IIED Director Warns Temporary Shelters Likely To Evolve Into Long-Term Systemic Crises

(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 21. Forcing displaced populations within densely populated metropolitan zones to remain confined to tent camps or public facilities for extended durations generates severe socio-economic crises, Lucy Earle, Director of Research and Strategic Impact at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), said, Trend reports.

She made the remarks during a session titled "Housing at the Centre of Crisis Recovery and Reconstruction" held within the framework of the 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku.

Lucy Earle noted that in these emergency scenarios, individuals are routinely forced to live in transient shelters for years at a time-a structural breakdown observed with acute severity across vulnerable metropolitan hubs such as Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Furthermore, Earle emphasized that during humanitarian crises, the prevailing operational assumption among aid agencies remains that "displaced populations will eventually return home." In reality, however, the vast majority of displaced families choose to remain permanently inside the cities where they have sought refuge, progressively anchored their lives and built livelihoods there.

According to her, as long as this institutional mindset fails to shift, categorizing internally displaced persons (IDPs) as mere "temporary residents" severely hinders their systematic integration into civic urban life and negatively distorts municipal utility and service planning.

The IIED director identified the humanitarian sector's systemic failure to accurately account for local land tenure and property rights as a major operational bottleneck.

"We must comprehensively evaluate the localized context and specific land rights structures of each unique city. Unfortunately, rehabilitation solutions are too often engineered exclusively for individuals possessing formal title deeds and certified property documentation. Consequently, the most highly vulnerable segments of the population-namely renters and informal settlement dwellers-are entirely excluded from these institutional recovery frameworks," Earle stated.

Furthermore, she pointed out that the flawed spatial planning of large-scale residential zones erected for displaced communities triggers profound negative long-term consequences.

"Housing developments positioned far away from employment hubs and vital municipal infrastructure lines frequently sit underutilized, rapidly devolving into 'ghost towns.' This occurs because specific refugee encampments are strategically isolated from broader economic centers, structurally preventing them from naturally evolving into viable, self-sustaining cities," she explained.

According to her, the conceptual idea of organically transitioning temporary refugee camps into functional municipalities is not always feasible. "If trapped populations lack freedom of movement and direct access to viable economic activities for their basic livelihoods, that geographic space simply cannot transition into a resilient city," Earle noted.

She concluded that future international paradigms must firmly shift their focus away from segregating displaced populations on peripheral metropolitan margins, prioritizing instead their immediate and comprehensive integration directly into existing municipal fabrics, cities, and townships.

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