Prioritising Integration of Refugees in Municipal Planning at a Local Political Level

Abstract

The recent increase in refugees in Europe highlights the need to advance ways to implement integration policies, develop practice, and improve integration services and programmes.The primary concern of this article is to examine municipalities that have used municipal planning as a strategic tool to improve integration practices. The article is grounded in qualitative research findings from a case study of two Norwegian municipalities.

The key findings indicate that strengthening the administrative and political foundations for integration and involving more partners in the field of integration, appear to be the most evident motives. Using municipal planning as a strategic tool can be beneficial for municipalities with a lack of intersectoral collaboration, difficulties providing and coordinating services, and problems sustaining the engagement of municipal employees in the work of integration. In the two studied municipalities, planning processes was seen as a way of addressing these issues.