Digital Platforms for Refugee Integration in Host Countries: Status and Potential
Description
Dr Nungsari’s seminar examines the growing role of digital platforms in shaping how displaced populations navigate livelihoods, services, and social life in contexts where legal recognition and institutional access are limited. Focusing on non-signatory and low-protection settings across South and Southeast Asia, the presentation explores how platform-based innovation can support refugee social and economic integration.
Drawing on interdisciplinary literature and a systematic mapping of digital platforms, Dr Nungsari conceptualises platforms as critical infrastructures through which refugees access employment, housing, education, healthcare, and social networks. The analysis highlights refugees as active innovators who adapt and repurpose existing platforms within legally precarious environments.
A key contribution of the seminar is the identification of financial access as a central determinant of digital inclusion. Without secure ways to transact and save, refugee participation in digital ecosystems remains constrained. The seminar offers insights into how inclusive platform design and regulatory reform can better support sustainable integration outcomes
This event is facilitated by Dr Valentina Baú, Co-Director of the Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative (HADRI).
Guest Speaker
Associate Professor Melati Nungsari
Melati Nungsari is Associate Professor of Economics, Deputy Dean of Research & Academics, and Deputy CEO at Asia School of Business (ASB) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She is also the Faculty Director of the ASEAN Research Centre (ARC) at ASB and holds an appointment at MIT Sloan School of Management as a Research Affiliate. Dr. Melati is an applied microeconomist who specialises in informality and its consequences, with specialities in labour economics, public economics, and industrial organisation. Her research portfolio spans multiple topics including the labour integration of refugees in Southeast Asia, entrepreneurship for underprivileged youth, and sustainability. She was a Chancellor's Fellow with the Royster Society of Fellows at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she received her Ph.D. Prior to ASB, she was a professor of economics at Butler University and Davidson College in the US.
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