.

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DRC/NRC/IRC - Unprepared for (re)integration: Lessons Learned from Afghanistan, Somalia, and Syria on Refugee Returns to Urban Areas

January 2020

This research was designed to support the thinking and planning around (re-)integration by identifying obstacles to preparedness of stakeholders for return and (re-)integration in refugee return settings. The study generates operational learning to enable NGOs, UN agencies, donors, government actors, and displacement-affected communities (DACs) to strengthen (re-) integration programming. It does so by reviewing achievements, challenges, opportunities, and critical success factors required for enhancing preparedness in return settings.

Download Executive Summary

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WFP/MoLSA - Developing a Social Protection Policy for Somalia

August 2019

The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of Somalia, with technical support from WFP, UNICEF, and Samuel Hall, designed a National Social Protection Policy with the objective of protecting ‘all groups, particularly the poor and vulnerable, against shocks, helps them to manage risks, and provide them with opportunities to overcome poverty, vulnerability, and exclusion.’

Download Policy

UNICEF - Participatory Research with Adolescents to Unpack How Decisions are Made Whether to Stay in School in Zambia

August 2019

Commissioned by UNICEF Zambia, Samuel Hall conducted a highly qualitative study on ‘how decisions are made on whether or not adolescents (age 10-19) complete their schooling in Zambia’. With fieldwork in eight districts across the country – namely, Lusaka, Rufunsa, Katete, Petauke, Luwingu, Lunga, Mufulira, and Senanga – the study provides an understanding of the decision-making process around school retention/drop-out.

Download Report

Download Katete District Report

Download Petauke District Report

Download Rufunsa District Report

Download Senanga District Report

Download Luwingu District Report

Download Lunga District Report

Download Mufulira District Report

Download Lusaka District Report

ReDSS - Somalia Solutions Analysis Update

May 2019

Led by the Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat (ReDSS) in partnership with the EU RE-INTEG, Durable Solutions Programme and Danwadaag Solutions Consortia, with financial support from ECHO, Danida and DFID, research was conducted by Samuel Hall and the Somali Disaster Resilience Institute (SDRI). The report presents a progress review and update on durable solutions programming in displacement-affected communities in three urban centres in Somalia: Mogadishu, Baidoa and Kismayo.

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ILO/UNHCR - Doing Business in Dadaab

January 2019

Contrary to many popular perceptions, Dadaab is an area of opportunity with existing strengths that can be harnessed. This market systems analysis identifies these strengths as well as areas to build further, and provides the foundation for building opportunities to strengthen job creation and linkages between host and refugee communities as well as with private sector employers in Garissa county as well as with the capital.

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EUTF/Samuel Hall - Mid-Term Review of the EUTF Regional Development and Protection Programme in Kenya: Support to the Development of Kalobeyei

November 2018

In 2018, Samuel Hall in collaboration with the EU reviewed the Kalobeyei Integrated Socio-Economic Development Plan (KISEDP) project to assess whether objectives had been achieved, and where obstacles and opportunities exist to inform future iterations of the project.

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Open Society Foundations - Free and Safe Movement in East Africa

October 2018

A multi-region study analysing migration policy and practices in Central, East and Southern Africa. This report reviews findings at the East African sub-regional level at a time of growing attention to fostering mobility and mobility’s gain for protection and development.

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Save the Children - Durable Solutions For Returnee Children: What Do We Know?

September 2018

This report addresses a gap in knowledge about the often-difficult conditions of children’s return to the areas of (their parents’) origin. It gives an overview of what is known (and what is not) about the return of displaced children to Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Syria, four of the most important contexts of return today.

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