Strengthening knowledge, evidence use and leadership in the Global South on forced displacement ─ focus on Latin America

 

Some 79.5 million people worldwide are forcibly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations, economic hardships, climate change and prolonged instances of political fragility. Eighty percent of the world’s forcibly displaced people are hosted in countries in the Global South. Yet almost all of the research that influences policy and practice on forced displacement originates from researchers based in the Global North. Local knowledge from the Global South remains scant and underutilized. Existing research on displacement has also remained surprisingly gender-blind and has produced poor policy responses to improve gender equality.

This project seeks to overcome this deficit in local knowledge, use of evidence and leadership by establishing a research chair in South America. Following a rigorous selection process, the Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, Peru, was selected to establish a research chair that will create a sustainable regional platform for research on forced displacement in South America alongside key actors in the field of migration studies: scholars, policymakers, cooperation agencies, civil society and migrants. The research chair will contribute to connecting researchers at Universidad del Pacífico with post-graduate and senior fellows from abroad and contribute to the promotion and dissemination of a coordinated, more comprehensive study of the migratory phenomena in South America. The research chair will forge national and international partnerships at an institutional level, foster growth opportunities for early-career researchers, contribute to highlighting the interconnectedness of advocacy work in research, and communicate relevant recommendations for the implementation of public policies at a regional level.

This project is part of a five-year IDRC initiative on forced displacement that funds a total of eight research chairs in established universities in four different areas of the world (Middle East, East Africa, the Americas and Southeast Asia). The aim of the initiative is to empower Southern-based universities to define local research agendas with practical, gender-responsive solutions to promote the social, economic and political rights of forcibly displaced persons and host communities in the Global South.