RefugeeA refugee, conventionally speaking, is a person who has lost the protection of their country of origin and who cannot or is unwilling to return there due to well-founded fear of persecution. Such a person may be called an asylum seeker until granted refugee status by the contracting state or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) if they formally make a claim for asylum.
PovertyPoverty is a state or condition in which one lacks the financial resources and essentials for a certain standard of living. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in statistics or economics there are two main measures: absolute poverty compares income against the amount needed to meet basic personal needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter; relative poverty measures when a person cannot meet a minimum level of living standards, compared to others in the same time and place.
Refugees of the Syrian civil warRefugees of the Syrian Civil War are citizens and permanent residents of Syria who have fled the country throughout the Syrian Civil War. The pre-war population of the Syrian Arab Republic was estimated at 22 million (2017), including permanent residents. Of that number, the United Nations (UN) identified 13.5 million (2016) as displaced persons, requiring humanitarian assistance. Of these, since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011 more than six million (2016) were internally displaced, and around five million (2016) had crossed into other countries, seeking asylum or placed in Syrian refugee camps worldwide.
IslamIslam (ˈɪslɑːm; ۘالِإسْلَام, al-ʾIslām ʔɪsˈlæːm, ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centered on the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam, called Muslims, number approximately 2 billion globally and are the world's second-largest religious population after Christians. Muslims believe that Islam is the complete and universal version of a primordial faith that was revealed many times through earlier prophets such as Adam (believed to be the first man), Ibrahim, Moses, and Isa (Jesus), among others.
Energy povertyEnergy poverty is lack of access to modern energy services. It refers to the situation of large numbers of people in developing countries and some people in developed countries whose well-being is negatively affected by very low consumption of energy, use of dirty or polluting fuels, and excessive time spent collecting fuel to meet basic needs. Today, 759 million people lack access to consistent electricity and 2.6 billion people use dangerous and inefficient cooking systems.
Afghan refugeesAfghan refugees are citizens of Afghanistan who were forced to flee their country as a result of wars, persecution, torture or genocide. The 1978 Saur Revolution followed by the 1979 Soviet invasion marked the first major wave of internal displacement and international migration to neighboring Iran and Pakistan; smaller numbers also went to India or to countries of the former Soviet Union. Between 1979 and 1992, more than 20% of Afghanistan's population fled the country as refugees.
Cycle of povertyIn economics, a cycle of poverty or poverty trap is caused by self-reinforcing mechanisms that cause poverty, once it exists, to persist unless there is outside intervention. It can persist across generations, and when applied to developing countries, is also known as a development trap. Families trapped in the cycle of poverty have few to no resources. There are many self-reinforcing disadvantages that make it virtually impossible for individuals to break the cycle.
United Nations High Commissioner for RefugeesThe United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with over 18,879 staff working in 138 countries. UNHCR was created in 1950 to address the refugee crisis that resulted from World War II.
Cultural assimilationCultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assimilate the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially. The different types of cultural assimilation include full assimilation and forced assimilation. Full assimilation is the more prevalent of the two, as it occurs spontaneously. When used as a political ideology, assimilationism refers to governmental policies of deliberately assimilating ethnic groups into the national culture.
ReligionReligion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacredness, faith, and a supernatural being or beings.
Human migrationHuman migration is the movement of people from one place to another with intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location (geographic region). The movement often occurs over long distances and from one country to another (external migration), but internal migration (within a single country) is also possible; indeed, this is the dominant form of human migration globally. Migration is often associated with better human capital at both individual and household level, and with better access to migration networks, facilitating a possible second move.
InfrastructureInfrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and private physical structures such as roads, railways, bridges, tunnels, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, and telecommunications (including Internet connectivity and broadband access).
Forced assimilationForced assimilation is the involuntary cultural assimilation of religious or ethnic minority groups, during which they are forced to adopt the language, national identity, norms, mores, customs, traditions, values, mentality, perceptions, way of life, and often the religion and ideology of an established and generally larger community belonging to dominant culture by a government. The enforced use of a dominant language in legislation, education, literature, and worship also counts as forced assimilation.
Cultural genocideCultural genocide or culturicide is a concept which was proposed by lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944 as a component of genocide. Though the precise definition of cultural genocide remains contested, the Armenian Genocide Museum defines it as "acts and measures undertaken to destroy nations' or ethnic groups' culture through spiritual, national, and cultural destruction". Some ethnologists, such as Robert Jaulin, use the term ethnocide as a substitute for cultural genocide, although this usage has been criticized as risking the confusion between ethnicity and culture.
Green infrastructureGreen infrastructure or blue-green infrastructure refers to a network that provides the “ingredients” for solving urban and climatic challenges by building with nature. The main components of this approach include stormwater management, climate adaptation, the reduction of heat stress, increasing biodiversity, food production, better air quality, sustainable energy production, clean water, and healthy soils, as well as more anthropocentric functions, such as increased quality of life through recreation and the provision of shade and shelter in and around towns and cities.
Circular migrationCircular migration or repeat migration is the temporary and usually repetitive movement of a migrant worker between home and host areas, typically for the purpose of employment. It represents an established pattern of population mobility, whether cross-country or rural-urban. There are several benefits associated with this migration pattern, including gains in financial capital, human capital, and social capital. There are also costs associated with circular migration, such as brain drain, poor working conditions, forced labor, and the inability to transfer acquired skills to home economies.
2015 European migrant crisisDuring 2015, there was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and migrants into Europe. 1.3 million people came to the continent to request asylum, the most in a single year since World War II. They were mostly Syrians, but also included significant numbers of Afghans, Nigerians, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Eritreans, and the Balkans. The increase in asylum seekers has been attributed to factors such as the escalation of various wars in the Middle East and ISIL's territorial and military dominance in the region, as well as the Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt ceasing to accept Syrian asylum seekers.
