RUSI and BAAG host Migration and Development Roundtable

There are 10 million refugees globally today. Over the past few decades there has been a massive increase in movement of people from fragile and conflict-affected states. European governments appear to be struggling to keep up with this ‘tide’, and public confidence in them to manage the challenges that come with it is low. 

Against this backdrop, RUSI and BAAG (the British and Irish Agencies Afghanistan Group) hosted a Migration and Development Roundtable on 16 December to explore what role development plays in reducing extremism, crisis-driven displacement or migration and the impact of western interventions on Afghanistan’s majority youth population in terms of extremist ideologies and their decisions to leave the country.

The Roundtable was attended by 24 participants from think tanks, academia, NGOs and the UK Government, representing a wide range of sectoral expertise. This report aims to present some of the key discussion points and recommendations that came out of the roundtable. While the focus of the roundtable, and this report, is largely on Afghanistan, many of the discussion points have wider application for engagement in all fragile states.