survey results, 63% of refugee respondents said that cash distributions would make a long-term difference to their lives. In interviews, cash to invest in businesses was repeatedly mentioned as the main form of assistance refugees wanted to support their livelihoods, rather than skills training or the creation of community groups for cooperative work or savings. More broadly, some mentioned wanting rights and independence – as one man said, ‘we want to live like people here and have the opportunity to walk outside of the camp. So as a human, with rights of the human – now [we are] treated as animals’. Refugees saw freedom of movement both as valuable in itself, and as linked with other rights, goods and services, including access to healthcare, education, employment and business opportunities. 4.2  Livelihoods 4.2.1  Livelihoods in Myanmar Rohingya refugees we interviewed described having livelihoods in Myanmar based around land (including agriculture and rearing livestock), fishing, running a business (such as a general shop, computer or barber shop, selling goods such as bamboo) and working as a tailor, midwife, teacher, day labourer, village chairman or moto driver, or in a restaurant or mosque.7 The majority of male respondents described diverse livelihoods that involved two or more of the above activities, while a minority of women also worked (as tailors, midwives or on the family’s land), though they said there were few opportunities and it was not usual for women to work outside the home. Some, particularly land and shop owners, spoke of having successful livelihoods and relative wealth in Myanmar. When considering if and how skills can be transferred to their lives in displacement, it is notable that agricultural work is contingent on land. While the majority of displaced Rohingya are highly unlikely to be able to access significant plots of land in Bangladesh, we observed refugees cultivating small vegetable gardens in the camps. Refugees’ skills related to business and services are also transferable. By building on existing skills among refugee and host communities it could be possible to deliver capacity-building programmes in areas such as teacher training to deliver both improved livelihoods opportunities for individuals and educational outcomes for communities. 7 18 4.2.2  How refugees currently support themselves Approximately two-thirds of the refugees we spoke to depended entirely on aid, primarily food rations. Many said that it was not enough, and some sold their rations for cash to buy more diversified food (such as vegetables and fruit), firewood or other necessities, and to pay for education for their children. This was reflected in a recent report from Ground Truth Solutions (Ground Truth Solutions, 2019: 12), where 43% of the Rohingya surveyed sold aid items to meet cash needs. Barriers to generating an income included lack of opportunities (we both observed and were told by refugees that cash for work and small markets existed in some camps, but not in others); refugees could not travel to find work; and old age or injury prevented them from working. Both men and women described working as majhis (though the majority are male), but they do not receive a salary. One man in his twenties said that he and his two brothers were able to work but there was no work for them to do – instead, their families relied on food rations, which were insufficient. Another man in Shamlapur noted that he had no freedom of movement to look for work, no land for cultivation and no money to invest, for instance in a fishing net to catch fish for consumption or sale. One man, who had tried to work, said ‘Whenever we go to do fishing the military tell us not to do this work, we are not allowed to do this work because we are a refugee’. Across the camps, there was a sense among refugees that the assistance they received was inadequate and unlikely to be sustainable. Refugees have no legal right to work in Bangladesh. To date, large-scale livelihoods programmes have focused on host communities, whereas the focus regarding refugees has been on informal and ‘portable skills’ development (such as through vocational training and vegetable gardening for consumption and sale) (UN, 2019). Opportunities for refugees to generate income in the camps exist, though they tend to be limited, ad hoc and small-scale, such as cash for work programmes run by UN agencies or INGOs (where refugees are paid to help construct or monitor things in the camps) and small shops and business (such as refugees selling food, wood, goods or services to other refugees). For a third of our interviewees, someone in the household undertook an income-generating activity. For men we interviewed, the top three forms of work Most respondents in the qualitative interviews said that they or someone in their family had worked in Myanmar. This finding aside, our findings are broadly aligned with research from Xchange (2018: 20), which undertook a representative survey of 1,703 respondents among the ‘new’ Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. This found that 49% of respondents had at least one professional skill (such as tailoring, sewing, fishing, farming and driving). Uncertain futures: Rohingya refugees’ perspectives on their displacement in Bangladesh