ABSTRACT
Since the early 1990s, the United Nations and the international aid community have focused on refugee emergencies, delivering humanitarian assistance to refugees and war-affected populations, and encouraging large-scale repatriation programmes in high-profile regions such as the Balkans, the Great Lakes and, recently, Darfur and Chad. Almost two-thirds of the world’s refugees, however, are trapped in protracted refugee situations. Such situations – often characterised by long periods of exile, stretching to decades for some groups – occur on most continents in a range of environments including camps, rural settlements and urban centres.
