Refugee economics

[Somewhere]

I'm starting a thread on the economics of the migrant crisis because that at least is one area where it's possible to push back on fashionable but very wrong beliefs. We have to get the word out on this.

 

The German government's policy on refugees is deeply un-humanitarian. The annual cost of  their 2015 migrant intake alone could have supported around 20m refugees, had they supported them in the normal way via agencies such as the UNHCR. Instead they chose to support just 2.5% of that, around 500K refugees, together with roughly the same number of economic migrants, by resettling them in Europe. Even the 2.5% who were helped are likely to be amongst the least needy refugees, because they were able to pay thousands to the people smugglers.

 

Meanwhile as at 22 March, the UNHCR's budget to support Syrian refugees in the Middle East was about 1/3 underfunded and the overall agency funding for Syrian refugees in the Middle East (because only about 25% of the Syrian refugee aid budget goes through the UNHCR) was at just 31% of budget. http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/download.php?id=10555. That's the real refugee crisis. Had the German government just funded the relief agencies in the normal way instead of resettling migrants, it could have single-handedly funded all the relief agencies' entire 2016 Syria budgets (total $4.5bn) more than 3 times over for the annual cost of their 2015 migrant intake.

 

A recently published report showed that the cost of resettling refugees in Europe was crowding out billions from foreign aid budgets: Centre for Effective Altruism. Effects of the Refugee Crisis on ODA. . 2016-04-06. URL: https://drive.google.com/a/givingwhatwecan.org/file/d/0B551Ijx9v_RoSG1JS2NlY0J1LWlHTFR0RHMyTXNlMk9sVnlB/Accessed: 2016-04-06. (Archived by WebCite^® at http://www.webcitation.org/6gYo5ZeIs)

 

Some details:

 

At the end of 2014 there were an estimated 59.5m refugees and internally displaced persons worldwide http://www.unhcr.org.uk/about-us/key-facts-and-figures.html

 

The UNHCR's annual cost per refugee is around $1K for Syrian refugees http://cis.org/High-Cost-of-Resettling-Middle-Eastern-Refugees#23and around $380 in Kenya http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e483a16.html. This compares with estimates for resettlement in Germany (from the Deutscher Städtetag and the Institut für Weltwirtschaft Kiel) of EUR13K ($14.5K) per year: Greive, Martin. Flüchtlingskrise kostet bis zu 55 Milliarden Euro im Jahr. Die Welt. 2016-04-06. URL:http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article149854636/Fluechtlingskrise-kostet-bis-zu-55-Milliarden-Euro-im-Jahr.html. Accessed: 2016-04-06. (Archived by WebCite^® at http://www.webcitation.org/6gYpP7kSm)

 

General information about Syrian refugees from the UNHCR: http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php

[Mister Mister]

Thank you so much for sifting through all this information, this topic makes my head swim

[Somewhere]

There has been chronic underfunding of support to Syrian refugees in the Middle East, while the German and Swedish governments instead pursue poorly targeted and hugely inefficient resettlement programmes. This underfunding, which affects the most needy refugees, could have been cleared completely at a small fraction of the cost of the European resettlement programmes.

Funding raised as a percentage of target for all major agencies helping Syrian refugees in the Middle East
(about 25% of this funding typically goes through UNHCR)

2012: 64% (figure covers UNHCR only)
2013: 71%
2014: 61%
2015: 62%
2016: 31% (period to 22 March)
For comparison, the funding reported last year as at 24 March 2015 was 42% of their year to date target (Source: http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/download.php?id=8634) so the 2016 funding may catch up as the year progresses, although at March 2013 the agencies were funded at over 100% of year to date target.

Sources:

UNHCR Funding for the Syrian Refugee Response as of 7 January 2013 (2012 requirements)
http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/download.php?id=1345
RRP Funding Update - 31 December 2013
http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/download.php?id=3968
RRP Funding Update 2014 - 5 February 2015
http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/download.php?id=8137
3RP Funding Update 2015 FINAL - 22 February 2016
http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/download.php?id=10298
[syria Sit 2016] 3RP Inter-agency funding snapshot - March 2016
http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/download.php?id=10555

[flazak]

There is definitely a youtube video or some kind of infographic in all this! Eye opener.

[raz1911]

Good post. I use this argument when debating people about immigration but its good to have the data from the companies themselves. 

[Somewhere]

.

[Somewhere]

The argument against refugee resettlement is usually made in terms of the interests of the people in the country where the resettling is happening, and although that's a valid argument it does allow open borders advocates to make the usual accusations against the person putting it forward.

 

The moral, humanitarian case against refugee resettlement is compelling. It's important to cite the "right" sources; if you cite the CIS http://cis.orgas I lazily did at one point above (I'll change it when time permits) then the open borders advocates will deflect the argument by saying that they are Bad People, even when the CIS is just citing government figures.

 

The moral argument probably won't convince an open borders advocate - for example, one that I put this argument to came back with claims of unspecified benefits that the refugees would bring to the host country - but it should lose them a lot of their audience.

[raz1911]

You are right.

 

Most of my arguments with people about this are done online so I try to think of it as I'm not just convincing the person I'm talking to, I'm trying to convince the people that would be reading our conversation also. I find there are some people that I have come across on this topic have not been shown the real facts about it and some are not as hard core in their beliefs as some open borders advocates are. So I normally talk about how there is only so much money to go around to help these people so if it helps more people (pushing that helping more should be the goal) then keeping them where they are rather than brining them to the EU or the West is better as a whole as it helps so many more people rather than the feel good moments of bring in only some lucky few. I push that it is a selfish idea to do that. I feel like it plants the seed in some of the not so hard core about it.

[Somewhere]

There are some interesting stats at the UN's Financial Tracking Service https://fts.unocha.org/pageloader.aspx?page=special-syriancrisis especially the detailed information in the (large) spreadsheet that's generated when you go to Donor Funding 2012 to 2015 > Totals > Show full details / itemised list under each sub-total
 
Germany did massively increase its humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees in 2015, donating $519m in that year mainly through UNICEF ($193m) and the World Food Program ($146m). But that's still less than 3% of the expected annual cost for basic welfare alone of Germany's 2015 refugee/migrant intake (at $15K per head).
 
The UK remains substantially ahead of Germany in terms of cumulative humanitarian aid, despite the complaints from certain quarters that the UK "isn't doing as much as other countries".

 

In the table below I've listed total government humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees 2012-2015 in USD by country, in descending per capita order. It's interesting how many Middle Eastern countries are near the top. Humanitarian aid figures are from the FTS site mentioned above, population figures are from Wikipedia.

 

Country	Donated	Pledged	Total	Population	Per Capita
Kuwait	1,039,816,837		1,039,816,837	4,183,658	248.54
Qatar	256,967,279	3,803,270	260,770,549	2,587,564	100.78
Norway	362,537,432	14,608,919	377,146,351	5,223,256	72.21
United Arab Emirates	435,287,950	118,822,508	554,110,458	9,856,000	56.22
Luxembourg	25,462,714		25,462,714	576,200	44.19
Holy See	29,828		29,828	839	35.55
Denmark	200,072,721		200,072,721	5,717,014	35.00
Monaco	983,845		983,845	38,400	25.62
United Kingdom	1,553,810,782		1,553,810,782	65,110,000	23.86
Switzerland	197,239,702	1,142,037	198,381,739	8,341,600	23.78
Saudi Arabia	736,519,452		736,519,452	32,248,200	22.84
Netherlands	335,305,431	30,652,419	365,957,850	17,019,620	21.50
Sweden	190,870,739		190,870,739	9,894,888	19.29
Bahrain	3,580,000	22,000,000	25,580,000	1,404,900	18.21
Germany	1,253,782,339		1,253,782,339	81,770,900	15.33
Canada	550,191,075		550,191,075	36,155,487	15.22
United States	4,676,016,836	37,669,216	4,713,686,052	323,940,000	14.55
Oman	58,053,249		58,053,249	4,420,133	13.13
Finland	69,992,139		69,992,139	5,491,817	12.74
Ireland	49,939,607	1,696,065	51,635,672	4,635,400	11.14
Belgium	84,545,362	6,467,942	91,013,304	11,319,511	8.04
Australia	173,397,332		173,397,332	24,116,545	7.19
Liechtenstein	258,799		258,799	37,623	6.88
Iceland	1,755,000		1,755,000	334,300	5.25
Japan	449,012,741	23,360,000	472,372,741	126,960,000	3.72
European Commission	1,804,223,514		1,804,223,514	508,000,000	3.55
New Zealand	11,753,261	2,903,226	14,656,487	4,697,481	3.12
Austria	24,654,711		24,654,711	8,725,931	2.83
France	171,876,228		171,876,228	66,710,000	2.58
Brunei Darussalam	1,000,000		1,000,000	411,900	2.43
Estonia	2,544,435		2,544,435	1,315,944	1.93
Italy	109,801,922	3,484,310	113,286,232	60,665,551	1.87
Czech Republic	10,426,866		10,426,866	10,558,524	0.99
Spain	43,696,062		43,696,062	46,438,422	0.94
Andorra	51,496		51,496	78,014	0.66
Iraq	9,965,812	13,000,000	22,965,812	37,883,543	0.61
Malta	233,258		233,258	425,384	0.55
Korea, Republic of	21,391,500		21,391,500	50,801,405	0.42
Mauritania		1,000,000	1,000,000	3,718,678	0.27
Croatia	847,141	206,897	1,054,038	4,190,669	0.25
Morocco	4,250,000	4,000,000	8,250,000	33,337,529	0.25
Russian Federation	35,759,837		35,759,837	146,599,183	0.24
Poland	7,905,700		7,905,700	38,437,239	0.21
Slovenia	330,422		330,422	2,064,188	0.16
Hungary	1,503,251		1,503,251	9,823,000	0.15
Latvia	236,081		236,081	1,961,600	0.12
Cyprus	78,492	13,793	92,285	847,000	0.11
Slovakia	587,169		587,169	5,426,252	0.11
Lithuania	218,197	82,542	300,739	2,872,294	0.10
Bulgaria	731,992		731,992	7,153,784	0.10
Botswana	100,000	100,000	200,000	2,141,206	0.09
Uruguay	230,011		230,011	3,480,222	0.07
Romania	1,053,665		1,053,665	19,861,408	0.05
Algeria	2,000,000		2,000,000	40,400,000	0.05
Portugal	508,635		508,635	10,374,822	0.05
Greece	394,223		394,223	10,858,018	0.04
Ecuador	500,000		500,000	16,544,793	0.03
Brazil	5,690,000	100,000	5,790,000	206,131,387	0.03
Turkey	2,000,000		2,000,000	78,741,053	0.03
Mexico	3,000,000		3,000,000	122,273,473	0.02
Malaysia	500,000		500,000	31,404,332	0.02
Georgia	50,000		50,000	3,720,400	0.01
Kazakhstan	200,000		200,000	17,753,200	0.01
Chile	200,000		200,000	18,191,900	0.01
China	14,802,932		14,802,932	1,377,406,500	0.01
Montenegro	5,000		5,000	621,810	0.01
Colombia	300,000		300,000	48,758,500	0.01
India	3,594,517	2,200,000	5,794,517	1,295,170,000	0.00
Mongolia	10,000		10,000	3,092,925	0.00
Indonesia	500,000		500,000	258,705,000	0.00
South Africa	93,465		93,465	55,653,654	0.00
Philippines	10,000		10,000	103,275,200	0.00