Triggers for Return of Syria Refugees to Their Homeland

• Research unit: PHRD
• Project number: 633075

Short description (English)

Carnegie's Triggers for Return project aims to bring to light the needs and demands of refugee populations in countries neighboring Syria and uncover the set of conditions that should be met for their successful return. Although those refugees are the biggest victims of the ongoing war, they are often the least heard. This is ail the more important, as refugees are ultimately the largest stakeholders in any potential peace deal. Existing surveys of refugees have tended to focus on the humanitarian and socioeconomic conditions of populations in host countries. Meanwhile most initiatives to end the conflict assume repatriation with little assessment of the specific circumstances that can lead to voluntary return and what that may mean for any eventual political settlement.

Project aims (English)

A strategic goal of this project is hence to inform Lebanese and international policy makers of the linkages between triggers for return and a potential political settlement of the Syria crisis. In particular, Carnegie will focus on two principal thematic areas within which Clusters of targeted questions will be posited. While presented as individual lines of inquiry, these areas are also closely interlinked with many cross-cutting issues. These two lines are: 1) Political & Security, and 2) Socio-economic.