19 In a second robustness check, we check the implications of changing our measure of the returnee share of the population. In the main estimations, the share of returnees in the population is constructed with information from the survey roster. This information is more accurate for some communities than others. We interviewed 15 households in each community, but the number of households in each community ranged from 34 to more than 100. Therefore, we also present results with an alternative measure of the share of returnees. This information is constructed from the information provided by the community leaders, which includes information on the number of returnees in the community as well as overall population. The results are also similar with this alternative measure, although some more coefficients are statistically significant (see Table A10 in the Appendix). In particular, the coefficient of feeling reconciled with the war and participation in religious groups are now statistically significant (negative in both cases).

# **6. Summary and policy implications**

# **6.1 Summary of findings and overall implications**

Repatriation involves the reencounter of groups that were separated for many years and often decades. This process could lead to the reestablishment of old societal divisions or to the creation of new ones. Repatriation could also increase competition for scarce natural resources. These factors can have major implications for social cohesion at the community level. However, while there is a growing body of evidence on the impacts of forced migration on host communities (Becker and Ferrara 2019; Ruiz and Vargas-Silva 2013; Verme and Schuettler 2021), there is scarce research on the impacts of refugee return and particularly, on return and social cohesion. As explained by De Berry and Roberts (2018) “this absence weakens a programmatic ability to devise inclusive interventions in return areas.” In order to fill this gap, we explore these issues in Burundi, a country that experienced a major conflict and outflow of people, followed by large flows of refugee return a decade later.

Social cohesion is a multidimensional concept. We focus on aspects related to support across households, violence and reconciliation, trust, and participation in community groups. Our first hypothesis states that repatriation has a negative effect on these indicators of social cohesion. The results suggest varying impacts of refugee return on different aspects of social cohesion. The stronger effects, suggest that refugee return has a negative impact on the feeling that community members help each other, could borrow money for emergencies from non-household members and felt that the community is peaceful. The estimated impacts on measures of reconciliation, post-conflict justice, trust and participation in community groups are mostly statistically insignificant.

Given that the effect was stronger for the feeling that community members help each other, we focus more on this variable to explore the results related to the sub-samples. Our second hypothesis suggests that the effect of repatriation on social cohesion should be more negative (less positive) in communities with stronger signs of migration-related divisions. We place particular attention on attitudes towards returnees, which we take as a proxy of “us” _versus_ “them”, that is, for the possible existence of migration-related identities (e.g. stayees versus returnees). The results confirm that the negative effect on the feeling that community