Social Protection For Refugees In The COVID-19 Pandemic Era: Insights From Turkey, Colombia And Uganda

Abstract

With the consideration of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries enforced various restrictions including lockdown and closure of small enterprises to curb down the spreading of the pandemic. These measures impacted harshly many socioeconomic groups. Refugees as one of the most vulnerable groups experienced several challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, this study attempts to explore the social protection measures implemented to support the refugees during the COVID-19 crisis. Especially, the study aims to explore the implementation of social protection and draw learned lessons from three key countries; Turkey, Colombia and Uganda, which host a huge number of refugees over the globe. This review was carried out by searching from WoS, Google Scholar and some Websites of some international humanitarian organizations such as the World Food Program and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The study showed that the humanitarians have played a significant role in enhancing the resilience of the refugees during the covid-19 pandemic in funding numerous social protection in refugees-hosting countries. Consequently, the study ended with some recommendations to international humanitarian, development partners and governments of the refugees-hosting for a better implementation of comprehensive protection policy and interventions that could effectively help to support the refugees for future unexpected crises.