Attachments
ASSESSMENT OVERVIEW
Over the last four decades, Rohingya refugees have been fleeing in successive waves to Bangladesh from Rakhine State, Myanmar. Periodic outbreaks of violence led to large exoduses of refugees, most recently following the events of August 2017 in Myanmar.1 As of August 2021, 900,000 refugees were residing in 34 camps in Ukhiya and Teknaf Upazilas.2,3,4 At the same time, the living conditions in the District of Cox's Bazar are below the national average.5 The area is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change as well as natural and human-induced hazards, which hinders significant development progress.6 The needs have been compounded by the refugee influx, with the refugee population being almost double the host community population in the two upazilas.7,8 The massive increase in households and associated stresses on available resources has led to tensions among the two population groups.9
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated protocols put in place to curb the spread of the virus disrupted livelihoods among the host community for most of 2020. This led to an exacerbation of needs, in particular related to food security, health-seeking behaviour, education, and protection-related issues. Host community households increasingly had to rely on coping strategies to meet their basic needs.10 A renewed lockdown, implemented in April 2021, may have further aggravated the situation.
Against this background, a Joint Multi-Sector Needs Assessment (J-MSNA) was conducted to support detailed humanitarian planning, meeting the multi-sectoral needs of affected populations, and to enhance the ability of operational partners to meet the strategic aims of donors and coordinating bodies. Building on past J-MSNAs and other assessments, the 2021 J-MSNA aimed to provide an accurate snapshot of the situation with the specific objectives of (1) providing a comprehensive evidence base of the diverse multi-sectoral needs among refugee populations and the host community to inform the 2022 Joint Response Plan; (2) providing an analysis of how refugee population and host community needs have changed in 2021; and (3) providing the basis for a joint multi-stakeholder analysis process.
A total of 1,118 households were surveyed across the 11 unions of Teknaf and Ukhiya. Households were sampled from the Office of the the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) host community database as well as UNHCR, World Food Programme (WFP) and International Organization for Migration (IOM) beneficiary databases using a stratified random sampling approach, with unions as the strata. Household survey data collection took place between 12 July and 18 August 2021. Each interview was conducted with an adult household representative responding on behalf of the household and its members.
Household-level findings in this factsheet are presented at the overall response level and can be generalised to all host community households included in the sampling frame at a 95% confidence level and with 3% margin of error, unless stated otherwise. They are indicative of the host community as a whole. A more detailed methodology, as well as caveats and limitations, can be found under "Background & Methodology" on page 2.
The J-MSNA was funded by UNHCR, IOM and the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO).
The assessment was coordinated through the Inter-Sector Coordination Group's (ISCG) MSNA Technical Working Group (TWG), led by the ISCG and comprised of: UNHCR, IOM Needs and Population Monitoring (IOM NPM), WFP Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping (WFP VAM), ACAPS, and Helvetas with REACH as a technical implementing partner.