Mind the gap! UNHCR, humanitarian assistance and the development process

This article provides a review of UNHCR’s efforts to link humanitarian assistance with the development process in less prosperous regions of the world, looking initially at UNHCR’s involvement with the ‘refugee aid and development’ initiative of the 1970s and 1980s, and subsequently at the organization’s ‘returnee aid and development’ activities in the 1990s. The article concludes with some reflections on the ‘Brookings process’, UNHCR’s most recent attempt to address the elusive relationship between humanitarian assistance and the development process.