Is the UNHCR doing its job? Combining refugee relief with local development
in Africa

This is a special multimedia id21 feature to mark
World Refugee Week, June 2003. Sound clips from the interviews are available in various formats in the right hand column

Food and water deprivation, inadequate health and education facilities, prison-like restrictions on freedom of movement, ethnic and gender violence, ad-hoc justice and collective punishment: this is how Cairo-based refugee scholar Barbara Harrell-Bond recently described the plight of many refugees in UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) camps in Africa. When id21 put this description to the UNHCR's Jeff Crisp, he largely agreed.

Refugee camps are supposed to be safe havens for people fleeing war, persecution and natural disaster. Why then are they places where refugees are apparently deprived of their human rights and given little hope and even fewer opportunities to improve their lives?

Professor Harrell-Bond, Acting Director of the Forced Migration and Refugee Programme at the American University of Cairo, described the horrific conditions she witnessed in the many African refugee camps she conducted research in between 1982 and the late 1990s. Citing as examples Kakuma and Dadaab camps in Kenya, which have been the home for refugees from Uganda, Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda and Burundi since the early 1990s, Harrell-Bond described how refugees in camps have "no possibility of growing food - they can't even have animals". Their only option then is to rely on food handouts, which like most camp facilities, are dangerously inadequate.

Harrell-Bond reports that in Sudanese camps surveyed by researchers, up to 70 per cent of children under five were found to be suffering from acute malnutrition. Aside from the almost inevitable malnutrition refugees suffer within camps, Harrell-Bond argues that the denial of the right to work and to cultivate land for example, results in a humiliating breakdown of normal family life, where parents cannot care properly for the well-being of their children, or pass on to them the work skills they require in later life. These problems are aggravated further, she argues, by the "prison-like" restrictions refugees experience in camps, where, although camps fail to adequately provide for their basic human rights and needs, "refugees aren't allowed to move out of the camps to get them in the local economy or local institutions".

Harrell-Bond reports on the state of 'justice' within camps. She recalls the 'dispute treatment centres' she has witnessed in various camps, which she claims are non-democratically appointed committees of refugees, who, with the UNHCR's encouragement, take it upon themselves to settle disputes which arise within the camps. "People are tried for cases that wouldn't even be crimes in the host country, but they're tried in the camps. There's always a lock-up at every camp - I've never been to one where there isn't - but at Kakuma (Kenya), the last time I was there, they were all filled with women and their small children, accused of adultery. Adultery is not a crime under Kenyan law."

Such ad hoc law and order practices are not conducted only by elites within the refugee population. She also recalls two occasions when she witnessed the collective punishment of refugees by UNHCR authorities. International law prohibits collective punishment even by an occupying power during war, yet in Kakuma camp, during the mid-1990s she witnessed two separate collective punishments. "Refugees burnt down the distribution point, so the UNHCR withdrew food - the first time for twenty-one days, the second for fourteen days - for large populations I think about 60 000 were there at the time. There was no alternative source except for what they had from the last rations, and probably what they could buy on the (informal) refugee market."

But Harrell-Bond's critique of current UNHCR refugee policy goes further than an enumeration of the inadequacies of the facilities available and administration of camps. Harrell-Bond questions the very rationale of providing for refugees through camps at all. Millions of dollars are spent on the camps, some of which accommodate more than 100 000 people, yet, Harrell-Bond explained, whenever refugees repatriate or move on, "all the facilities, all the infrastructure is simply bulldozed - the theory is so refugees can't come back to them".

When the UNHCR builds refugee camps, it gives little consideration to how the host country and local community might be able to use the expensive camp infrastructure once the refugees have left, she said. Schools, shops, hospitals, church buildings, water supply systems and roads are nearly always destroyed and if they are not, they are often built in places the local community cannot get to, or expensive foreign components which cannot be maintained locally are used. "We're wasting untold millions of dollars where, in a poor country, at least they could have the infrastructure - but they don't get to enjoy it," she said. "We build these parallel systems and then we destroy them."

The alternative Harrell-Bond advocates is not so much to build refugee camps with a view to transferring their infrastructure to the host country after the refugees have left, but rather not to build such parallel systems of health services, schools and supplies in the first place. She argues that the millions of dollars spent in building refugee camps could be used instead to expand and improve the infrastructure and services already existing in the host country, to enable them to cater for the new refugee population. Such a system would have the benefit of both catering for refugee needs, as well as the needs of the local population, in what are often very poor communities. "If you think of all the millions that are spent on camps, if that were spent on schools, hospitals, and so on, well, I think it would transform many African countries."

Harrell-Bond argues that refugees should be allowed to settle within their host communities and live as citizens, with the right to work, cultivate land and access local services such as schools and hospitals. A variety of refugee hosting countries in Africa - Guinea, Ivory Coast, Malawi and Sudan amongst them - have allowed refugees to settle amongst local populations. Some 500 000 Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugees were catered for in Guinea during the mid to late 1990s: "They were allowed to move freely amongst the local population and settle. The (international) assistance programme went through the Ministry of Health, there's lots of evidence that this improved the health of local people as well as refugees by expanding the local system."

In contrast to the resentment and fear often created amongst local host populations by the development of a camp, locally settled refugees are able to integrate with the local community, share with them the benefits of the international relief their situation attracts, and, through their productive work, boost the local economy. "If you go to Moyo District in Uganda right now, you will see that Moyo town is full of refugee businesses, and they pay taxes. The local schools have been assisted by the Swedes and the local schools are expanding to help the refugees."

Not only is such an approach the basis on which local development and good relations between refugees and local the population can be fostered, but it is also superior, Harrell-Bond argues, in catering for refugee needs and protecting their rights: "My research in Southern Sudan showed that the self-settled refugees were eating meat much more often than the people in the camps who were hardly ever eating meat. Self-settled refugees are always better off, safer, and their rights are more protected."

Since its establishment in 1951, the UNHCR's mandate has been to protect and find solutions for refugees. But does the situation Professor Harrell-Bond describes in the camps mean the UNHCR is currently failing to fulfil that mandate?

Dr. Jeff Crisp, Head of the UNHCR's Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit, confirmed much of the picture of African refugee camps drawn by Harrell-Bond. "Refugees often find themselves short of basic assistance, they may not have very good security and there may be threats from outside the camp, or within the camp - sexual exploitation and gender-based violence for example. Certainly educational and vocational training opportunities have diminished over recent years. Many refugees in long-term camps are essentially confined to those camps - they don't enjoy freedom of movement which is a fundamental right enshrined in international human rights law, and they don't have a prospect of any real solution to their plight. They are living in limbo."

Responding to questions about the practice of collective punishment and ad hoc justice in refugee camps, Crisp remarked: "I would certainly not try to discount the possibility that there hadn't been miscarriages of justice, or even examples of collective punishment in refugee camps." He further confirmed that the UNHCR's own research into the question of justice within camps had found that "in many cases various traditional forms of justice are administered within the refugee community itself, and in many instances those traditional forms of justice don't conform to international human rights standards."

The problem stems, Crisp argues, from the fact that in principle, the administration of justice within a refugee camp should be carried out according to the judicial and penal system of the host country. However, host countries, particularly in Africa effectively cede control of these matters to the UNHCR: "The result is that instead of just being responsible for the protection of refugees, and providing humanitarian assistance to refugees, the UNHCR and its partners actually become responsible for the whole administration of very large refugee populations - it could be 50 000, 100 000 or even 200 000 people. Of course, we don't have the capacity or probably don't have the expertise to administer and manage population settlements of that size."

If refugee camps are so inadequate, why does the UNHCR persist in using them? "Logistically, one finds that it is easier in the earlier days of an emergency to provide the basic needs of refugees if they're concentrated in a single location, for the purpose of establishing an adequate infrastructure for the refugees, so that they have adequate shelter, healthcare, sanitation, water, and so on."

Whilst Crisp acknowledges the attractiveness of the alternative solution described by Harrell-Bond to provide for refugees through enhancing pre-existing local infrastructure and services, he questions its feasibility. He argues that refugee camps are "often very much the desire of refugee hosting governments themselves, and it has often been a condition of providing asylum to large numbers of refugees that the UNHCR creates parallel structures for refugees so that they don't place a burden on the local infrastructure."

Yet according to Harrell-Bond, it is precisely the refugee camp model of building distinct parallel structures which prevents the local community from benefiting from both international aid and an increase economic activity. Recent developments in Zambia, however, which attempt to channel refugee aid through existing infrastructure, do seem to recognise the benefits brought by a policy of local settlement.

What is the UNHCR's involvement in what has been termed the 'Zambian Initiative'? Crisp explains: "Essentially, the point of the Zambian Initiative is to unlock the productive capacities of refugees, by ensuring that they do have access to land, that they enjoy a degree of freedom of movement, that their stay in the country of asylum is appreciated, rather than the tendency for governments to say that refugees should go back home as soon as possible; to accept that refugees may be staying for a long time, and to make use of that period, and to enable refugees to meet their own needs and to contribute to the local economy."

Crisp is cautious about whether or not the Zambian case can be generalised to other refugee situations. Zambia has a long tradition of receiving Angolan refugees and migrants, which may have eased the acceptance of refugees within local communities. However, Crisp reserves the greater part of his caution to the question of international donors. "One of the major considerations in initiatives such as this will be the provision of funding. If we're going to unlock the productive capacities of refugees, and promote development in refugee populated areas, then we will need additional funding - at least in the immediate instance."

If implemented with care, Harrell-Bond and Crisp agree the local settlement and integration of refugees has the potential to offer improvements in the lives of refugees and their hosts, as well as a more sustainable 'return' on investments made by international donors. Both also appear to suggest, however, that the adoption of such a strategy very much depends on the actions of international donors.

While many refugee hosting governments prefer to keep refugees in camps, Crisp explained that this is often due to the fickle nature of international support. "Refugee hosting countries prefer to maintain the visibility of the refugee populations. If refugees simply go out into the countryside, go out amongst the local population, they become essentially invisible. And when refugees are invisible, it's much harder to mobilise international support for them."

But it is precisely the sort of initiative currently underway in Zambia, where refugees are integrated amongst the local population, which require donors to be forthcoming with additional start-up funding and resources. This introduces another problem - the very 'culture' of humanitarian assistance, whereby donor governments and international organisations have historically divided their budgets between 'development' and 'relief'. The result is a reluctance to sponsor Zambia's kind of initiative - despite its obvious advantages as a sustainable and ultimately more cost-effective approach to refugee situations, which combines refugee relief with regional development. Moving beyond the received wisdom of distinguishing between relief and development will need to be, it seems, at the heart of any sustainable attempts to improve the lives of the world's refugee populations.

Sally Gainsbury, id21 Research Editor

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Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex,
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As with all id21 articles, this feature may be freely reproduced, provided id21 and the original authors are acknowledged. Kindly inform Louise Daniel if you intend to reproduce any id21 articles.

Follow the links and downloads in the right hand column to listen to audio clips from the interviews and to read the edited transcripts.

Larger files with better sound quality are available for broadcasters. Click here to access WAV files, or click here to access high quality compressed files

A shorter version of this article also appeared in South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper: http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=16261&t=1

Other related links:
Mind the gap! UNHCR, humanitarian assistance and the development process (Jeff Crisp): http://www.jha.ac/articles/u043.htm

Are refugee camps good for children? (Barbara Harrell-Bond): http://www.jha.ac/articles/u029.htm

No Solutions in Sight: The Problem of Protracted Refugee Situations in Africa (Jeff Crisp): http://www.ccis-ucsd.org/PUBLICATIONS/wrkg68.pdf

Towards the Economic and Social 'Integration' of Refugee Populations in Host Countries in Africa (Barbara Harrell-Bond): http://reports.stanleyfoundation.org/hrp/HRP02B.pdf

id21 Insights: Responding to displacement Balancing needs and rights: http://www.id21.org/insights/insights44/index.html

See also:
'Can humanitarian work with refugees be humane?' Barbara Harrell-Bond, Human Rights Quarterly 24 (2002), pp51-85

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