There is an urgent need for new research to inform the design response to overlapping refugee crises and the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic in countries across Sub Saharan Africa, including Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso is currently experiencing an unexpected escalation of conflicts, human rights abuses, threats to human security and peace building, coupled with unanticipated large scale forced population displacement, and an unprecedented public health emergency. Global disruption to supply chains for electrical and electronic technologies and components as a result of restrictions to transportation and shipping is restricting the distribution of essential humanitarian energy technologies. Against this backdrop the repair and repurposing of old technologies and systems, as well as the continued maintenance of existing humanitarian technologies is an urgent and essential humanitarian task; one that requires the mobilisation of locally situated repair cultures (skills, knowledge and practices) as well as the local sourcing of spare parts and components. In partnership with the UNHCR's Innovation Service and Chatham House this research project sets out to address a significant knowledge gap about the extent, significance and potential role of repair in meeting people's basic needs.

According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), until June 2017, 65.6 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide of whom 22.5 million were refugees. Historically, health services for refugee populations have been provided primarily through dedicated health clinics located within refugee camps run by UNHCR or international non-governmental organizations. However, as patterns of mobility and emergency duration have changed, there is recognition that these parallel health services in camps are unsustainable and insufficiently benefit the surrounding host populations, many of whom are also vulnerable. Instead, UNHCR has called for the integration of refugee populations into national health systems, and the World Bank recently established a US$2 billion fund for refugee-hosting governments to support the integration of refugees and host communities, covering multiple sectors, including health. This move towards a "humanitarian-development nexus" has the potential to support refugees and nationals, while increasing the capacity of national systems. There has been limited research exploring the issue of integrating refugees into health systems and its effects on such systems. Thus, there is limited evidence available to international, regional or national actors in terms of which types of arrangements may work best in a particular context. We will conduct case studies in three different countries currently hosting large numbers of refugees: Lebanon (1.1m), Jordan (655,624), and Uganda (940,800). We plan to focus on Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, and South Sudanese refugees in Uganda. While policies in Lebanon, Jordan and Uganda have all integrated refugees into health systems to some degree, they differ widely in their approach, and in the structure of the underlying health system. We will analyse each country case separately and then seek to identify patterns across the three cases, so as to be able to draw conclusions that are relevant to other contexts. Specifically, our research will seek to understand the perceptions and experiences of stakeholders as well as host and refugee populations towards refugees' integration into national health systems including how these stakeholders understand the meaning of integration and perceive its desirability. It will identify the structural, institutional and individual/community factors that have shaped policies on integration of refugees, including refugee health workers, into national health systems. The study will also assess how the pattern and extent of refugee integration across these three contexts has affected health services received by refugee and host populations and how financial mechanisms and flows affected financial sustainability of services. We will then convene national, regional and international policy and decision-makers to reflect upon the findings from these analyses, and identify their implications for future policy and practice. Within each of the three country cases we will employ a mixed-method approach that will be tailored to match local circumstances. We plan to identify timelines for the development of refugee policies and will conduct a policy analysis to understand how policies and practices evolved and why. We will then use existing datasets and primary data collection within district level cases, to explore how different aspects of refugee integration into national health systems over time has affected availability, access to health services and quality of health care. A comparative study, across these three different contexts, will enable decision-makers within the three countries to learn from and consider alternative approaches to refugee integration, but will also provide evidence and policy recommendations that will be transferable to other existing and future refugee settings. We also seek to inform global policy and guidance on this issue, working with actors such as the UNHCR, the World Bank and WHO among others.

Our Network entitled 'Digital Health for Migrant Mothers' establishes an innovative collaboration between the UN, African and UK-based academics, industry (African-based VR company 'Black Rhino') and midwives to explore how digital tools can be used to enhance maternal care for refugees within camp environments. The UN has noted that despite improving global trends, maternal and neonatal mortality rates remain disproportionately high for women living in humanitarian settings, such as refugee camps. A central component in this challenge is the lack of trained midwifes with Combating these pressing challenges facing women's maternal health care has been strategically identified as part of the SDGs (5 & 3). Our project builds upon previous GCRF-funded research ('Birthing at the Borders' PI Bagelman) and addresses these challenges in one of the worlds' largest and longest-standing refugee camps: Dadaab camps in Kenya which borders Somalia. The Dadaab camps currently host over 400,000 refuges (40% of reproductive age) where maternal morbidity and mortality is notably high (Gee et al, 2019). Our project proposes an innovative Network bringing together a diverse but coherent team to co-design a digital health response to the urgent challenges facing migrant mothers in an environment of protracted displacement. Our project is collaborative in nature, employing agile participatory modes of research rather than imposing models from above. Given the urgent need for midwives to have a more empowered role in the digital provision and education of maternal care our project will develop an engaged Network to explore the possibilities of 'training up' midwives, enhancing their digital literacy through the design of digital 'teaching toolkits' for midwifery education supported by UN. Despite significant international funding spent on reproductive health in Dadaab, maternal and neonatal death rates are disproportionately high as compared to other hardship areas in the region (Gee et al, 2019). Research demonstrates that this discrepancy is due to a systemic disconnect in maternal care within the camp: while most refugee women rely on midwives (as they perceived to provide emotional, culturally-sensitive support) there are only few trained midwives available (Bagelman et al, forthcoming. See CV). Despite the key role that midwives play in supporting refugees in pre to post-natal care, midwifery training remains under-resourced and designed on an ad-hoc basis. While significant resources are earmarked for promoting digital learning and training for biomedical practitioners, midwifery-led health education platforms remain under-supported (WHO, 2016). In particular, digital health tools remain inaccessible to most midwives. For instance, while Virtual Reality (VR) have been well-established within biomedical communities as a productive mechanism for learning and teaching, midwives have little access to such tools. This digital gap is problematic for two main reasons: 1) the absence of digital technology underprivileges women in their ability to provide care 2) and directly impinges upon refugee women in camps who rely - sometimes exclusively - on midwives in receiving care. In sum, our Network places primacy on African digital expertise, is gendered in its approach and centres those often marginalised in digital debates to promote an innovative, and agile response in emergency camp geographies. Reference: Gee, S., Vargas, J. and Foster, A.M., 2019. "exploring the role of sociocultural context and perceptions of care on maternal and newborn health among Somali refugees in UNHCR supported camps in Kenya". Conflict and health, 13(1), p.11.

Until now, the textile heritage of minorities has often been the object of abusive cultural appropriation practices undertaken by fashion brands or has been systematically obscured or undervalued as 'non-fashion' produced by 'the other'. With the mass displacement of people on the rise (due to global and local political, economic, and environmental issues), it is clear that we need to rethink and address the needs and aspirations of migrant minority communities and find ways to honour their diverse cultures. Furthermore, to avoid the current situation where designers are 'parachuted' into marginalised or disadvantaged communities with the assumption that bringing their knowledge and expertise is the answer, there is a need to 'decolonise' such dominant approaches, liberating design from its legacies of colonial thought, whilst leveraging the values of diversity, inclusivity and sustainability. This research aims to provide an in-depth understanding of decolonised fashion and textile design practices through the lens of cultural sustainability. Besides the three commonly recognised pillars of sustainability (i.e. environmental, economic, and social), this research argues for a need to consider also a cultural dimension, meaning diverse cultural systems, values, behaviours, and norms. Adopting a holistic approach, this research will focus on textile and fashion artisanal practice carried out by communities of 'diverse locals', meaning refugees who, despite their traumatic journeys, retain their culture, customs and faiths, as well as a variety of invaluable craft heritage skills. This research intends to fill a gap in knowledge through its focus on what refugee communities can teach us, in terms of cultural sustainability, community resilience, and social entrepreneurship. Adopting an embedded and situated approach to designing, participatory action research will be undertaken with communities of refugees living in East London. The research participants will be selected from a variety of cultural backgrounds in light of their past experience working in the textile and fashion industry in their home countries, to leverage their untapped skills and knowledge and facilitate their potential integration in the local economy and society. Oral histories will be collected in relation to the communities' material culture, in order to make sense of their cultural heritage, conduct co-creation workshops aimed at developing social entrepreneurship models to enhance the resilience of the refugees, and outline policy recommendations for sustainable regeneration. It is expected that the research will contribute to raising project participants, design practitioners and researchers' awareness of issues of cultural sustainability, promoting decolonised fashion practice, and recognising diverse forms of entrepreneurship that go beyond traditional standards from the Global North. The research will also benefit the participating communities through amplifying their voice and agency, enhancing their fashion and textile making skills as well as entrepreneurial capabilities, and informing the development of sustainable regeneration policies. Moreover, a collection of fashion and textile artefacts embedding the cultural heritage of the participating communities will be co-created and sold in order to raise funding to support on-going community-led fashion-related entrepreneurial activities. Finally, although the field work will be undertaken with communities in east London, findings from the research will inform the development of a framework for designing for cultural sustainability, social entrepreneurship and sustainable regeneration that is apt to have broader applicability and replicability across the UK.

Several African countries have been marred by decades of war, violence and conflict. Despite concerted peacebuilding efforts they have struggled to find stable, durable pathways to peaceful societies. Peace education can play a critical role in engendering the knowledge, values, skills and attitudes required to prevent and reduce conflict but so far it has had limited effects. Part of the problem lies in the pedagogies and curricula that underpin peace education which, much like the wider peacebuilding project, are grounded in Eurocentric and liberal values, principles and methods. There have also been increasingly insistent, even violent, demands to decolonise the wider African curriculum but this has largely remained at the level of critique. New materials generated within local communities and representative of their knowledges and values, including of peace, are yet to be embedded in teaching materials to support those most affected by conflict. This project will address that gap. It addresses the question: What are the different knowledges and values underpinning peace and how can these practices be connected and compared across countries to create curriculum content and mode of delivery in informal and formal, Secondary and Higher Education (HE), in order to decolonise peace education? The project will, for the first time, provide new data based on Arts and Humanities methodologies on how peace is understood within displaced and marginalised communities. Researchers, community workers and communities in conflict will connect to produce a state of the art of existing knowledge. These methods are often dialogic and can reveal long-held community perspectives in unique ways. This data will then be collated, compared and evaluated so as to draw out lessons of existing peace practices and their underlying knowledges and values. Teaching materials will be developed and delivered through 14 weeks of teaching to young people who have had interrupted study due to conflict and are aged 16-35. The peace materials will be embedded in locally desired teaching materials ensuring that the teaching is meaningful. It will be evaluated by the teachers and students. These activities will be done in 4 Proof of Concept projects in Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe as part of Strand 1. In Strand 2 further projects will be undertaken to enhance and expand these initial findings. The values and knowledges of peace will be compared to identify similarities in how they can be approached and understood. They will be synthesised and evaluated as part of Strand 3. A peace education framework will be coproduced collaboratively at a network meeting. Three Open Educational Resources will be hosted in order to provide a freely available that can influence peace education teaching for years to come. The framework will also be embedded in HEI's teacher training with an initial reach of a minimum of 12,000 trainees per year in Strand 1 and a further 8,000 thereafter. Training will also be offered to community-based organisations providing informal learning to ensure that we offer the benefits of the project to those who are vulnerable but hard to reach. The project also seeks to embed these learnings in education policy (as in Zimbabwe) where it will ensure long-term legacy of the key findings. Throughout the project we will adopt a gender-sensitive lens - concepts, methodology and beneficiaries - as women and men are differentially affected by conflict. The project will deliver at least 9 journal articles, 4 co-edited special issues of journals and an interdisciplinary edited book. In addition, the outputs from the arts and humanities methods will be showcased through exhibitions, performances and workshops. The project will also create a visible network of researchers, policy-makers and community organisations that work together to offer new meaningful knowledges, pedagogies and teaching materials for a decolonised peace education