Research Report C O R P O R A T I O N LOUAY CONSTANT, SHELLY CULBERTSON, JONATHAN S. BLAKE, MARY KATE ADGIE, HARDIKA DAYALANI In Search of a Durable Solution Examining the Factors Influencing Postconflict Refugee Returns RR-A1327-1 In Search of a Durable Solution Cover.indd All Pages 8/17/21 5:51 PM For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/RRA1327-1. About RAND The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. To learn more about RAND, visit www.rand.org. Research Integrity Our mission to help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis is enabled through our core values of quality and objectivity and our unwavering commitment to the highest level of integrity and ethical behavior. To help ensure our research and analysis are rigorous, objective, and nonpartisan, we subject our research publications to a robust and exacting quality-assurance process; avoid both the appearance and reality of financial and other conflicts of interest through staff training, project screening, and a policy of mandatory disclosure; and pursue transparency in our research engagements through our commitment to the open publication of our research findings and recommendations, disclosure of the source of funding of published research, and policies to ensure intellectual independence. For more information, visit www.rand.org/about/principles. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. © 2021 RAND Corporation is a registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this publication. ISBN: 978-1-9774-0739-9 Cover: Dominic Chavez/World Bank. Limited Print and Electronic Distribution Rights This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions. About This Report There are over 80 million forcibly displaced people globally, the highest number of displacements on record. Yet, returns have not kept pace with displacement. The status quo is a growing global population of displaced people, living in limbo without full citizenship rights, and with their host countries under ever-greater strains of hosting them. The need to find new solutions to facilitate safe refugee return has become ever more urgent. This report considers several factors that have shaped the return of refugees and displaced persons: historical pace of refugee returns, including determinants and patterns; interplay among stakeholders in facilitating refugee returns; push-and-pull factors that shape refugees’ decisions to return to their home countries; fac- tors required for sustainable returns and successful reintegration; and experiences and outcomes from cases of forced displacement and return. The methods used to address this issue include a literature review and key informant interviews with experts and stakeholders; an analysis of displacement and return trends globally; and case studies of the three displacement contexts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and the Kurdistan Region–Iraq. The report includes an analysis of commonalities and differences across the cases, as well as both achievements and constraints in terms of returns as one of the durable solutions. The report concludes with recommendations. RAND National Security Research Division This research was sponsored by the U.S. State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center (ISDP) of the RAND National Security and Research Division (NSRD), which operates the National Defense Research Institute (NDRI), a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agen- cies, and the defense intelligence enterprise. For more information on the RAND ISDP Center, see www.rand.org/nsrd/isdp, or contact the director (contact information is provided on the website). —-1 —0 —+1 iii RR-A1327-1_CC2021_4P.indb 3 8/17/21 9:59 AM RR-A1327-1_CC2021_4P.indb 4 8/17/21 9:59 AM Acknowledgments We are grateful to the U.S. State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) for spon- soring this report. We want to especially acknowledge our program officer, Anna Nicol, for her guidance and support throughout the study phase. Maria Rowan, who previously held the program officer position, advised us at the early stages of the study, for which we are also grateful. We received helpful feedback on the project and this report from other PRM staff, including Christina Gosack, Claire Putzeys, Andrea Samuel- son, and Renee Lariviere in Washington, D.C.; Aida Kuric and Timothy Swett at the PRM’s Refugee Coordi- nator’s office in Belgrade, Serbia; and Alfred Boll, Emily Mestetsky at the Office of Refugee and IDP Affairs in Baghdad, Iraq, and Holly Wilkerson in Erbil, the Kurdistan Region–Iraq (KRI). We are grateful to the many dedicated officials and experts in government agencies, multilateral institu- tions, nongovernmental organizations, and academic and research organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and the KRI, for their generosity with their time during our interviews and sharing of their valuable knowledge about the displacement and returns situation in each of those contexts. Ali Sindi, minister of plan- ning for the KRI, and Zagros Siwaily, director general of the Capital Investment Budget, lent support to the study during the early project design and proposal phase. We are also grateful to a number of RAND colleagues who advised on our research and facilitated key connections for us, including Ambassador James Dobbins and Ambassador Charles Ries. Pauline Moore advised us on the Balkans context, and James Hoobler supported the literature review. We received invalu- able research assistance from Pardee RAND Graduate School (PRGS) students Annie Brothers, Max Izenberg, Omair Khan, and Joan Chang. We also thank Wirya Ahmed and Lawen Hawezy, who generously set aside time to provide us context for the KRI case and connect us with local officials and community leaders for our interviews. We thank the peer reviewers for this report, Roger Zetter, professor emeritus in refugee studies at the University of Oxford; and Howard Shatz, senior economist at RAND. We were also very fortunate to work with our key partners on the ground, Ipsos–Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ipsos–North Macedonia and Kosovo, and Ipsos–Jordan and Iraq, which conducted the in-depth interviews and focus groups. The research project benefited tremendously from the careful research and operational oversight and sup- port of several of our colleagues, including Agnes Schaefer, Michelle Platt, Megan McKeever, Heather Hess, Tonya Bordonaro, and Saci Haslam. Finally, we want to especially thank Kristin Leuschner, who provided expert guidance in communications on the research report; Fadia Afashe, who gave us critical support with enumerator training, protocol review, and interviews, and then also during the publications process as the production editor; Natalie Richards, who offered tremendous administrative assistance on both the project and the final report; and external editorial partner Liz Schueler, who provided expert copyediting assistance. —-1 —0 —+1 v RR-A1327-1_CC2021_4P.indb 5 8/17/21 9:59 AM RR-A1327-1_CC2021_4P.indb 6 8/17/21 9:59 AM Contents About This Report .......................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................... v Figures ........................................................................................................................ ix Tables and Boxes ............................................................................................................ xi Summary ....................................................................................................................xiii Abbreviations ............................................................................................................... xxi CHAPTER ONE Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 Aim of the Study ........................................................................................................... 2 Study Methods and Approach ............................................................................................ 2 Organization of This Report .............................................................................................. 3 CHAPTER TWO Overview of Global Concepts and Trends in Refugee Returns ...................................................... 5 Few