Bristol to Bosaso: Supporting Voluntary Returns to Somalia
Research on Somali diaspora return from the UK highlights rising voluntary return trends, motivations, barriers, and reintegration challenges, with policy recommendations to support sustainable, informed, and mutually beneficial return processes.
Introduction
This research study investigated the current rate of ethnic Somalis returning to Somalia from the UK, and what factors encourage, discourage, facilitate and impede this process. The movement of returnees from the UK is part of a larger trend: 2014 was the first year that the number of people returning to Somalia exceeded those leaving since the late 1980s. Increased stability and an increase in opportunities is encouraging people to return, and with the Somali global diaspora estimated at around one million, this may indicate the start of a large movement of people. Over 100,000 people in the UK were born in Somalia, with the vast majority having come due to war rather than an active desire to settle in another country. Yet the Somalia the diaspora now return to is different from the one they left, and they themselves have often changed through living in other countries. This inevitably means that the return of the diaspora to Somalia brings challenges, for example resentment from local people who see jobs going to those recently returned. This study examines how the process of returning should be managed so that the diaspora can integrate and have a positive impact on Somali society as a whole.
Keywords
- Somali diaspora; voluntary return migration; reintegration; post-conflict reconstruction; migration–development nexus; diaspora engagement; transnational identity; labour market integration; returnee livelihoods; Somalia–UK migration