Forgotten refugee crisis demands renewed global attention

With Jordan host to the second highest number of refugees per capita globally, Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein, King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, shares lessons and insights and calls on a development approach to human migration worldwide.


Foreword: Jordan’s Perspective 

Displacement and the Challenge of Forced Migration

James Hollifield provides a historical perspective to today’s migration crisis, reminding us that people on the move is not a new phenomenon.

Driven Out

Humanity in Motion: An Interactive Experience

Kayly Ober of Refugees International provides a compelling overview of the global displacement crisis. Her words are brought to life in this dynamic interactive feature.

Humanity in Motion

Colombia has experienced a massive influx of migrants, particularly in the last decade. President Iván Duque Márquez, who has welcomed refugees from Venezuela, tells us why his country has such open arms to those seeking a better life, and offers solutions for some of the challenges migration brings.

A Commitment to Integration

Two lawmakers - one from Mexico, one from the U.S. - come together and offer a path forward on migration.

Two law-makers – one from the U.S. and one from Mexico – come together to share key learnings from a long and storied history of cooperation around migration between the bordering countries and chart a path forward for the region. 

Mexico-U.S. Cooperation on Migration

Generations are Being Lost to Displacement. That Can – and Must – Change. A Conversation with David Beasley and Henrietta Fore

    Wilson Center President, Executive Director, and CEO Mark Green talks with two of the most prominent leaders working with displaced populations around the world, David Beasley of the World Food Programme and Henrietta Fore of UNICEF.

Generations are Being Lost to Displacement. That Can – and Must – Change. 

The Long Road from Afghanistan to Albania: In the aftermath of a lost war, a lucky few who escaped reflect on what was left behind 

Last Hallam Ferguson saw his friend Mansour was 2012 in Afghanistan and he was working with the International Republican Institute. Fast forward to 2021, when he reunites with Mansour and other former colleagues, who are now refugees in Albania. Ferguson reflects on his time there and shares their experiences and their hopes for the future.

The Long Road from Afghanistan to Albania 

John Thon Majok shares his experience as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, while providing vital insights for how to navigate the challenges of current human migration patterns.

John Thon Majok shares his experience as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. In the U.S. since 2001 and now on staff at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, he offers key insights to the challenges and opportunities of being a refugee and caring for them.

Behind the Numbers: Humans in the Warehouse 

Endless Sands of Time: Four Generations of Sahrawi Women Cope with Conflict and Exile

Nanaha is 30 years old and lives in the Boujdour Sahrawi Refugee Camp, 30 kilometers from Tindouf in southwest Algeria. Nanaha’s grandmother Miriam, fled conflict in 1975, when her children were still young. Journalist Kary Stewart tells the story of Nanaha and her family, a tale of how prolonged human displacement spans generations – and shapes the worldview of those who are affected by it.

Endless Sands of Time

Creating Hope: A Physician Who Fled Syria’s War Builds a Haven for Other Women and Girls Displaced by Conflict

Syria’s civil war has created large volumes of human displacement. Dr. Ihlas Altinci had everything she could ever want, but when she was detained and accused of being a suicide bomber – her shoes matched the description of those the suspect was wearing – it made her realize she wasn’t as secure as she thought. She and her family left Aleppo for Turkey in 2013, in what was to be a stopover to Germany. Eight years later, she remains in Turkey where she is a sexual and reproductive health advisor for CARE in Gaziantep; she also manages projects and health facilities involving refugees and other populations in Syria. Dr. Ihlas, as she likes to be called, spoke with Sarah B. Barnes, Director of the Maternal Health Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Creating Hope  

Climate Migrants Can't Wait for Global Frameworks

The relationship between climate change and human mobility seems clear.  We know that climate change increases the intensity and frequency of sudden-onset disasters – wildfires, cyclones, hurricanes, flooding – all of which displace people. There is increasing evidence that these disasters are interconnected. Wilson Center Scholar Elizabeth Ferris looks at the increasing occurrences of climate displacement and how existing national and global policies and frameworks for people fleeing conflict and persecution can inform efforts to more effectively manage this unique challenge.


Climate Migrants Can’t Wait for Global Frameworks

A Hot Dusty Crossroads: How Waves of Environment-Related Displacement are Transforming Rural – and Urban – Iraq

Rural Iraq is withering under a combined onslaught of environmental degradation and poor governance, and in few places is this more evident than among the fields and fast-expanding districts of peri-urban southern Baghdad. Peter Schwartzstein, an environmental journalist who covers water, food security, and conflict-climate issues across the Middle East and Africa, talks with farmers across the area about their dire circumstances while providing thoughtful analysis, rich in context.


A Hot Dusty Crossroads

After a series of floods ravaged the adobe homes and dirt roads of Chirimoto, Peru in the 1980s, most of the residents had fled. The once-lively community of some 1,500 locals dwindled to less than 300 scrappy residents. Journalist Jessica Leving Siegel brings us the story of Luis Chávez Rodriguez who rallied Boston University engineering students to help rebuild his devastated hometown, and what lies ahead for the area, situated near the dwindling rainforest.

First Came the Floods

WQ Dispatch April 2022

WQ Dispatch March 2022

A man walks with his children as migrants settle at the checkpoint logistics center "Bruzgi" at the Belarus-Poland border near Grodno, Belarus, Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

WQ Dispatch January 2022

Scenes from the Global Displacement Crisis

The Fall issue of the Wilson Quarterly examines the immense challenges that human displacement poses to individuals, regions and nations as conflict, climate and other factors compel populations to move. With a mix of essays, first person accounts, testimonies, and an interactive feature, the Wilson Quarterly delivers perspectives from world leaders, U.S. legislators, scholars, journalists, and refugees themselves that illuminate many complexities and solutions to one of the key issues facing global governance and development today.


Humanity in Motion

recent dispatches:

in this issue: