There are now more people on the move – 244 million – than at any time since the end of World War II. Some 65 million are forcibly displaced, including 40.8 million internally displaced people, over 21 million refugees and more than 3 million asylum seekers.
While the sheer numbers have grown, so too has the average duration of displacement: more than 80 percent of refugee crises last 10 years or more; two in five last 20 years or more. Communities hosting refugees and the internally displaced are most often in developing countries with few economic opportunities themselves and limited access to health and education. Sometimes these large influxes of refugees lead to social tensions.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) supports host countries by creating economic development opportunities for host communities, protecting human rights, delivering basic services and supporting better migration governance. Find out how we are supporting Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya and Uganda, which are among the top 10 countries hosting refugees, and other communities in the following photo story:
Turkey hosts the highest number of refugees in the world, including over 2.7 million Syrians. Around 90 percent of them live among Turkish host communities, affecting local labour markets and putting pressure on basic service delivery. Southeast Turkey will need to create 260,000 more jobs – among both Syrians and Turks - to keep unemployment down between now and 2018.
UNDP aims to build an enabling environment and opportunities for Syrian refugees while also supporting host communities. UNDP is providing training and life skills to thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Some 4,800 men and women are expected to benefit in the first 18 months of the project. It has already established vocational training centres, aiming to provide over 2,000 Syrians with job skills for the agriculture, industry and service sectors and has provided over 2,000 men and women working at an olive oil factory with a source of income.
Pakistan is hosting about 2.5 million Afghan refugees and temporarily dislocated persons (TDPs) primarily from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Only about 30 percent of them live in camps, while others have relocated to urban settlements.
UNDP helps build livelihoods and infrastructure, improve cohesion between refugees and host communities, provide skills training and restore social services and infrastructure. This support aims to improve living standards for Afghan refugees and their hosts, including the creation of 20,000 work days through cash-for-work programmes and providing vocational and business management training to over 2,000 men and women. In 2015, over 56,000 people benefited from 323 community infrastructure projects, while 233 schools and 21 health facilities were rehabilitated, serving more than 38,000 people.
Host communities and refugees often compete for scarce resources such as jobs and basic services. In Lebanon, the country with the largest refugee population per capita in the world, UNDP not only aims to increase employment opportunities for vulnerable communities but is also helping to improve relations between local and refugee populations in order to promote peace and social stability.
To enhance social stability, Germany funded a playing field so this football team of Syrian refugees and Lebanese youth players can practice more and improve their skills. So far, the work of UNDP Lebanon in response to the Syria crisis has supported 120 vulnerable communities and reached more than 1.4 million people, approximately three-quarters of them Lebanese and the rest refugees from Syria.
In 2015, the UN in Ethiopia brought together refugees and host communities in this 5 kilometer race for development goals in Gambela region, which hosts 270,000 refugees from South Sudan. Ethiopia currently hosts a total of 741,288 registered refugees and asylum seekers from a number of countries, including South Sudan, Sudan, Somali, Eritrea, and Yemen. With financial support from Japan, UNDP will support income generating and livelihood restoration activities of host communities in Gambela region and also strengthen local peace-building mechanisms including local early warning and joint peacekeeping volunteers, organizing peace dialogue and training on conflict prevention for religious and traditional leaders as well as local officials to ensure peaceful co-existence between host and refugee communities.
Since 2011, nearly 700,000 refugees have poured into the country, mostly living outside of camps and spread across all of Jordan. This has led to a scarcity of employment opportunities in host communities as well as a lack of basic services such as electricity supply, education, health, sanitation and solid waste management. With a 30 percent youth unemployment rate and only 15 percent of women participating in the economy, Jordan has already struggled before the influx of refugees. UNDP builds resilience through strengthening livelihoods and supporting delivery of basic services - for example, through the establishment of micro businesses, vocational training, and emergency employment for refugees and host communities. This young seamstress is one of 450 vulnerable, unemployed Jordanian youth that gained new skills and income opportunities through one of UNDP’s projects. A total of 83 per cent of graduates were placed in jobs and 72 percent of the graduates were young women.
Kenya hosts over 360,000 refugees from different neighbouring countries in two camps – Kakuma in the northwest and Dadaab in the northeast. While the refugees receive some international assistance in the camps, the shortfall is met with resources shared with the host communities, sparking conflict between the residents and the refugees over commodities such as water, pasture, firewood and vegetables as well as economic opportunities. Through support to starting and enhancing small businesses, UNDP and other UN agencies have improved the livelihoods of communities in areas of Northern Kenya. Together with the Kenyan government, the UN has increased access to work, and services like water and education for local residents in northern Kenya. Since the programme began in 2007, some 18,000 people living outside the camps have had better access to water, through new shallow wells and other water harvesting and storage means. 15,000 people were provided tools and seeds to engage in specialist farming activities suited to the arid conditions.
Uganda has provided a safe haven to thousands of refugees over the past four decades. Thanks to Uganda’s progressive and world-leading refugee policies, families making a home in the settlement are allocated land, as a way of enabling self-reliance. UNDP supports host communities and refugees in improving their livelihoods, gather new skills as well as ensure a peaceful coexistence through dialogue and provision of security.
Sudan’s position at the crossroads of the Horn of Africa’s constantly evolving migration routes has made it host to over 3.2 million refugees, asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants, both temporary and long-term. Existing resources are often insufficient to meet the basic needs of vulnerable host populations and the growing number of migrants and refugees. Most of the population faces acute poverty, recurrent drought exacerbated by the El Niño phenomenon and related food insecurity, limited access to services and high levels of unemployment, especially among the youth. Over 20,000 women from internally displaced as well as host communities in Sudan’s Blue Nile State will develop new livelihoods approaches such as how to make and sell cheese, as part of UNDP’s effort to cultivate social cohesion and to encourage economic empowerment of women and youth. Participants gain valuable skills and economic opportunities, preventing them from unemployment, migrating or joining extremist groups.
Within Iraq, around 3 million internally displaced people (IDP) have fled their homes in the central and northern areas of the country, causing serious economic repercussions. Commodity prices have increased in urban areas up to 30 per cent and competition for employment has increased significantly, potentially leading to hostility and tensions between displaced persons, refugees and host communities. UNDP and its partners work to increase resilience of communities most affected by the influx of refugees and internal displacement. This extends to the enhancement of basic public services, promotion of legal support for Syrian refugees, and promotion of social cohesion among refugees, host communities, and internally displaced people. In areas liberated from ISIL UNDP helps set the conditions so that displaced families can return. This includes supporting micro-entrepreneurs such as Fawziyah, who raises bees in her front garden to earn money for her family in a village near Kirkuk.
Afghanistan hosts over 1.3 million refugees and internally displaced people, while 2.7 million people have left the country in 2015 alone – making it the second-largest source for refugees after Syria. UNDP is supporting Afghanistan in addressing drivers of migration, by building stronger institutions, protecting the environment and creating economic opportunities for communities that might otherwise see no future for their children at home. For example, UNDP and the Australian Government are bringing better conditions and job opportunities to Alice Ghan, a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) about an hour’s drive from Kabul. By December, there will be new kitchens, latrines and 95 boundary walls to provide safety and privacy. Over 100 women will be trained in handicrafts and other skills.
Click here to find out more about UNDP’s work for migrants, refugees, internally displaced and their host communities
© 2026 United Nations Development Programme
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