The number of people displaced by conflict worldwide stands at 65 million, according to a new World Bank report.
The study, produced together with the UN refugee agency said ten conflicts are responsible for the majority of forced displacement of people.
It pointed to conflicts in Afghanistan, Burundi, the Caucasus, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and the former Yugoslavia.
That 65 million figure is equivalent to the population of the United Kingdom, or one percent of the world’s population.
Xavier Devictor, an expert on refugees and migration at the World Bank, said that this poses a development challenge as many refugees and displaced people live in poverty for years on end.
“Being a refugee for 2 or 3 years poses a certain number of problems. Being a refugee for 30 years raises other in terms of education for children, in terms of dependence or the ability to live life normally again,” he told euronews in an interview.
“We see increasingly that they are people who live in places where it is almost impossible to get a job. Either because it is legally impossible owing to their refugee status. Or simply because they live in countries or areas of these countries it is very difficult to find jobs.”
The report found three key priorities for host nations which receive large numbers of refugees.
They include helping to prepare those countries before those arrivals, boosting support for health and education; and helping to create jobs.
