The week of December 8-13 of 2019, The Richardson Center for Global Engagement and Fringe Diplomacy will lead a trip to Bangladesh focused on the Rohingya Crisis. The trip will provide an opportunity to deeply engage with and understand the refugee community as well as their host community and country, and together search for ways to alleviate and mitigate some of the hardships caused by this crisis.

This first-of-its-kind trip along with 15 other business executives, impact investors, entrepreneurs and creatives. Together, we will engage with the local communities, examine the humanitarian situation in Cox’s Bazar, and explore opportunities for market-based solutions and impact investments to address the needs and concerns of both Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi communities.

While this will be our first of its kind trip to Bangladesh, this method of integrating business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors and creative into conversations dominated traditionally by policy and aid organizations has proven very effective in other areas of crisis such as Myanmar, Cuba, Lebanon and others.

This promises to be an intense, powerful and meaningful experience for all involved, especially for our partners on the ground: the Rohingya refugees and their host communities.

Some background: In August 2017, Myanmar’s military launched a series of brutal security clearance operations against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group oppressed by Myanmar for decades. The military’s campaign of arson, murder, rape, and torture forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee across the border to Bangladesh and join tens of thousands of Rohingya who fled previously. Bangladesh, incredibly magnanimous in opening its borders to the Rohingya, now hosts more than 900,000 Rohingya in camps, including the largest in the world, in Cox’s Bazar District. Despite a desire by many to return home, Myanmar has not yet demonstrated it can guarantee Rohingyas’ physical security or protect their fundamental rights. It is likely that many Rohingya will remain in Bangladesh for several years.

The Rohingya now outnumber Bangladeshis 2 to 1 in the two sub-districts of Cox’s Bazar in which they reside, adversely impacting Bangladeshi communities that are already among the poorest in the country. Thousands of hectares of forests and farmland have been cleared or damaged to provide space for the camps or fuel for cooking; prices in local markets have increased and wages for day laborers have decreased as they compete with Rohingyas for work; the quality and availability of local services has decreased; and local communities feel overlooked by an international response that has provided hundreds of millions of dollars of assistance to the Rohingya, but comparatively little to them.

While Bangladesh and humanitarian responders – including, initially, local Bangladeshi
communities – have undertaken remarkable efforts to stabilize the situation since late 2017,Rohingyas remain reliant on humanitarian assistance, struggle to provide for themselves, and are vulnerable to human trafficking, criminality, and radicalization. As micro-economies begin to emerge within the camps, however, there are significant opportunities to improve Rohingyas’ self-sufficiency and to devise creative solutions to the challenges Rohingya and affected Bangladeshi communities face on a day-to-day basis.