The International Rescue Committee’s Children of Peace multimedia exhibition in the Great Court of The British Museum Great Russell St, London WC1B 3DG takes place Friday 24th June 2016 from 6.00pm – 8.30pm. The exhibition features a recreated classroom that reflects the realities of IRC’s work helping displaced children in north-east Nigeria to access quality education. Salamatu Usman Mohammed, a teacher from an IRC supported school in Yola, will be on hand to talk about what the average day is like in her classroom, and answer any questions you may have. Photography and video tell first hand stories of children like Ruth, 14, whose favourite subject is English. Through hand-painting and drawing help us to create classroom materials for students in Nigeria.

This paper argues for an improved humanitarian response to urban displacement crises by working directly with municipal authorities and through a resilience lens. It draws on the International Rescue Committee (IRC)’s collaboration with 100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation (100RC) and engagement with two municipal authorities, the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) and the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA). The IRC first worked with Amman, a member of the 100RC network, to support their city resilience planning. While Kampala is not in the 100RC network, the IRC replicated its approach in Amman with KCCA to support their own plans and strategies and bring an urban resilience lens to displacement within Kampala. By discussing these relationships and the process behind them, this paper highlights how humanitarian-municipal partnerships can achieve the following benefits: 1. Strengthening coordination, sustainability, and impact of multi-stakeholder responses to urban displacement; 2. Linking humanitarian programming to long-term development goals of the city; 3. Improve the understanding of municipal authorities in relation to the needs and preferences of urban displaced; and 4. Ensure the inclusion of displaced and marginalized residents in municipally-provided public services. Urban displacement cuts across city and humanitarian sectors. It is the collective responsibility of the international community and the localities we serve to strengthen city resilience in the face of urban displacement, and we cannot do so without relying on both humanitarian and municipal actors. Whereas humanitarians have the expertise to respond to crises, municipal actors have the mandate to build from them. Urban resilience asks for both; that we learn to not only respond to displacement crises and aid the communities they affect in equal measure, but, in doing so, to improve those communities to be better prepared for future crises and have a higher overall quality of life; especially for displaced and marginalised city residents.

More than 53,000 desperate men, women and children in search of protection remain in Greece. The vast majority on the mainland are Syrian (45 percent), Iraqi (22 percent), and Afghan (21 percent). Unless European states take action now, a long-term refugee crisis, with thousands stranded living in camps, will unfold on European soil. Greece is receiving insufficient support to step up ineffectual asylum processing that currently hinges on registration via Skype. With the hot summer months approaching, difficult living conditions and an inadequate asylum system is a deeply concerning combination for thousands fleeing violence and persecution. Meanwhile, the illogical and unethical EU-Turkey deal is denying sufficient safe alternative pathways into Europe, and serving to promote dangerous journeys and smuggling.

From years of experience working with refugees and asylum-seekers globally, we know that when given opportunity to thrive, forcibly displaced persons contribute to their host communities and boost local economies. However, third-country nationals living in the European Union face very specific challenges and barriers to integration stemming from their vulnerabilities as refugee populations, as well as structural issues and divergent asylum policies at the EU and national levels. As the EU transitions into a new mandate for the European Commission and Parliament, the International Rescue Committee outlines a set of recommendations for a renewed and improved EU Action Plan on Integration. We argue that only by supporting the transition of refugees and asylum-seekers into their new communities, the EU has a chance to prove its role as a credible champion of protection and inclusion.

Three years ago Ahnaw* collapsed on the floor of her house in a small rural village in eastern Myanmar. When she came to, she realised she was bleeding heavily from what turned out to be a miscarriage. “I didn’t even know I was pregnant,” the 36-year-old recalls, seated in front of a Buddhist shrine in her living room. “They told me when I got to the hospital. They said I was lucky to survive.” As a result of her experience, Ahnaw is now part of an International Rescue Committee programme that trains hundreds of women in Myanmar’s Kayin state to become advocates for birth-spacing and safe pregnancies. These “mother support groups” spread their messages in village gatherings or by going door-to-door, targeting families with many children or young families with children born in quick succession.