“Their labour is often all that refugees have to sell,” proclaimed Robert Chambers, a renowned refugee advocate and researcher. At the time, he was writing about refugees in rural sub-Saharan Africa in the 1970s. But his words continue to ring true around the world today.
An estimated two-thirds of the world’s refugees lived in poverty in 2023. Their situation has continued to deteriorate. Refugees in 2025 have experienced cuts to their food rations and other support, rising xenophobia and anti-migrant behaviours, and threats to their legal right to remain protected in exile. This is in part due to USAID and other donor cuts, as well as the rise of anti-migrant politicians in the US, Europe, and elsewhere.
A tragic yet paradoxical outcome of not just becoming a refugee but remaining one is that assistance (and often media attention and public goodwill) decreases over time. As humanitarian funding dries up, agencies often switch to encouraging so-called ‘development’ practices in the hopes of helping refugees better fend for themselves. A large pillar of such work is supporting refugees to join labour markets, be they semi-closed markets of camps, local urban economies, or even the global market through remote work.
