Protracted refugee situations and the shrinking durable solutions: could there be a ray of hope in local solutions?

The phenomenon of protracted refugee situations and the conditions of refugees living in the same situation have renewed debates on durable refugee solutions. Despite the international provision for durable refugee solutions, the current trend defies that expectation, as observed in the cumulative number of refugees in protracted situations, while durable solutions are barely implemented, intriguing the question of whether local solutions could be a more feasible replacement for durable solutions. We use theoretical, earlier, and recent empirical literature to assess the status of the execution of durable solutions and the emergence of local solutions to address the challenges of the ever-increasing number of refugees in protracted displacement. This article contends that while local solutions provide refugees with opportunities to become resilient and self-reliant, they only provide a temporary window of survival for a longer period in the absence of durable solutions; it is not a replacement for the three conventional durable refugee solutions: voluntary repatriation, local integration, and resettlement. While local solutions are temporarily in place, national governments and the international community should continue working together to protect and empower refugees as they negotiate ways to appropriately implement the ultimate formal durable solutions to curb protracted refugee situations.