An Agenda for a Dignified and Sustainable Rohingya Refugee Response in Bangladesh Due to decades of state-sponsored persecution, marginalisation and continued cycles of displacement, at least 1.6 million stateless Rohingya refugees are now forcibly displaced from Myanmar9 with an estimated 600,000 remaining inside Myanmar. The international community of States, regional governments, and the Government of Myanmar continue to impose restrictive containment policies and exacerbate the challenges placing various barriers and restrictions on the Rohingya community. In the absence of a clear and comprehensive international and regional response plan, Bangladesh has borne a disproportionate responsibility towards hosting Rohingya refugees. The prolonged presence of more than 800,000 Rohingya refugees in an underdeveloped, disaster-prone and sensitive border district such as Cox’s Bazar has exposed the refugee and local population to increased risks related to natural hazards and extreme weather events such as landslides, monsoon flooding and cyclones and heightened social tensions between refugees and host communities due to resource scarcity, increasing prices and labour displacement, among others.10 Due to limited self-reliance opportunities, high levels of aid dependence and reduced humanitarian presence in the camps, Rohingya refugees are increasingly vulnerable to the whims of rival Rohingya gangs vying for territorial control through illicit means and violent clashes.11 Overlaps between drug trafficking routes and Rohingya migration routes along the BangladeshMyanmar border have also resulted in policies and actions that unfairly target all Rohingya refugees, resulting in curtailment of their rights such as freedom of movement, telecommunications access and livelihoods.12 Rohingya refugees are also victims of the regional geopolitics and other factors that impact their potential repatriation to Myanmar. In Bangladesh, Rohingya refugees have been impacted by the Government of Bangladesh’s growing frustration with the Myanmar government with regard to lack of progress on repatriation, demonstrated by the restricted protection environment and humanitarian access challenges. There is a need for enhanced international and regional efforts to refocus on aligning the perspectives and interests of the Rohingya population through systematic community engagement, in resolving the Rohingya crisis.13 9 UNHCR has registered almost one million Rohingya refugees and asylum-seekers in Asia-Pacific region, mostly in Bangladesh (860,000), Malaysia (101,000) and India (18,000), as well as smaller numbers in Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, and other countries. An estimated 600,000 Rohingya remain in Rakhine State, Myanmar, of whom 142,000 are internally displaced. See, UNHCR, The Displaced and Stateless of Myanmar in the Asia-Pacific Region, January 2021, available at https://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/The%20Displaced%20and%20Stateless%20of%20Myanmar%20in%20the%2 0Asia-Pacific%20Region%20-%20January%202021.pdf 10 Ishrat Hossain, After Humanitarianism: Bangladesh's Evolving Rohingya Policy. (GIGA Focus Asien, 6; 2020). Hamburg: GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies - Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien, Institut für Asien-Studien, https://www.giga-hamburg.de/en/publications/21686266-after-humanitarianism-bangladesh-evolving-rohingya-policy/ 11 Ibid. 12 Sreeparna Banerjee, The Rohingya Crisis and its Impact on Bangladesh-Myanmar Relations, ORF Issue Brief, Issue No. 396, August 2020, available at https://www.orfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/ORF_IssueBrief_396_BangladeshMyanmar.pdf 13 See, Saleh Ahmed, William Paul Simmons, Rashed Chowdhury and Saleemul Huq, The sustainability–peace nexus in crisis contexts: how the Rohingya escaped the ethnic violence in Myanmar, but are trapped into environmental challenges in Bangladesh, Sustainability Science (2021), available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11625-021-00955-6 Act for Peace / May 2021 11