While the number of forcibly displaced persons globally has risen steadily over the past several decades, humanitarian funding has failed to grow at a similar pace, leading to increasingly larger shortfalls, compared to humanitarian need. This context, combined with a renewed global policy commitment to refugees and IDPs, has led to an increased focus on building and supporting livelihoods in displacement.

This Mogadishu case study looks more in depth at a particular context of mixed urban displacement where returnees (former refugees in Kenya, Yemen and Djibouti) and internally displaced people live side-by-side, and compete for livelihoods opportunities, with economic migrants and the urban poor in a growing, over-crowded and increasingly expensive city.

It offers a ‘deep dive’ into the lived experience of FDPs in Mogadishu and aims to amplify their perspectives.

This paper is one component of a three-part research project undertaken by the HPG on behalf of the IKEA Foundation, with the other two components being a global evidence review, and a policy brief on funding livelihood interventions.

Report by the Overseas Development Institute