Today, more than half of the world’s 59.5 million forcibly displaced people live in urban areas and their average length of displacement is over a decade.2 In Asia, the world’s fastest urbanizing continent, countries like Iran and Pakistan are among the top-10 major refugee-hosting countries in the world, while Afghanistan remains the second largest source of refugees globally behind Syria.3 In Southeast Asia, Thailand serves as the region’s primary destination for refugees and asylum seekers, with over half a million people of concern living in the country in 2015. These trends have significant implications for cities within the region, including heightened challenges for providing basic services to the city’s existing inhabitants as well as new residents. They also impact the changing humanitarian landscape, where traditional humanitarian responses have been most often designed for camp or rural/remote contexts. In order to better understand these issues, to learn from challenges and successes, and to identify more appropriate ways of working, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) hosted an Urban Practitioner Workshop on Meeting Needs in a Context of Urban Displacement in Asia. The aim of the workshop was to bring together humanitarian, international development, community organizations, and local municipal actors called into action by various urban crises within the region.

If the Generation Equality Forum is to deliver on its promise for game-changing results for all women and girls and support the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) promise to Leave No One Behind, the Forum as a whole, and the Economic Justice and Rights Action Coalition specifically, must include dedicated commitments for displaced women and girls, including refugees, IDPs and others affected by conflict and crisis who are at risk of exclusion.

Private donations contribute greatly to the success of the IRC's work. Although we receive state and federal funding for initial resettlement and employment services, the assistance we provide to refugee families beyond their first few months in the U.S. would not be possible without community support.