Igad’s new deal for refugees: Let’s begin walking the talk

Refugee camps are a blot on humanity. In the age of terrorism, these temporary settlements for refugees have increasingly lost their humanitarian character, becoming dangerous deathtraps for both refugees and their hosts.

In Kenya, gunmen from the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab Islamist group used the humanitarian cover of the Dadaab refugee camps to organise the deadly attack on the Garissa University College where 148 people, mainly students, were killed and 79 others injured on April 2, 2015.

But, as the new UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, rightly observed: “Refugees are not terrorists. They are often the first victims of terrorism.”

In this context, camps have increased the proneness of refugees to violent extremism. Poverty and hopelessness in African refugee camps – arising from chronic food scarcity, unemployment, lack of support for refugee business, limited access to education, training and health facilities, and shrinking opportunities for resettlement in wealthy countries in the West – have collectively created fertile grounds for terrorists to radicalise and recruit desperate youths into violent extremism.

Reactions to the ensuing humanitarian and security concerns have spawned different policy responses within Africa and globally.

DURABLE SOLUTIONS

In 2016, Kenya jolted the world when it unveiled its intention to close down the Dadaab refugee camp – the world’s largest “refugee city” – and repatriate its estimated 350,000 inmates, mainly from Somalia.

But attention is now shifting to the search for durable solutions for refugees. In this context, on March 25, 2017, President Uhuru Kenyatta hosted a special summit of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) to explore durable solutions for Somali refugees.

The Somali refugee crisis, now in its third decade, is one of the world’s most protracted and dehumanising.

Together with Afghanistan and Syria, Somalia accounts for 53 pc of the world’s 21.3 million refugees.
An estimated two million Somalis have been displaced, over a million of these as internally displaced persons, and more than 900,000 others as camp and out-of-camp refugees in Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Yemen.

DURABLE SOLUTIONS

After nearly three decades of neglect by the international community, the swing of the pendulum is now moving towards durable solutions to the world’s most protracted displacement crisis, affecting mainly children, women and the elderly.

Increased stability in Somalia is encouraging refugees to return home. The African peacekeeping force in Somalia (Amisom) has routed al-Shabaab and other terrorist groups from territories inside Somalia, although the restoration of full security is still work in progress.

The election of a new parliament in December 2016 and the inauguration of Mohamed Abdullahi as Somalia’s new President in February 2017 offer the best chance to Somalia to consolidate peace and stability to enable more refugees to return.

As a result of improved security situation, over 4,000 Somali refugees in Djibouti and nearly 90,000 from Kenya have voluntarily returned home. However, with escalating conflict in Yemen, over 35,000 Somali refugees have returned to Somalia. This requires massive resources to help the reintegration of the returnees.

Moreover, the on-going drought is generating fresh influxes of refugees into the Horn of Africa region. Ethiopia is reportedly receiving 400 new refugees from Somalia daily.

Despite the increasingly anti-refugee global environment, regional and international consensus is forming around the need for lasting solutions to get Somali refugees out of dehumanising camps.

REFUGEE AGENDA

This new spirit was captured by a spectrum of regional and international initiatives and strategies. In 2014, regional leaders adopted the Addis Ababa Commitment towards Somali Refugees. Early this year, they ratified the Mogadishu Declaration on Regional Cooperation on the Current Drought.

Internationally, the UN General Assembly adopted the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants and its Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework in 2016.

At the same time, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) appointed the Kenyan diplomat and politician, Mohammed Affey, as its special envoy for the Somali refugees situation. Affey has since rallied the region around the Somali refugee agenda.

This has culminated in the Igad Summit on Durable Solutions for Somali Refugees, the first of its kind in the refugee area, organised with the support of UNHCR and the European Union.

Igad’s refugee summit presents a new deal for Somali refugees in particular and other refugees in general signified by the Nairobi Declaration on Durable Solutions for Somali Refugees and Reintegration of Returnees and its Comprehensive Plan of Action, the most exhaustive on Somali refugees so far.

RESTORE LAW

In a gist, the new deal centres on the need to scale up the stabilisation and reconstruction of the Somali state, including the role of Amisom in building the capacity of a professional Somali National Army and Police Force to restore law and order in the war-torn country. It also calls for socio-economic stabilisation to support IDPs and returning refugees.

But, for this to happen, Somalia needs the equivalent of a Marshall Plan that America extended to Europe for the post-war reconstruction. This time, the international community has to stay the course and honour its pledges to Somalia. The World Bank, other international financial institutions and donors need to accelerate debt cancellation for Somalia and remove all barriers for the country to access loans and development assistance.

Humanitarian and development actors now operating from Nairobi and Addis Ababa need to relocate to safer parts of Somalia to support stabilisation and recovery efforts.

Meanwhile, in the spirit of international sharing of responsibility for refugees and in line with the financial contribution by Western nations to Turkey to enable it provide a dignified asylum to Syrian refugees, the international community needs to avail adequate resources to refugee-hosting states in the Igad region.

Prof Kagwanja is the Chief Executive of Africa Policy Institute