Mind the Gap! UNHCR, Humanitarian Assistance and the Development Process

This article provides a historical critique of the initiatives taken by UNHCR to link its refugee and returnee assistance programs with longer-term development efforts in low-income countries. Such initiatives include the integrated zonal development approach of the 1960s; the refugee aid and development strategy of the 1970s and 1980s; the returnee aid and development strategy of the 1990s; and, most recently, the Brookings process. The article concludes that these initiatives have generally been flawed in their conceptualization and implementation and have consequently failed to meet their intended objectives.