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“Voiceless and Stateless Rohingya Refugees: Competing Expectations Among NGOs in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh”

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Abstract

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play a critical role in the response to human displacement yet face competing pressures. One ongoing site of displacement is among the 1.1 million Rohingya persons living in refugee camps in Bangladesh. NGOs are party to the ongoing humanitarian response yet operate under competing demands by multiple stakeholders. To what extent do NGOs meet the various expectations among different groups of Rohingya refugee beneficiary stakeholders? We used UNHCR survey data from 31 refugee sites in Cox’s Bazar to empirically examine the relationship between demographic and socioeconomic indicators with satisfaction levels of service provision. We find that female refugees and head of household disability (difficulty seeing, hearing, walking, remembering, or communicating) are indicators that present the most significant differences; NGO responses more often overlook the priority needs of females and persons with disabilities when compared to other refugees, a response gap that reduces their satisfaction and potentially heightens these groups’ vulnerabilities. Although UNHCR and NGOs face pressures from competing demands within beneficiary populations, they also have opportunities to develop refugee-centered policies and practices that are more responsive to vulnerable groups. Overall, this paper adds dimension to understanding of various refugee stakeholder perspectives within a camp setting.

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Notes

  1. “Bangladesh is not a party to the 1951 Convention on Refugees or the 1967 Protocol” (Phiri, 2008). Thus, the Rohingya community living in Bangladesh has not been granted refugee status but instead is labeled as “forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals.” For the purposes of this paper, Rohingya refugee is used interchangeably with Rohingya community or person, irrespective of the recognized legal status held in Bangladesh.

  2. We acknowledge that a common complaint of NGOs and refugee resettlement organizations is that they frequently do not account for the needs of distinct groups and unique cultural factors, relying instead on a one-size-fits-all approach that can be deleterious to the actual needs of refugees and displaced persons.

  3. While this is a quantitative analysis, we would be remiss to not mention major qualitative research on the Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar, much of it carried out by Bangladeshi scholars. Important recent works include Pugh et al. (2022), Khan et al. (2022) and Shahabuddin et al. (2020).

  4. The data is available on the UNHCR Microdata library website (https://microdata.unhcr.org/index.php/home). The website asks the researcher to register, create an account, and submit a request to access the licensed datafiles. After submitting the proposal of the research project and the intended use of data, the request gets approved, and researcher could access the dataset requested.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to generous feedback from colleagues at the Muslim Philanthropy Initiative and session attendees at the 2021 Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Civil Society (ARNOVA) conference. A special thanks to Khaldoun AbouAssi who reviewed early drafts and provided comments to help reframe parts of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Afshan Paarlberg

  2. Lacy School of Business, Butler University, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Ronia Hawash

  3. Department of Political Science, Canisius University, Buffalo, NY, USA

    Shyam K. Sriram

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  1. Afshan Paarlberg
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  2. Ronia Hawash
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  3. Shyam K. Sriram
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Contributions

AP and RH contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by AP, RH, and SS. AP, RH, and SS read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shyam K. Sriram.

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Paarlberg, A., Hawash, R. & Sriram, S.K. “Voiceless and Stateless Rohingya Refugees: Competing Expectations Among NGOs in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh”. Voluntas (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-023-00606-7

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