tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/kakuma-27781/articlesKakuma – The Conversation2023-05-14T06:11:57Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2008612023-05-14T06:11:57Z2023-05-14T06:11:57ZMost east African refugees are hosted close to borders – it’s a deliberate war strategy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523812/original/file-20230502-20-ymiyh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Burundian flag flies at the head of a convoy of buses moving refugees back home from Tanzania in 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tchandrou Nitanga/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are close to <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/">4 million</a> people living in refugee camps across Africa. Of the more than 300 camps, nearly 70% are situated within 30km-50km of an international border. They include some of the largest camps in the continent, such as Kakuma in northern Kenya, Nyarugusu in western Tanzania and Bidibidi in north-western Uganda. </p>
<p>The closer the camp is to an international border, the easier it is for people on both sides of the border to interact. </p>
<p>What this means is that healthy refugees in Kakuma, for example, can walk across the Kenyan border and get to Uganda or South Sudan within a day or two. It also means that rebel groups operating in any of these countries can access the refugee camp. This easy access to refugees benefits rebel groups across the border. And asylum countries like Tanzania and Kenya may choose refugee policies that help rebel groups in this fashion. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/99.397.601">Exploitation by armed groups</a> is one of the many threats refugees in border camps face. Often refugees are not allowed to <a href="https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/472896f50.pdf">leave camps to seek work</a>, making them dependent on aid. Young refugees, particularly men, are vulnerable to armed rebel groups that recruit people to their causes. These groups also informally tax refugees by taking a share of the aid they receive or demanding contributions. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt7z6bx">Researchers</a> and <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/central-african-republic/central-african-republic-anatomy-phantom-state">aid groups</a> have suggested that rebel groups take advantage of refugees because host countries <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501700392/dangerous-sanctuaries">cannot or will not stop them</a>. This logic focuses on the lack of will or capacity of such host countries as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chad-sudan-displaced/chad-failing-to-protect-civilians-refugee-group-idUSL1269730520070712">Chad</a> or the <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/central-african-republic/central-african-republic-anatomy-phantom-state">Central African Republic</a>. But this ignores their strategy. </p>
<p>Even governments of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/205014/why-nations-fail-by-daron-acemoglu-and-james-a-robinson/">poor countries choose where to allocate resources</a>. For example, rather than being inept or incapable of protection, <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2008/02/12/chad-demands-removal-sudanese-refugees/23619034007/">Chad’s approach to refugees has been consistent</a> with a broader approach to its <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2008/02/making-sense-of-chad/">relations with Sudan</a>. </p>
<p>I set out on my <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/kara_ross_camarena/files/krc_camplocation.pdf">research</a> project in east Africa to develop an <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691001296/analytic-narratives">analytic narrative</a> of refugee policy selection in the region. Using in-depth case studies and formal theory, I expected to find that foreign policy informed refugee policy in some ways, including interactions with humanitarian aid and donor countries. I sought to investigate the extent to which these tempered the domestic drivers of refugee policy. </p>
<p>What I found is that countries’ policies for hosting refugees are more strategic than expected. Host countries choose their refugee policy to influence the war from which the refugees fled. When <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/EJC111780">Tanzania</a> and Kenya chose the <a href="https://www.fmreview.org/fmr-3/crisp-jacobsen">location</a> of camps and the restrictions on work and movement, influencing war informed their policies. Camp location and restrictions, along with maintaining dense refugee settlements, give rebel groups valuable access to refugee camps for exploitation.</p>
<p>My study demonstrates that east African host countries can follow a foreign policy logic for setting refugees up to be exploited. Domestic considerations can matter as well. </p>
<p>My research can help aid organisations identify whether domestic or foreign policy interests drive border camps in east Africa and elsewhere. When domestic rather than foreign policy considerations drive border camp location, humanitarian agencies can negotiate alternatives that make camps less crowded, move refugees further from the border or provide options for integrating elsewhere. </p>
<p>Each of these make refugee camps safer for refugees but less valuable to a rebel group. However, aid agencies will be less successful in negotiating alternatives when foreign policy drives the border camps because the alternatives undermine the goal of helping the rebel group.</p>
<h2>Proxy intervention aims</h2>
<p>Tanzania’s refugee policy in the 1990s is a good example of how geopolitics can inform refugee policy. <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/united-republic-tanzania/tanzania-refugee-situation-report">Tanzania hosted hundreds of thousands of Burundian refugees</a>. They began arriving in 1993 because of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/10/30/tribal-massacres-ravage-burundi/2ce12135-2139-4b78-a89b-f9bcf19b0992/">political violence</a> and then a <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/burundi/burundian-refugees-tanzania-key-factor-burundi-peace-process">civil war</a>. Densely populated camps were set up for arriving Burundian refugees as close as 15km to the common border. </p>
<p>The location, dense population and movement restrictions ensured that aid groups could serve the refugees. But the refugees were also ideal targets for recruitment and taxation, unable to work and with aid that could be taken away as efficiently as it was distributed. </p>
<p>Tanzania need not have established crowded camps on the border but this favoured its goals. Tanzania’s aim was to create pressure to return Burundi to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x15000324">a government consistent with the 1993 constitution</a>. Tanzania hoped that by Burundi holding multiparty elections and selecting a government backed by the majority of its citizens, Burundi would gain some stability. </p>
<p>At the same time, Tanzania sought to avoid a domestic backlash from the host population in the north-west who were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/21.1_and_2.12">growing weary</a> of hosting refugees. </p>
<p>For Burundian rebel groups, the policy created a constant flow of resources and people from the camps to the front lines, which put the rebel groups in a better position to fight. Tanzania, which also hosted the peace accords, used a variety of tools of statecraft to end the war, and refugee policy was one of them. The better position to fight gave the rebel group more bargaining power. Since the rebel group also supported the 1993 constitution, a negotiated settlement where the rebel group had a pathway to elections would achieve this goal. </p>
<p>East Africa offers another example of the foreign policy logic. Following the <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a6b414.html">fall of the Mengistu Haile Mariam regime</a> in Ethiopia in 1990, refugees from southern Sudan left Ethiopia for Kenya. Kenya established camps for the Sudanese at Kakuma near the border with Sudan. This was in line with Kenya’s support for the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army’s fight for autonomy. Like Tanzania, Kenya used multiple tools to sway the civil war outcome in their northern neighbour. Its combined efforts were instrumental in securing a pathway to independence for South Sudan. </p>
<h2>Non-intervention as a policy goal</h2>
<p>Tanzania and Kenya also offer a lesson in advancing foreign policy aims by not intervening. </p>
<p>At roughly the same time as Burundian refugees were being placed into crowded camps, Tanzania was also <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/research/evalreports/3ae6bcf90/evaluation-unhcrs-repatriation-operation-mozambique.html">hosting</a> between 70,000 and 300,000 Mozambicans. Many of them fled or could not return home because of civil war in Mozambique.</p>
<p>The Tanzanian and Mozambican governments have a long <a href="https://www.mz.tzembassy.go.tz/resources/view/mozambique-tanzania-relations">history of cooperation</a>. Tanzania was also strongly opposed to the apartheid-backed rebel group, Mozambican National Resistance, or Renamo, which was battling the government. </p>
<p>Unlike refugees from Burundi, Mozambican arrivals were not housed in camps. Most Mozambicans <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/research/evalreports/3ae6bcf90/evaluation-unhcrs-repatriation-operation-mozambique.html">were allowed to settle across the southern regions of Tanzania</a>, where they integrated with their co-ethnics in rural villages. Their shared way of life made the experience more like the regular cross-border migration that has occurred for generations.</p>
<p>By dispersing refugees throughout the countryside, refusing aid and allowing Mozambicans to integrate, Tanzania’s strategy followed a logic of non-intervention. This ensured that the migrant population was not easily targeted by Renamo in keeping with its political backing of the Mozambique administration.</p>
<p>In Kenya’s case with Somalia, the tide turned from indifference to non-intervention within a span of six years. </p>
<p>After the United Nations pulled out of Somalia in <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/somalia-fall-of-siad-barre-civil-war/">1995</a>, Kenya shifted the policy for Somalis away from intervention while building a relationship with what would became the transitional government in Somalia. Kenya <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/12.1.54">consolidated existing refugee camps</a> and eliminated camps that were close to the border with Somalia and along the coast. Somali refugees were subsequently moved <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/12.1.54">across the country</a> to Kakuma in the north. Settlements in Nairobi were allowed to expand, which reinforced an informal pathway to make Dadaab – the remaining camp near the Somali border – less attractive for recruiting.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Most wars end in negotiated settlements. Rebel groups need to extract sufficient assurances to negotiate. If not, <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/24/1/127/11637/Designing-Transitions-from-Civil-War">they are unwilling to take the risk of giving up the fight</a>. Providing a rebel group with a stronger bargaining position could help along negotiations and bring about a peace agreement. </p>
<p>Giving a rebel group bargaining power by helping it fight a war can inform refugee policy. Alternatively, host countries might avoid camps specifically to prevent helping a rebel group.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kara Ross Camarena received funding from the Harvard University Committee on African Studies and
the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs for this project. She is also a faculty affiliate of the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. </span></em></p>Tanzania’s refugee policy in the 1990s is a good example of how geopolitics affects ordinary refugees.Kara Ross Camarena, Assistant Professor, Loyola University ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1809552022-04-28T20:12:33Z2022-04-28T20:12:33ZFriday essay: hunger, dust-storms, war – how I defied the odds as a South Sudanese child refugee<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460237/original/file-20220428-18-p1digh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C341%2C1223%2C1194&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Akuch Kuol Anyieth pictured in Melbourne with her mother Mary.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>My name is Akuch Kuol Anyieth. I am South Sudanese by birth, Kenyan by migration and life experience, and Australian by migration and citizenship. </p>
<p>I spent my childhood and some of my teenage years in Kakuma, a refugee camp in remote, arid, north-west Kenya, near the border with South Sudan. My childhood memories of the camp include hunger and thirst, dust storms, bites from scorpions, outbreaks of malaria and cholera — and violence.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459685/original/file-20220426-26-3ch6ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459685/original/file-20220426-26-3ch6ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459685/original/file-20220426-26-3ch6ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459685/original/file-20220426-26-3ch6ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459685/original/file-20220426-26-3ch6ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459685/original/file-20220426-26-3ch6ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459685/original/file-20220426-26-3ch6ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459685/original/file-20220426-26-3ch6ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Fred Kroh.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Usually, the South Sudanese name their children after family members: grandfathers, grandmothers, aunties and uncles. Names can also be chosen to reflect the circumstances of a child’s birth. In the language of the Dinka tribe of South Sudan, <em>tong</em> means war, so the names Tong (male) or Atong (female) indicate that a child was born in a period of war.</p>
<p>My mother Mary Achol Anyuon gave birth to my sister Atong in 1988, during the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sudanese_Civil_War">Second Sudanese Civil War</a>, in her birth village, Mar, on the White Nile in central South Sudan.</p>
<p>Baba, my father, Kuol Anyieth, was born in South Sudan and raised in Khartoum before the war. He completed his secondary education and most of his university studies in mechanical engineering there, before going to visit family in Mar, where he met Mama. According to both of them, it was love at first sight. They got married immediately and moved back to Khartoum, where my eldest sister Ajok was born.</p>
<p>Baba secured what Mama often referred to as a great job — as a mechanical engineer at a vehicle-production company established during the British colonial period. Baba worked for the company for many years, moving between the headquarters in Khartoum and a branch office in Wau, the capital of the state of Western Bahr el Ghazal, where my brother Anyieth was born.</p>
<p>As the war escalated, tensions rose between the Arab management and the Sudanese employees. When the company shut down, Mama and Baba moved back to Mama’s village.</p>
<h2>‘Unknown’</h2>
<p>My mother lost three children, Deng, Yom and Thon, to diseases caused by infections that could have been simply treated if the country was not in chaos. After Atong’s birth, she decided she had had enough of burying her dead children and would not have any more. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, three years later, I was born. All our family and friends were surprised. For three years Mama had kept her promise to herself, in a country with no access to contraception for women. Hence my name: Akuch, which in Dinka means “unknown” or “I don’t know”. I was the mysterious child who defied all the odds to be born, and to survive displacement, poverty and violence.</p>
<p>Towards the end of 1990, Baba heard that a refugee camp for displaced Sudanese refugees had been set up in Ethiopia, where the UN was distributing aid. The second civil war between the North and the South of Sudan had broken out in 1983, and as the war escalated Southerners escaped to this camp and to other neighbouring countries. </p>
<p>Baba wanted to move the family to the camp, but Mama was pregnant with me, so he decided to walk there with Anyieth. Mama says it was Baba’s way of teaching Anyieth how to be a man — to protect and provide for your family. They were going to try to get a portion of land in the camp, erect a shelter and then come back to Mar to get pregnant Mama, Ajok and Atong. </p>
<p>Baba and Anyieth were still in Ethiopia when Mama gave birth to me and tribal war broke out between the Nuer and Dinka tribes in South Sudan.</p>
<p>Mama ran with us from one village to another, seeking refuge. Baba and Anyieth started walking back to Sudan, hunting for us in every village. Somehow, we heard that they were heading towards a village call Kidepo, located in Eastern Equatoria. By the time we arrived, Baba had built two shacks for us there. </p>
<p>The family was finally reunited, but not for long. As soon as Baba settled Mama in Kidepo, he left to serve in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtSJ7unDsL8">Sudan People’s Liberation Army</a>
driven by his undying dream of defending his nation of South Sudan — as were so many Sudanese men. My father was also determined to pursue his mechanical engineering career in the army. After Baba had gone, we moved from one village to another in Eastern Equatoria, for about three years. Villages were often attacked, or we would run out of food and have to move somewhere more peaceful.</p>
<p>When Mama heard that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had set up the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, she decided that we had to find a way to get there — for our safety, and in the hope of one day migrating to a western country.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young refugee boy has his height measured by International Rescue Committee workers during a health checkup in Kakuma refugee camp in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dai Kurokawa/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Waiting for the cattle truck</h2>
<p>I was five years old when I began the journey to Kakuma. With me were my mother, my two brothers — Anyieth and my new younger brother Gai —and my sister Atong. (My older sister, Ajok, had got married while we were in Laboni in South Sudan and moved to another refugee camp in Kenya.)</p>
<p>One evening, in the back of a truck, I heard my mother talking about me: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This child has been sleeping the entire journey and I am starting to wonder whether she has died of starvation. How can she sleep on this bumpy road, with the children screaming and soldiers stepping all over us?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hours later, I opened my eyes. “Mama, where are we?” I bleated. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you hadn’t been sleeping, you would know. Even Gai already knows where we are. We are in Lokichogio, on the border between South Sudan and Kenya, in a reception centre for displaced people seeking refuge in Kakuma.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>None of that meant anything to me, of course.</p>
<p>I sat up straight and looked around. Gai and I were sharing a thin straw mat in a shelter with a concrete floor. Everywhere, people were crowded into structures made of plastic sheeting with tin roofs. Children were screaming and smoke from cooking fires hung in the air. Mama, Gai and I kept our place in the shelter, along with countless other families, while Anyieth and Atong went off to make friends with the rest of the children, just like they always did.</p>
<p>We stayed in Lokichogio for several weeks during late 1995 and early 1996, waiting to be granted refugee status so that we could move on to Kakuma. We also had to wait until a cattle truck became available to transport us the 121 kilometres to Kakuma. </p>
<p>Conditions had worsened in Sudan; more than 30 new families and other individuals arrived in the centre while we were there. Many were unaccompanied minors who had been separated from their families or lost their parents in the war. These children were usually processed first. There were also mothers with their children, but without their husbands, who had either been killed or, like my father, remained in the army fighting an unending war, in the hope of protecting their country.</p>
<p>The conditions in the centre were appalling. Children couldn’t run around and play. There was no protection from the heat: the shelter turned into an oven during the day and there were no trees. And there was nowhere to escape from the crowds either.</p>
<p>Around the centre was a high cyclone-wire fence topped with razor wire, something I had never seen before. Gai and I would lean against the fence, waving at everyone who passed by. It was our only entertainment. We would count how many people waved back at us; whoever got the most waves could wear the pair of flip-flops we had to share because Gai’s had been stolen. </p>
<p>Atong’s flip-flops were a no-go zone; she was not to be messed with. At eight-years-old, she had quickly become a fighter, standing up to all the kids her own age and some of the older ones too. When that girl placed a hand on her hip, sticking her chin in the air and pointing her index finger at you, you didn’t dare say a word. The only person she did not try her attitude on was our brother Anyieth, now 13-years-old. </p>
<p>When the truck for Kakuma arrived each day at midday, everyone lined up quickly, hoping their name would be called out by the UN workers. If it was called out, you had to get ready to leave at once.
Like everyone else, we wanted to get out from behind those wire fences and away from the smelly crowd — all those body odours and the stink of babies’ poo and pee. The water brought into the centre was only for drinking; there was never enough for cooking and showering. </p>
<p>One day in February 1996 Mama dragged us through the crowd towards the front of the queue. When we heard her name called, followed by our names, we realised Anyieth was nowhere to be seen. Mama was in despair: she was convinced the truck would leave without us and we would get sick or die of starvation waiting for another one.</p>
<p>We split up to search, calling Anyieth’s name as loud as we could; Mama told us our lives depended on it. But we knew he must have gone to the Loki city centre with his friends. He usually returned later when it was cooler, rushing to get back before the 5 p.m. curfew.</p>
<p>That day, for some reason, he came running back at midday, breathless and soaked in sweat. Mama did not bother chastising him then; at least he was there.</p>
<p>We were loaded onto the truck like goats, but, as we drove off, the hope we had invested in Kakuma grew. </p>
<h2>‘Shut your yapping mouths’</h2>
<p>On the truck, Mama berated Anyieth: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you don’t change your ways, especially your daytime disappearing acts, I’ll send you back to Baba and you can go off and fight the war with him! You are not doing your duty as the eldest son.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>After all, that was what any true Dinka boy did in the absence of his father — he became the head of the family. Mama was desperate for Anyieth to help her look after us. But Anyieth’s way was to stay quiet and continue to do his own thing.</p>
<p>Another woman joined in, agreeing with Mama that as women they were wasting their time, energy and resources raising sons who did nothing but wait to pick up their fathers’ guns to fight the endless war. They went on for a while, blaming the government in North Sudan; the late <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Garang">John Garang de Mabior</a>, who founded the Sudan People’s Liberation Army; the soldiers who agreed to fight; the religious differences between North and South Sudan; and especially the North for not letting the Southerners be.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459699/original/file-20220426-24-sy01yw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459699/original/file-20220426-24-sy01yw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459699/original/file-20220426-24-sy01yw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459699/original/file-20220426-24-sy01yw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459699/original/file-20220426-24-sy01yw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459699/original/file-20220426-24-sy01yw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459699/original/file-20220426-24-sy01yw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459699/original/file-20220426-24-sy01yw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Garang de Mabior, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army pictured in January 2005. He died in July that year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Karel Prinsloo/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All of a sudden, a soldier shouted at Mama and her new friend. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you don’t shut your yapping months, women, I’m going to stop
the truck and throw you out to be raped by those wild Turkana men!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I can tell you that it sounded worse in Dinka. The word “rape” in Dinka is not something you can say out loud in public, and especially not to a woman.</p>
<p>The man must have been around seven feet tall. He had a deep, domineering voice, and big, wide, red eyes. The whole truck went quiet, except for the crying of some small children. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-sudan-72872">South Sudan</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Arriving ‘nowhere’</h2>
<p>Kakuma means “nowhere” in Swahili, and akuma means “to be judged” in Dinka. Both words sum up the experiences of those in Kakuma: “to be judged in nowhere”.</p>
<p>The local Kenyan people are called the Turkana, and they were notorious for robbing, raping and murdering the refugees living in the camp. The only access to Kakuma was by the degraded road from the towns on either side, Lodwar and Lokichogio. Temperatures varied between the high 30s and 45C, sometimes dropping to the low 30s at night, forcing people to sleep outside their tents and shacks.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459687/original/file-20220426-24-c5l54b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459687/original/file-20220426-24-c5l54b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459687/original/file-20220426-24-c5l54b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459687/original/file-20220426-24-c5l54b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459687/original/file-20220426-24-c5l54b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459687/original/file-20220426-24-c5l54b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459687/original/file-20220426-24-c5l54b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459687/original/file-20220426-24-c5l54b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indigenous herders from the Tukana tribe walk their goats through a dry riverbed alongside the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya in July, 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Morrison/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A nomadic tribe, the Turkana people survived by selling charcoal and firewood, by begging or robbing houses, and by raising cattle. They could not farm due to the extreme weather conditions and lack of water. And crop seeds were difficult to obtain. </p>
<p>When the refugees settled in Kakuma, they traded maize, flour and oil for Turkana charcoal and firewood, but as time went by, refugees had to manage with the little they had left until the next food distribution. Sometimes the UN would distribute firewood, which made it even harder for the Turkana people to sell their own wood, and made them hostile towards the refugees.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459689/original/file-20220426-12-qadgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459689/original/file-20220426-12-qadgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459689/original/file-20220426-12-qadgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459689/original/file-20220426-12-qadgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459689/original/file-20220426-12-qadgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459689/original/file-20220426-12-qadgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459689/original/file-20220426-12-qadgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459689/original/file-20220426-12-qadgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Firewood lain out for sale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Morrison/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kakuma had been operating for about four years when we arrived. Set up in 1992 to provide shelter for the South Sudanese <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Boys_of_Sudan">“Lost Boys of Sudan” </a>(thousands of kids who had been displaced by the civil war), the camp grew rapidly. </p>
<p>Kakuma was filled with long-term refugees from many countries, like Ethiopia and Somalia, as well as South Sudan, for the most part living in desperation, all waiting to be granted asylum in first-world countries.</p>
<p>While we were there, it was divided into three sections: Kakuma One, Two and Three, which were further subdivided on the basis of ethnic groups, tribes and clans (family divisions within tribes). We were placed in Kakuma One, Group 11, which was populated by different clans from ours. I was not surprised that Baba had arranged for us to be in this group; he was appalled by the idea of people living in different tribes, a division he considered harmful to South Sudanese unity and peace. </p>
<p>After hours of bumping around in the back of the truck with no water breaks, we arrived in central Kakuma town, where we were greeted by a relentless dust storm. We received initial help from our relatives on Baba’s side of the family. They had already been processed and had agreed to host our family of five on a short-term basis.</p>
<p>At first, Mama was not happy with the idea of us settling in Kakuma One — she would have preferred us to be with her relatives in Kakuma Two — but things were better once we started making friends. At least Gai, Atong and Anyieth did; I wasn’t the type of child who made friends. </p>
<p>Ajok’s in-laws were in Kakuma One, Group 13, and they were happy to help Mama look for a piece of land where we could build at least one tin-roofed, mudbrick shack.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459684/original/file-20220426-22-utki8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=107%2C30%2C1937%2C1302&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459684/original/file-20220426-22-utki8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=107%2C30%2C1937%2C1302&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459684/original/file-20220426-22-utki8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459684/original/file-20220426-22-utki8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459684/original/file-20220426-22-utki8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459684/original/file-20220426-22-utki8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459684/original/file-20220426-22-utki8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459684/original/file-20220426-22-utki8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Sudanese women carries water from a bore hole to her home at Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya in 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Morrison/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Communication with the outside world was hard in Kakuma. There was only one radio station and you had to make an appointment days or weeks ahead to call to Sudan or Loki. This was obviously no help in an emergency. We would go several months without any communication with Baba. Mama relied on people travelling to and from Sudan to pass on messages that we were okay, and Baba sent return messages to us.</p>
<p>After a couple of weeks, we had overstayed our welcome with our relatives. Tensions were growing: my siblings and I fought over hand- made toys with our relatives’ three kids, and Mama was tired of being told what to do by their mother. But we still hadn’t found somewhere else to live. The only available plots of land were located at the edge of the group, where there were few or no neighbours, which left us at risk from attack by the Turkana people.</p>
<p>At last we heard about a place located in Group 56. Mama leapt in and bought it for 15,000 Kenyan shillings, the equivalent of A$150. She was thrilled. We could not have afforded it without the help of my Uncle Dut, who had migrated to the United States as a Lost Boy. </p>
<p>Group 56 was mainly populated by people from Central Equatoria in South Sudan, along with a couple of families from other mixed tribes. Our compound, about 30 square metres, had one dilapidated mud brick shack with a polythene-sheeting roof. </p>
<h2>A mud-brick shack and school</h2>
<p>It was not adequate for us all, but it was ours and we children had space to run around. It flooded constantly in the rain and turned into a furnace during the dry season. We did not have enough money to build another shack or even a kitchen. Mama and Atong waited until late in the evening when it was cooler to cook outside on an open fire.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459976/original/file-20220427-26-f31n8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459976/original/file-20220427-26-f31n8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459976/original/file-20220427-26-f31n8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459976/original/file-20220427-26-f31n8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459976/original/file-20220427-26-f31n8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459976/original/file-20220427-26-f31n8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459976/original/file-20220427-26-f31n8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459976/original/file-20220427-26-f31n8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Akuch and Mary, today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the day we sat under a small thorn tree outside our mud shack. Mama was strict about us not mixing with the neighbours’ kids — she said we’d be looking for trouble and she was not ready for a fight. But no matter how many lectures she delivered, Anyieth would still go out with his new friends. We rarely saw him during the day; he would only stay home if he was sick.</p>
<p>Soon after we arrived, Mama took us to the nearby Jebel Marra Primary School. We had never been to school before this one. The principal enrolled Gai and me in Grade 1, because we knew our alphabet and numbers. Atong was enrolled in Grade 2 and Anyieth in Grade 4.</p>
<p>Gai was often sick, school became off and on for him. Mama said it was malaria; every illness was called malaria in Kakuma. People were not educated enough to know the difference between a life-threatening disease like malaria and a cold or the flu. Gai complained of headaches, was constantly vomiting and started to lose weight. Mama made him stay home until he got better.</p>
<p>The teachers had no idea about the fights that went on outside the classrooms. The majority of them had only completed the Kenyan Certificate of Secondary Education, the equivalent of Year 12 in Australia. There was no proper authority to check teachers’ qualifications. Anyone who knew their English and Swahili alphabets could become a teacher.</p>
<p>Every grade had five subjects: English, Swahili, maths, science, and Christian Religious Education. My siblings and I now had four languages to practise. As well as learning English and Swahili at school, we spoke Dinka, my mother tongue, and Arabic, because Mama and Baba spoke it to us sometimes. </p>
<p>Our neighbours were from the Equatoria region, where Arabic was widely spoken, and we played with their kids in school, so we all spoke Arabic to each other. </p>
<p>Linguistically, our house was chaotic. During Baba’s short visits he didn’t care whether we spoke in Dinka or Arabic. He believed that the more languages we spoke, the smarter we’d become.</p>
<p>Mama, on the other hand, was strict about us only speaking Dinka at home. “Leave those other languages outside my house! We are the Dinka people and we only speak Dinka in this house.” We hated it — we just wanted to speak Swahili and Arabic. They sounded cool.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/unknown-a-refugee-s-story#:%7E:text=A%20moving%2C%20confronting%20and%20ultimately,Kenya%2C%20and%20then%20to%20Australia.">Unknown: A Refugee’s Story</a> by Akuch Kuol Anyieth (Text Publishing).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180955/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Akuch Anyieth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At the age of five, Akuch Kuol Anyieth climbed into a cattle truck to journey to the refugee camp known as Kakuma. This is her story.Akuch Anyieth, Graduate researcher, Crime, Justice and Legal Studies, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1454702020-09-22T14:50:16Z2020-09-22T14:50:16ZCash transfers can help refugees, but they also carry risks. Insights from Kenya<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357146/original/file-20200909-22-9ocqy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cash transfers allow refugees to buy goods from shops in the settlement</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Sally Hayden/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Humanitarian organisations – such as the World Food Programme (WFP) – are increasingly using cash transfers as a way of assisting vulnerable people. Conventionally, humanitarian organisations procure food or other goods and distribute it directly to recipients. But cash transfers allow people to choose and purchase what they need for themselves.</p>
<p>They are <a href="https://www.alnap.org/system/files/content/resource/files/main/11419.pdf">widely praised</a> for enhancing autonomy, reducing costs, and boosting local <a href="https://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/papers/wps-2020-09">markets</a>. And this has encouraged their use. For instance, in 2019, the WFP <a href="https://www.wfp.org/cash-transfers">distributed</a> US$2.1 billion transfers to 27.9 million people. </p>
<p>Cash transfers come in many forms, such as mobile money or transfers into bank accounts. They generally provide recipients with greater choice, but sometimes come with restrictions on the kinds of goods that can be purchased. </p>
<p>These options raise important questions that organisations must consider during programme design. For instance, the degree of autonomy recipients have in their use of assistance and how the transfer should be made.</p>
<p>In an effort to shed some light on this we <a href="https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/publications/cash-transfer-models-and-debt-in-the-kalobeyei-settlement">studied</a> the impact of WFP’s cash transfers in the Kalobeyei refugee settlement in Kenya. </p>
<p>Established in 2016, a few kilometres away from the 28-year-old Kakuma refugee camp, Kalobeyei was envisioned as a <a href="https://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/papers/humanitarian-vs-development-aid-for-refugees-evidence-from-a-regression-discontinuity-design">new model for aid provision to refugees</a>. The idea was to promote <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article-abstract/33/1/189/5819360">self-reliance</a> for refugees, while also providing <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jrs/fez109/5701517?guestAccessKey=3f2b25b7-1c96-47c2-a601-f928b5489866">benefits to the local host population</a>.</p>
<p>For the first three years, all households in Kalobeyei received restricted cash assistance from the WFP of Ksh1,400 per person (about US$14) per month. The cash <a href="https://cdn.wfp.org/wfp.org/publications/Bamba%20Chakula%20update%20Jul-Aug%202015.pdf?_ga=2.239544195.1862874019.1598951334-1461223950.1598951334">was distributed</a> as mobile currency via SIM cards and could only be spent on food items at particular retailers. The idea was to have better accountability in how it was used and to reduce spending on temptation goods, such as alcohol and tobacco.</p>
<p>In June 2019, the WFP began to roll out a new cash transfer programme – for about 1,000 households – which had a different approach: it removed the restrictions on purchases, transfers were paid directly into bank accounts and the cash could be spent on any item at any shop. </p>
<p>We studied both of these approaches and two key lessons emerged from our research: </p>
<p>First, there are some pros and some cons to removing restrictions on cash. So whether the cash is restricted or not matters.</p>
<p>Second, the cash transfer programmes encouraged the extension of credit to refugee beneficiaries. This in turn created a problem of indebtedness among vulnerable cash recipients. This happened regardless of whether the cash was restricted or not. </p>
<p>It’s important that agencies are aware of this as many people will not realise the benefits of unrestricted cash transfers due to high levels of indebtedness.</p>
<h2>Modes of transfer</h2>
<p>To measure the differences between cash transfer programmes, we conducted focus groups, interviews, and a survey of 896 refugee households from two groups: those who received restricted cash under the old programme and those receiving unrestricted cash under the new one.</p>
<p>Our analysis reveals that the switch to unrestricted cash transfers had robust positive effects on household asset accumulation and subjective well-being. </p>
<p>Unrestricted cash gave recipients the option to use their assistance on non-food necessities like clothing, cooking fuel, and school equipment for their children. Moreover, refugees could negotiate for more favourable prices with shopkeepers.</p>
<p>Under the restricted programme, refugees could only purchase non-food items by first selling their food for cash, forcing them to sell at below-market prices. </p>
<p>Unrestricted transfers also offered recipients a broader market of retailers from whom to purchase goods. Whereas restricted cash can only be used at a limited number of retailers who have been selected by WFP, the unrestricted cash can be used in any shop.</p>
<p>Finally, recipients of unrestricted cash benefited from a ‘cash-in-hand’ discount: goods purchased with hard cash <a href="https://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/papers/humanitarian-vs-development-aid-for-refugees-evidence-from-a-regression-discontinuity-design">tend to be</a> cheaper than those purchased with restricted cash.</p>
<p>There is some evidence that unrestricted transfers lead to higher expenditure on alcohol and tobacco, but this was only reported by a low percentage of households (14%) and a small proportion of their budgets (3.7%).</p>
<p>The overall results of the pilot experiment of unrestricted cash transfers are therefore mostly positive. But importantly, our study also shows that many people do not realise the benefits of unrestricted cash due to high levels of indebtedness.</p>
<h2>Problem of debt</h2>
<p>In Kalobeyei, a staggering 89% of sampled households were indebted to retailers. Shopkeepers provided food on credit as a form of social support to assist food insecure refugees. But cash transfers contributed to higher levels of debt than conventional food aid.</p>
<p>This is because the technologies required for receipt of cash assistance – mobile SIM cards for the restricted programme and ATM cards for the unrestricted programme – can be retained by shopkeepers as a form of collateral. </p>
<p>Debt affected people in both the restricted and unrestricted cash programmes. And the debt undermined the effectiveness of the cash transfer programmes. </p>
<p>For one, refugees indebted to their shopkeepers are forced to turn over their cash transfer technologies as a form of collateral. Shopkeepers therefore withdraw their money on their behalf, and so these customers are unable to access hard cash as intended. </p>
<p>Indebted households are more likely to be food insecure, more likely to be dissatisfied with their circumstances, and less likely to have savings. This leaves them with anxiety, helplessness and fear.</p>
<p>In addition, interviewees revealed that debt subjected women to the coercive strategies of some male shop owners, putting them at risk of sexual harassment and abuse.</p>
<h2>Moving forward</h2>
<p>Credit is a form of informal community support, and completely eliminating it is both undesirable and infeasible. However, agencies should take steps to prevent highly vulnerable refugee households from falling into high levels of debt. </p>
<p>Potential strategies include supporting community safety nets, facilitating schemes for debt repayment, and adjusting the value of transfers to ensure they provide sufficient purchasing power as prices fluctuate. However, this requires humanitarian organisations to recognise indebtedness as an important facet of vulnerability, and donors to provide the required level of support.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145470/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research described in this study was funded by the World Food Programme.</span></em></p>Unrestricted cash transfers bring huge benefits, but these may not be realised because they can also cause debts.Cory Rodgers, Pedro Arrupe Research Fellow in Forced Migration Studies, University of OxfordJade Siu, Research Assistant, Refugee Economies Programme, University of OxfordOlivier Sterck, Senior Research Officer, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1404742020-06-10T14:53:14Z2020-06-10T14:53:14ZPasha 68: Higher education in refugee camps<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340872/original/file-20200610-34688-9fs99a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Education is crucial for many refugees: a way out in the future, a way to get a job. But how can people get a tertiary education in a refugee camp, where challenges – such as a lack of infrastructure – are everywhere? It’s possible, as long as the education programmes are tailored to the needs of the refugee students. </p>
<p>In today’s episode of Pasha we hear from Paul O'Keeffe, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva. We also ask some refugees at Kakuma in Kenya about the challenges they face and how their higher education journey is progressing. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/university-education-in-refugee-camps-must-meet-refugee-needs-137796">University education in refugee camps must meet refugee needs</a>
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<p><strong>Photo:</strong>
“Young man practising plumbing in Don Bosco vocational training centre. Tertiary education for refugees” By Adriana Mahdalova <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kakuma-refugee-camp-kenya-may-2018-1225556746">Shutterstock</a></p>
<p><strong>Music</strong>
“Happy African Village” by John Bartmann, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Bartmann/Public_Domain_Soundtrack_Music_Album_One/happy-african-village">FreeMusicArchive.org</a> licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a>.</p>
<p>“Music Box & Sunshine” by Daniel Birch found on <a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Daniel_Birch/Ambient_Vol3/Music_Box__Sunshine">Freesound</a> licensed under <a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Daniel_Birch/Ambient_Vol3/Music_Box__Sunshine">Attribution-NonCommercial License.</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140474/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Online higher education can be a great lever for social change in refugee camps.Ozayr Patel, Digital EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1185402019-06-26T13:51:57Z2019-06-26T13:51:57ZHow a pilot project in Kenya helps refugees go to university<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279367/original/file-20190613-32321-114z3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Higher education remains a significant challenge for refugees</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">European Union/Dominique Catton/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Across the world, armed conflict, instability, drought and famine are driving more people from their homes for longer periods of time. On average, displacement <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends2017/">lasts almost</a> 20 years. This means that displaced children and youth are likely to experience most, if not all, of their education <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0013189X16683398?journalCode=edra">outside</a> their countries of origin. </p>
<p>Kenya, for instance, hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world, <a href="https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/67813">150 000</a> of whom live in Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei Settlement in the north. For many, Kakuma is the only home they know, and their only opportunity for education.</p>
<p>Education <a href="https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/report/2019/migration">has therefore become</a> central to humanitarian aid and long-term development efforts, usually carried out by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in partnership with other organisations and host governments. This has increased the number of children that can access pre-primary, primary, and secondary school – though refugees are still marginalised. </p>
<p>Higher education is a significant challenge. <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/publications/brochures/5b852f8e4/turn-tide-refugee-education-crisis.html">Just 1%</a> of refugees in the world are able to continue education beyond secondary school. Legally, their movement is often restricted – so they can’t access learning institutions – and if they can, they often cannot afford tuition and boarding fees. </p>
<p>When higher education is available, it is traditionally through scholarships. This means the refugees have to go where the higher education institutions are. Though these programmes can be <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/protection/operations/47b4083d2/tertiary-refugee-education-impact-achievements-15-years-dafi.html">hugely beneficial</a> to individuals and their communities, opportunities are limited, competitive, and costly. They also tend to exclude older learners, heads of households (on whom others rely), and those who have finished schooling in a different country. </p>
<p>It’s a model <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14767724.2018.1512049">that isn’t</a> sustainable or scalable. Large numbers of young people are left with few opportunities to continue formal education. </p>
<p>I did <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00094056.2018.1516472?needAccess=true">a study</a> on a burgeoning university hub in Kakuma Refugee Camp that is testing a subsidised tuition model. It’s a cost-sharing programme which brings higher education to refugees and the communities that host them, who <a href="http://inequalities.sidint.net/kenya/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2013/10/Preliminary%20pages.pdf">also have</a> challenges accessing universities. </p>
<p>I found that while bringing higher education to remote areas – where refugee camps are often located – is a good way to expand access, cost is still an issue. Because refugees can’t work, they struggle to cover the fees, even when subsidised. It’s crucial that future programmes get the fee-subsidy balance right. </p>
<h2>Expanding opportunities</h2>
<p>In 2015, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST) – a Kenyan public university – built a satellite campus on the outskirts of Kakuma Refugee Camp. Today, nearly 460 students are enrolled in the university’s certificate, diploma, and degree programmes. More than half of them are refugees, and the rest are Kenyans, largely from the camp’s surrounding host community. </p>
<p>A group of 26 refugees were <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00094056.2018.1516472?needAccess=true">the first cohort</a> in a pilot cost-sharing programme, which they helped to create.</p>
<p>They were all men, and most of them had been working in the camp as teachers and social workers, taking advantage of opportunities to learn offered by UNHCR and partner organisations. Some had earned certificates for on-the-job training, while others had spent their free time studying at one of the camp’s online learning centres. Many were ineligible for existing scholarships because of their age or because they completed portions of schooling outside of Kenya. </p>
<p>The pilot programme was designed to accommodate the challenges of covering fees. It has a cost-sharing structure where students contribute 40% of their tuition fees, UNHCR covers 40%, and the university waives the remaining 20%. </p>
<p>This is a unique approach <a href="https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/rsn/attachment/file/1/Landscape_review_0.pdf">because</a> refugees choose their programme of study, and contribute to tuition costs as they work and study. </p>
<p>The first graduates of this pilot partnership continue working and pursuing their studies in Kakuma. One is now a part-time lecturer at the university. Several have applied to and enrolled in a newly offered Master’s programme. </p>
<p>But even this reduced tuition structure remains a challenge. </p>
<h2>Challenges remain</h2>
<p>Most of the pilot cohort couldn’t cover their fees while earning an “incentive” salary. Because refugees are legally not allowed to work, they are compensated with a monetary “incentive,” which is lower than the minimum wage.</p>
<p>The university tried to adapt to the refugees’ needs, allowing students to attend class and sit exams despite late tuition payments. But upholding this commitment put a strain on both the individuals and university resources. Some students completed their studies but weren’t given the accreditation for the degree because of the outstanding fees. </p>
<p>The current payment plan is being reassessed, and more experimentation is needed to reach an ideal balance for refugee contributions in a context where earnings are so limited. </p>
<h2>More innovation</h2>
<p>Though significant challenges remain, this pilot cost-sharing programme has offered some valuable lessons about the need to experiment and innovate in low-resource contexts. Bringing universities to refugee populations can improve access, but they need more financial support. </p>
<p>Opportunities could present themselves through the arrival of new higher education actors who are showing interest in the region. The Turkana West University Campus, for instance, is set <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/ke/13435-university-refugees-kenyans-set-open-kakuma-northern-kenya.html">to open</a> in the next few months. Partnership with MMUST means shared resources and physical infrastructure, which will keep <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/ke/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/12/KISEDP_Kalobeyei-Integrated-Socio-Econ-Dev-Programme.pdf">organisational costs down</a>. Hopefully the growing network will lower the costs for students too. </p>
<p><em>Mohamud Hure, education officer with UNHCR Kakuma, contributed to the research for this article</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118540/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This study was supported by the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, University of Michigan Office of Research, and University of Michigan School of Education.</span></em></p>Just 1% of refugees in the world are able to continue education beyond secondary school.Michelle Bellino, Assistant Professor, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920672018-02-20T10:25:02Z2018-02-20T10:25:02ZKenyan study sheds new light on gap between refugees and host communities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207000/original/file-20180219-116351-1yrl77v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Turkana woman buys food from a refugee woman in Kakuma camp in north western Kenya. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Refugee Studies Centre</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Refugees are increasingly regarded as a development issue, rather than simply a focus for humanitarian aid. This reflects the fact that 84% of the world’s refugees are in <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends2016">low and middle-income countries</a>, <a href="http://www.urban-refugees.org">more than half live in urban areas</a> alongside host country nationals, and that indefinite dependency on humanitarian aid is now regarded as <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnership/?p=23569">undesirable and unsustainable</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/300094/refuge">Helping refugees to help themselves</a> through jobs, education, and other forms of economic inclusion is now mainstream refugee policy. And development actors like the World Bank are <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25855">part of the institutional landscape</a>.</p>
<p>But this leads to an important question: how different are refugees and local host communities in development terms? To what extent do refugees require distinctive development policies or can they simply be included within existing national development plans? If indeed the objective of the Sustainable Development Goals is to <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs">“leave no one behind”</a>, we need to understand whether refugees are being left behind – and if so, how.</p>
<p>This is the focus of a newly-published <a href="https://www.refugee-economies.org/assets/downloads/Refugee-Economies-Kenya-Report-web.pdf">report</a>, the first study to systematically compare socio-economic outcomes for refugees and local host communities. The research, by Oxford University’s <a href="http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/">Refugee Studies Centre</a>, focuses on Kenya. It’s a country typical of many low-income host countries in that it formally limits refugees’ right to work and freedom of movement. </p>
<p>Kenya’s nearly 500,000 refugees are mainly <a href="http://reporting.unhcr.org/node/2537">distributed across three sites</a>: the Dadaab and Kakuma camps, and the capital city Nairobi. The last two are the focus of the new report, which draws on research that will eventually form part of a broader multi-country, multi-year dataset. In addition to Kenya, the study will also focus on Uganda and Ethiopia, and will <a href="http://www.refugee-economies.org/">follow refugees and host communities over time</a>.</p>
<p>Based on interviews with more than 4,300 refugees and host community members, our new report reveals a complex picture. Neither refugees nor hosts inevitably do better; the “development gap” and the reasons behind it are more nuanced. The report compares and explains refugees’ and host communities’ welfare outcomes in three areas: livelihoods, living standards, and subjective well-being.</p>
<h2>Gaps between refugees and hosts</h2>
<p>In Kakuma camp, refugees are actually better off than the surrounding host population. For example, even though they have comparable employment levels, working refugees’ self-reported median income is higher than for the local Turkana (around $55 per month compared to under $25 per month). Refugees also have better diets, higher consumption and more assets. </p>
<p>Despite the gap, the Turkana hosts benefit immensely from the refugee presence; they rely on refugees as customers for their meat, firewood, and charcoal and are sometimes offered work with relief organisations. </p>
<p>In Nairobi, although refugees are better off than they would be in camps, they are worse off than the local host population across almost all metrics. For example, comparing Somali refugees with local hosts, the employment levels are 44% and 60% and the income gap is $150 per month compared to $200 per month. Refugees do worse across all other living standards indicators.</p>
<p>The picture that emerges from Kenya is that in camps refugees may sometimes be better off than surrounding hosts. This is partly because of the socio-economic base offered by international support. In the city, refugees find informal economic activity and do better than they would in camps, but they are still likely to be worse off than local citizens.</p>
<p>Four sets of factors seem to explain these gaps between refugees and hosts: regulation (how you are governed), networks (who you know), capital (what you have), and identity (who you are). In some cases these factors may advantage refugees. In other cases they may disadvantage refugees relative to hosts. These are the factors that distinguish the socio-economic lives of refugees from those of host communities.</p>
<h2>The four factors unpacked</h2>
<p><strong>Regulation:</strong> Refugees are often disadvantaged, and we show the cost to refugees of these restrictions. In Kakuma, refugee entrepreneurs are disproportionately likely to incur a formal “business tax”. This is paid by 30% of Somali businesses compared to 10% of local Turkana businesses. In addition, only 10% of the Turkana pay police bribes compared to 54% of South Sudanese, 43% of Congolese, and 23% of Somalis.</p>
<p><strong>Networks:</strong> Having crossed borders, refugees often have better transnational links. Remittances are the most obvious manifestation. Although not all refugees benefit equally, Somalis receive the highest levels of remittances of any surveyed group in either Nairobi or Turkana County. At least 43% of Somali refugees in Nairobi receive remittances, at a level more than twice that of local hosts. These transfers are identified as an important source of start-up capital for businesses.</p>
<p><strong>Capital:</strong> Refugees are often unable to access loans and bank accounts, making business start-up reliant upon informal sources. But on human and physical capital, education and health, outcomes are better in the camp context for refugees than local hosts. For example, in Kakuma, refugees have an average of 6.4 years of education compared to just 2.4 years for the Turkana. In the city, refugees generally face worse outcomes than hosts across all three forms of capital.</p>
<p><strong>Identity</strong>. Refugees’ different ethnic and religious identities can be an economically mixed blessing. They can facilitate in-group trust. But the same differences may also lead to discrimination.</p>
<p>The key takeaway is that refugees are economically distinctive compared to host communities – but not always just in negative ways. </p>
<h2>Improvements for both groups</h2>
<p>Our research identifies the factors that may lead to development gaps between refugees and hosts. Expanding opportunities, reducing constraints, and levelling the playing field in these four areas may offer a way to make both groups better off, and improve relations between them. </p>
<p>Three practical insights stand out. </p>
<p>First, even in a country with restricted regulations, refugees are economically active. Second, an important and neglected source of social protection for refugees come from refugees’ own activities and networks. Third, refugees’ and hosts’ economic lives are interdependent: a good refugee policy must also be a good host community policy. </p>
<p>To ensure that no one is left behind, every major refugee-hosting context should have an economic policy and strategy specifically for refugees and the immediate host community, based on robust analysis and consultation. Refugee policy may well be a humanitarian issue but it is also a development issue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Refugee Economies Programme, at the University of Oxford, is supported by the IKEA Foundation</span></em></p>Refugee policy may well be a humanitarian issue. But it is also a development issue.Alexander Betts, Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/597472016-05-26T12:22:40Z2016-05-26T12:22:40ZKenya’s threat to close Dadaab camp plays on international refugee fears<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123935/original/image-20160525-25213-1hxgytd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Refugees waiting to receive essential items, including food, jerry cans, blankets, soap and plastic sheeting, at Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jo Harrison/Oxfam</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Kenyan government <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-06/kenya-says-it-s-closing-down-refugee-camps-over-insecurity">says that</a> it plans to close <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/09/21/worlds-large-refugee-camp-in-kenya-could-be-the-future.html">Dadaab</a>, the world’s largest refugee camp. It had also threatened to close the country’s other major refugee camp, <a href="https://kanere.org/about-kakuma-refugee-camp/">Kakuma</a>, but has subsequently <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2016-05-12/news/73039675_1_dadaab-refugee-camp-kakuma">said it won’t</a>. Speaking at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, Deputy President William Ruto <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/UN-chief-not-accepting-Kenya-decision-to-shut-Dadaab-camps/-/1056/3216980/-/7jaia0z/-/index.html">declared</a> that Dadaab will be closed by the end of the year.</p>
<p>This move has gained much-needed attention. Kenya continues to host one of the largest refugee populations at a time when international attention has overwhelmingly turned to Europe and the movement of people out of Syria. Despite hosting more than half a million people, the camps’ remote locations and longevity have made them easy to ignore.</p>
<p>In addition to the planned camp closure, Kenya’s Department of Refugee Affairs has been shut down. Though the government has threatened to <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-harsh-new-security-laws-put-hundreds-of-thousands-of-refugees-at-risk-35789">restrict refugees to camps</a> or <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32269944">close the camps altogether</a> several times <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/closing-the-camps-kenyas-deja-vu-politics/">before</a>, this suggests a worrying escalation. Established in 2006 alongside the country’s Refugee Act, the department worked with the United Nations Refugee Agency to register and assist refugees in Kenya. Who will fill the gap left by this closure is unclear.</p>
<p>While not in this case, previous threats have often followed bloody terror attacks such as at the ones at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/kenyan-mall-attacks">Westgate Mall</a> in 2013 or <a href="https://theconversation.com/making-sense-of-horrific-violence-in-kenya-39746">Garissa University College</a> in 2015. These have led to refugees being equated with terrorism, and Dadaab being labelled a “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/14/kenya-garissa-dadaab-scapegoat-al-shabaab">nursery for al-Shabaab</a>”. </p>
<p>The reality is that the camp highlights the violence that has led many to flee Somalia for the relative safety of Kenya.</p>
<p>The perceived danger posed by the movement of refugees serves as a useful tool in populist politics. It can serve as a bargaining chip in negotiating further aid or galvanise fearful citizens. As <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34884544">Donald Trump’s</a> fear mongering over Syrian refugees and anti-migrant rhetoric in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32299548">South Africa</a> have shown, this is <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/04/refugees-crime-rumors/480171/">not unique to Kenya</a>.</p>
<h2>Grave consequences</h2>
<p>If enacted, the government’s plans would have <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/kenya/ngos-urge-government-kenya-reconsider-intended-closure-refugee-camps">grave consequences</a> for the hundreds of thousands of refugees living in Kenya. Global resettlement of refugees is already low and unlikely to meet the needs of those being told to now leave Kenya. </p>
<p>The closure would result in refugees returning to unsafe countries, moving to other countries in the region that already have their own extensive refugee populations, shifting from Dadaab to the already overpopulated Kakuma or making dangerous journeys to try to reach safety further afield. The move is also in breach of <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201605110379.html">national, regional and international law</a>. </p>
<p>The recent start of campaigning for the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11366193/Kenyas_next_General_Elections_can_only_be_held_in_August_2017">2017 Kenyan elections</a> and the announcement concerning refugees is not coincidental. Like the plans to build a <a href="http://africasacountry.com/2015/04/why-the-wall-kenya-is-building-on-its-border-with-somalia-is-a-terrible-idea/">border wall with Somalia</a>, the scapegoating of refugees plays out well with parts of the electorate. </p>
<p>The timing of this move, and the reasons behind it, hold important lessons for understanding refugee situations around the world. In particular:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>that longstanding humanitarian situations should not be ignored;</p></li>
<li><p>that there are very deep inequalities between different refugee populations; and </p></li>
<li><p>that, in a world increasingly fearful of the presence of refugees, there is mileage in host countries drawing attention to the burden they carry.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Uneven response</h2>
<p>The images of the protracted crisis in Kenya’s camps or new crises in the region have received comparatively little attention compared with the global response to the refugee influx into Europe.</p>
<p>In 2015 <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/5683d0b56.html">alone</a> more than a million people fled to Europe and the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/03/world/gallery/europes-refugee-crisis/">images</a> of boats overflowing with people, stormed fences, demolished camps and drowned children have brought some of the realities of forced displacement to the forefront of Europe’s collective conscious. Despite the attention, rich countries have resettled only <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2016-03-29/rich-countries-have-resettled-just-139-syrian-refugees-need-step">1.39% of Syrian refugees</a> and keeping displaced people at a distance is still the dominant position.</p>
<p>Since the end of 2013, <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/SouthSudan/regional.php">South Sudan</a> has produced close to three-quarters of a million refugees.</p>
<p>Fighting following the contested presidential election in <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/burundi/regional.php">Burundi</a> in April 2015 has produced over a quarter of a million refugees. </p>
<p>Yet, the consequences of these conflicts in terms of population displacement are often <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/burundi-ethnic-violence-refugees">ignored</a>.</p>
<p>This is in part because the vast majority of refugees from both of these countries do not end up on boats attempting to cross the Mediterranean. Instead most are hosted in the camps and cities of countries like Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. Not all refugee experiences are <a href="http://africasacountry.com/2015/02/the-hierarchy-of-refugee-stories/">equal</a> and many of those in East Africa don’t register for those outside the region.</p>
<h2>International attention</h2>
<p>Beyond internal populist politics, the Kenyan government’s announcement is also concerned with what can be gained from the <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/counties/refugee-repatriation-standoff/-/1107872/3204312/-/xnieej/-/index.html">outside</a>. In a crowded humanitarian market, where the situation in Europe and the Middle East has eclipsed other refugee situations, the Kenyan government has threatened the one thing it knows will garner international attention.</p>
<p>The proposed closure of Dadaab stokes fears in Europe about another movement of people towards its borders and brings focus to a region often overlooked. And as the European Union’s recent deal with <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/jeff-crisp/protection-and-pragmatism-eu-turkey-refugee-deal-in-historical-perspecti">Turkey</a> has shown, European leaders are willing to go to great lengths to keep refugees out.</p>
<p>They have also offered increasingly large sums of <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/africa/EU-pledges--4-to-help-curb-migration/-/1066/2953244/-/o59foe/-/index.html">money</a> to African governments willing to help halt migration. From <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-idUSKCN0XU1P9">Niger</a> to <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21698675-or-are-refugees-bargaining-chips-kenya-says-go-home">Kenya</a>, refugee-hosting countries are aware of the financial gains to be made by playing on these fears. While the government <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/news/-/1056/3215622/-/pjhdr4z/-/index.html">claims</a> to be steadfast in closing Dadaab, greater financial concessions from donors may still lead to a change of mind. It’s also unlikely any government would wish to preside over a potential <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Letters/Dadaab-camp-closure-will-create-humanitarian-crisis/-/440806/3201070/-/15laa1c/-/index.html">humanitarian catastrophe</a>.</p>
<p>The use of refugees for financial or political rewards is an extremely dangerous and worrying trend. But, it is an important reminder of the dangers of overlooking crises just because they appear to be “<a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/managing-displacement">managed</a>” in distant camps. In the meantime, the lives of more than half a million people in Kenya hang in the balance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil JW does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The timing of Kenya’s announcement that it will close the world’s largest refugee camp, and its reasons for doing so, hold important lessons for understanding refugee situations around the world.Neil JW, Visiting Lecturer, Department of International Politics, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.