Focus on the impact of hosting refugees

The publication of a recent study on the refugee influx in western Tanzania and a subsequent seminar on the subject have rekindled debate on the impact of the presence of refugees on the country. In its findings, the Centre for the Study of Forced Migration at the University of Dar es Salaam said that although assertions as to the impact of the refugees on the environment, security, infrastructure, administration and development were partially true, many were exaggerated and outdated. On the other hand, the centre said that international aid for security, local governance and administration in the region was inadequate and should be increased to help the country contain the added burden of hosting the refugees. The report was commissioned by humanitarian organisations concerned that the Tanzanian government's long-standing assertions about the negative impact of hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees over the last decade would lead to the premature repatriation of those still in the country. At a meeting held in Dar es Salaam on Monday, government and humanitarian partners discussed the report. Views expressed at the meeting on the impact of refugees remained divergent, and no plan of action emerged from the gathering. However, the participants agreed that the meeting should mark the beginning of an official forum through which the problem could be discussed constructively. "At least this has started the debate and established some facts for those arguing one case or the other to fall back on," Dr Bonaventure Rutinwa, the leader of the centre's team, told IRIN on Monday. In the past, humanitarian workers said, there had been a tendency to blame the refugees without taking into account the root causes of the refugee phenomenon, pre-existing or current, in western Tanzania. "Because of the divergence of views and the difficulty for the media to report in western Tanzania, there is a need to hold discussions and establish a degree of objectivity on the matter," Mark Waite, the country representative of Oxfam-UK, said on Monday. The most senior government representative at the meeting, Kigoma Regional Commissioner Elmon Mahawa, described the centre's report as "very fair", saying it was everyone's responsibility to reduce the negative impact of the refugee presence. "We know we have not been very good at communicating and coordinating with the nongovernmental organisations, and this is something we need to improve," he told IRIN. He repeated the government's concerns about security in the region, which, he said, had become unsafe over the last decade. However, he acknowledged that this was the result of some of the of refugees ganging up with fighters from Burundi's civil war and local bandits to exploit an unstable situation. Insecurity caused by crime The centre found that internal peace and security in Kigoma and Kagera regions, where all the refugees live, had been "devastated" by crimes, but this could not, it said, be "mainly attributed to refugees". Statistics on criminal cases reported and the numbers of people in prisons in the two regions suggested that, as percentages, the number of refugees and Tanzanians involved were very similar, it. It added that in prisons in the two regions, the ratio of criminals among refugee population was comparable to ratio of criminals among local populations. Environmental degradation Concern about environmental degradation, which has often been cited as the most obvious negative impact of the refugee influx, was justifiable, the centre said. However, most of the "dramatic stories" in this context related to the period between 1993 and 1996 when "the influx was large and the levels of awareness very low", it said. A study carried out in 1997 by Tanzania Agro-Industrial Services - a consultancy firm which carried out research on the environment - found that within a 6-KM radius of the camps, all vegetation had been cleared and, within Ngara District, Kagera Region, 47,000 ha of forest reserves had been felled for firewood and construction. But, the centre said, lessons had been learned. Levels of vegetation around the camps were now satisfactory and, with over 6 million trees having been planted in camps and surrounding villages, environmental programmes had been "redressed - and even gone beyond - former negative impacts". Effects on infrastructure Similarly, in terms of damage to infrastructure, health services and education, the centre said the initial burden on these services had been occasioned by the massive influx of refugees, primarily in 1994. It went on to say, however, that after the setting up of humanitarian operations, roads were built and maintained, education levels rose in Tanzanian schools, and health services improved. For example, in Ngara District, in the Kagera region, the centre said 26 percent of the population lived more than 5 km from a health centre, as opposed to the national average of 30 percent. Moreover, it said, maternal mortality in Ngara stood at 114 per 100,000 live births, while the national average was over 200. "One can easily say that the benefits of the presence of refugees to the health sector far outweigh its negative impact," the centre said. "In fact, some of the local beneficiaries do not want to dare think of the day when these services would be withdrawn." Economic Factors In economic terms, the centre said the lack of internal security may have contributed to the lack of productivity in agriculture and - on a national level - the government had been forced to maintain a continued military presence in the region in order to protect national sovereignty. But, the centre said, the arrival of humanitarian agencies had also led to an upsurge in business due to increased disposable income and the UN World Food Programme's local purchases serving to support producers and suppliers. Also, the presence of refugees provided Tanzanian farmers with cheap - albeit illegal -labour, thereby expanding agricultural capacity in the area. Moreover, central and local tax collections had increased significantly, with income tax in Kigoma Region from humanitarian agencies amounting to 620 million shillings (US $620,000) annually, the centre said. "So critical is the contribution of humanitarian agencies that whenever they scale down [their] presence, an immediate and dramatic drop in revenue is experienced by [the] Tanzania Revenue Authority," it said. Aid to government inadequate Although the centre said that much of the anecdotal accounts about the impact of the refugees on the already overstretched judiciary might be exaggerated, it was very critical of the lack of support extended to the Tanzanian authorities for local governance and administration. Regional and district officials complain about the amount of time they have to devote to refugee work when they should be working on their own national responsibilities. And, despite the $1 million annual funding from the Office Of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for the policing of the refugee camps, the aid to Tanzania to cope with the insecurity in areas in which there are refugees is described by the report as "woefully inadequate". "Agencies have provided assistance, but, with the exception of the police, it has not been based on a formal agreement. As a result, this assistance has been mainly ad hoc and unpredictable. Also the assistance has not been adequate," the centre said.