COVID-19’s Socio-economic Impact on Migrants and Displaced Populations
The Middle East and North Africa region is witness to complex and diverse mobility patterns – including labour migration, forced displacement and large-scale mixed migration flows in the Gulf of Aden and in North Africa, often characterised by high numbers of irregular migrants. The Arab world alone hosts about 23 skilled and semi-skilled labour migrants in various sectors including construction, maintenance, retail and domestic services. Concurrently, protracted crisis situations and conflict have resulted in an estimated 12.5 million people living in internal displacement and more than 8 million people living in cross border displacement. Displacement can result in reducing available resources and assets, increasing the risk of impoverishment, abuse, and exacerbating pre-existing vulnerabilities.
In different ways, migrants and displaced populations are highly vulnerable to the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19. A growing body of evidence outlines the ways that the socio-economic outcomes of mobile and displaced populations are negatively affected by the pandemic, including experiencing xenophobic attacks due to perceived links between migration and disease transmission, being unable to access health services or national social protection, being unable to send or receive remittances; being stranded in host country and experiencing increased violence as a result of lockdowns and restrictions on movement.
Against this backdrop, IOM’s Regional Office for the MENA developed a research tool aiming to systematically study how and to what extent COVID-19 affects the socio-economic outcomes of migrants and displaced populations in the region. Building on the United Nations’ (UN) framework for the socio-economic impact of COVID-19, IOM conducted several assessments to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on six key pillars, namely (1) Health services and systems during the crisis; (2) Access to social protection and basic services; (3) Economic response and recovery; (4) Macroeconomic response and multilateral collaboration; (5) Social cohesion and community resilience; and (6) Mobility.
Building on these assessments, IOM and ERF are jointly organising a webinar series aiming to showcase the work of other UN agencies, non-governmental organisations and academics throughout the MENA region. The aim of the webinar series is threefold:
- Reflect upon methodological challenges when conducting research with mobile populations in times of COVID-19;
- Take stock of existing data related to the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on mobile populations in the region & advocate for future data collection initiatives on relevant topics;
- Propose and discuss recommendations to improve future policy and programming for mobile populations in the region.
Webinars
COVID-19’s Socio-economic Impact on Migrants and Displaced Populations
IOM’s Regional Office for the MENA developed a research tool aiming to systematically study how and to what... Read More
Nov 08, 2021
Navigating Through A Pandemic Amid Inflation and Instability: An Assessment of the Socio-Economic Impact of Covid-19 on Migrants in Eastern…
The 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and its associated containment measures have impacted numerous dimensions of the lives of... Read More
Impact of Covid-19 on Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Iraq
Among the main socio-economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Middle Eastern countries, its impact on small- and... Read More