超越营地和社区：孟加拉国难民搬迁的经济学

Policy Research Working Paper Beyond Camps and Communities The Economics of Refugee Relocation in Bangladesh Sandra V. RozoMaría José UrbinaChristina Wieser Policy Research Working Paper11204 Abstract Relocating refugees to remote purpose-built settlementsoffers an alternative to hosting refugees in traditionalcamps or local communities. Yet, its consequences remainpoorly understood. This paper evaluates the well-being andfiscal implications of relocating Rohingya refugees fromthe overcrowded camps of Cox’s Bazar to Bhasan Char, anewly developed remote island settlement in Bangladesh. households using both unadjusted means and propensityscore matching. The paper documents two main findings.First, relocation is associated with a systematic reductionin refugee well-being, including lower food consumption(in both variety and nutritional value), higher illness anddepression rates, and lower wages. Second, these outcomesoccur despite significantly higher costs: per capita service This paper is a product of the Development Research Group, Development Economics. It is part of a larger effort by theWorld Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions aroundthe world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authorsmay be contacted at sandrarozo@worldbank.org. A verified reproducibility package for this paper is available athttp:// The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those Sandra V. Rozo†Mar´ıa Jos´e Urbina JEL Classification:F22, O15, R23Keywords:Forced Displacement, Bangladesh, Relocation policies. IINTRODUCTION As forced displacement continues to grow exponentially reaching 122.6 million individuals bymid-2024 (UNHCR, 2024b), there is urgency to identify effective ways to support displaced indi-viduals and their host communities. One of the most pressing policy questions is to understand the sustainability and efficiency of different hosting arrangements for displaced populations at destination countries. Traditionally, two dominant hosting models have been employed: one in-volves granting displaced persons varying degrees of freedom to settle within host communities This paper contributes to this debate by examining the well-being gaps between Rohingya refugees(henceforth called the Displaced Rohingya Population (DRP)) living in Bangladesh who have beenrelocated to the island of Bhasan Char in 2021 and those who remained in the refugee camps ofCox’s Bazar. Bhasan Char is a low-lying silt island located approximately 60 kilometers off themainland in the Bay of Bengal. Formed through sediment accretion in the early 2000s, the island ucation facilities, it remains geographically isolated and economically detached from mainland In addition to assessing differences in well-being of Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Characross key dimensions, such as food security, health, labor outcomes, and assistance and service Our analysis draws on data from the Cox’s Bazar Panel Survey (CBPS), a longitudinal datasetrepresentative of the DRP in Bangladesh. We use two survey waves, conducted in 2019 and 2023for Cox’s Bazar and one survey wave, conducted in 2022 for Bhasan Char. The 2019 wave includes The GoB does not apply targeting criteria for the relocation of the DRP to Bhasan Char and re-location is voluntary in nature. However, there is no formal documentation on the procedure ofrelocating households, we thus conducted an extensive text analysis search of all media coveragerelated to the relocation program to compile evidence on the process. The analysis suggests that sults indicate that relocated refugee households exhibit significantly lower well-being—measuredalong outcomes related to food consumption, physical and mental health, labor market, and assis-tance and service access—relative to those who remained in Cox’s Bazar. The magnitude of thesegaps is substantial, particularly given the already high vulnerability of the Rohingya population Importantly, these findings appear to be partly shaped by the geographic and economic isola-tion of Bhasan Char itself. The island’s remoteness, located 60 kilometers offshore, with no hostcommunities, constrained market access, and a reliance on fully external logistics, poses inherent We also collect detailed data on the per capita financial costs of hosting the DRP in Cox’s Bazarand Bhasan Char. The results reveal stark cost differentials: annual per capita operational expen-ditures in Bhasan Char range from USD 1,350 to 1,810, approximately three times higher than the