Dadaab Voices: Kenya’s flagship refugee plan marred by lack of consultation

Fardosa – Hagadera camp

I am part of a youth organisation in Hagadera refugee camp, and I am the head of the women’s department of the youth organisation.

The word "refugee" in itself is a hopeless word. It refers to someone without freedom, someone who is not living where they were born, somewhere foreign, somewhere that feels like being in prison.

Refugees, first of all, are people whose legs are tied and can’t move. Secondly, they are unemployed. Even when the youth graduate from university, ultimately, they come back to the refugee camp. And at the camp, there is unemployment. Furthermore, there is poor payment. The one who graduates from university and the one who graduates from primary school all earn the same. They earn less than $100. A human being can’t live on less than $100, especially when they have a family.

The other problem is people don’t have freedom of movement. You have to get a document that permits you to move. The refugee is someone who needs permission to move and can’t just wake up in the morning and go wherever they please, whether it’s looking for healthcare, work, or pursuing education. They have no freedom of movement and can’t decide to travel.

The other challenge for refugees is that the weather we live in is really bad. The heat is excessive. There are a lot of diseases that a human being cannot tolerate. For example, if someone is disabled, they cannot handle this weather. If someone has diabetes or hypertension, the weather becomes even more challenging for them.

Since birth, being born here and standing here for 30 years without moving anywhere, I don’t see any hope of leaving. Whether it’s five years, two, three, or even ten years, it’s all the same. There’s no hopeful thinking or thoughts of a better tomorrow.

There is no change or hope that I have or know of leaving this camp. My fear is that my children will live the same life that I lived. Because I lived a challenging life that was congested without any country or people. I fear that my children will live that same life with nowhere to live except a refugee camp.

I fear that my end will be in a refugee camp. I am someone who is heading nowhere with no hopes of leaving. It is hopeless to be a refugee all those years and now have no vision or focus that you will take a different step tomorrow other than being a refugee.

This project of Shirika Plan is giving us hope in many things, but it is still not clear because there has still not been a project that has been brought to refugees, from the young to the old, that covered everything and was presented to the refugees and told, “We have this program for you, and from now on, we will move forward with it.” There is yet to be such a project. Until now, it is just something we are hearing, but we haven’t seen any documentation.

With the Shirika Plan, our fear is that it will be an opportunity for the Kenyans living around us and that it will be a challenge for the refugees living within the camp. We were told that we will live together. We know that Somalis live in clans. This refugee camp that I live in, I wasn’t born here, and I can’t build a permanent house here. I think the Shirika Plan will be an opportunity for others, not for refugees.

The refugees will benefit from one thing, and that is resettlement. There are thousands of families who are still in the resettlement process, and it hasn’t been easy for them. And we haven’t gotten communication that they have been resettled, and the rest of us will be part of the Shirika Plan. 

We don’t even know how the integration will look. Will it be that we leave the camps and go to Garissa and Nairobi and live with people as recognized refugees who have the right to independently move and live with the rest of the country without relying on any aid organization and choose wherever in Kenya to live, up to the borders of Uganda and Tanzania? Or will we be people still enclosed in the camps, and people will report that Shirika Plan has worked? Will it be a program that has been thought of by the government and other organizations so that they can get funding, or will it genuinely benefit the refugees? We don’t know.

The things that I worry about, firstly, is that we will be just mere signatures. When people have already planned everything, at the very end, they’ll need signatures. When they bring us a complete plan, we’ll be forced to agree and sign it. Our fear is that we will be provided with a project that we didn’t contribute to/have a say in and then be forced to sign and agree with it without any other option and that it will turn out to be a challenge for us, and we will have tied our own legs (restricted ourselves). That is my fear.

But if it is something good and we see positive outcomes in the camps and opportunities for us, then we will welcome it. But if it’s a project that we will benefit from in, say, ten years, I will still be a refugee, and it will not benefit me. I want to benefit in a month or two.

My other fear is that this program will bring conflict. Right now, we are living in peace. We have nothing, but they own things. And even then, we are content and live in harmony. I fear it will be a project that will make us and the people we live with be at loggerheads. The citizens have a representative in parliament, but we do not have representatives. The first place we are represented is at the UNHCR compound. We have no representatives elsewhere.

The first way to advance the Shirika Plan is to go back to the drawing board and involve the leaders of the refugees, meet them, and talk to them. Wherever they are discussing the Shirika Plan, there needs to be representatives from the refugees because they know the pain of the refugees. Someone who understands your pain, who represents you, who is from your community, needs to be there. Every point that is brought up, our representatives can say, “That does not benefit us. Replace it with something that benefits us.” 

We need such people. We have many young educated people. If we say we pick the older leaders, they’ll need translators. But if we have educated youth who can represent us anywhere, those youth need to be transported to where the project is designed and speak on our behalf.

We are grateful to the citizens here. We have lived with them for many years. We won’t be ungrateful to them or say they are bad people. They are good people. There is no tension or burden between the refugees and the citizens who settle around here. We live in harmony. But we have things that we are counting, and we hope solutions will be found for these things. 

One of those things is land being grabbed. The refugees had dumpsites; it had a place called Green Belt where trees used to be planted to deal with the weather. The refugees are not consulted on the land. A settler comes and says, “This land is mine.” And we can’t say it doesn’t belong to them. It’s true they own land. But by owning land, they’ve affected the public interest of the land, and we can’t speak to them, sue them, or hold them accountable. Our children don’t have a playground. In the past, they used to play football. When one generation grew older, they would train the next generation to play football. Right now, there are no fields to train. The nearest field is a distance away. The young kids can’t go there. That has become a challenge for us.

The other challenge is garbage. There is garbage everywhere. The pits that we used to burn garbage are no longer there. They’ve built neighborhoods there. And we don’t have any capability against them. So those are some of the issues we have with the citizens here. But other than that, we are grateful to them.

We haven’t seen the complete Shirika Plan. But even if we saw it, the challenge would still be what benefits us. But I’m hoping it will be something that unites the population and is beneficial to us.

I fear it’ll bring competition when it involves schools, wells, or marketplaces established. The citizens will want to be a part of it, and so will the refugees.

Siyaad Adan

My name is Siyaad Adan. I am the Director of the united umbrella of organizations that lead the people born in Dadaab refugee camp, known as DARLON (Dadaab Refugee Led Organizations Network).

You can define the refugee life in two ways: On one hand, it is a golden opportunity. Because when our country was destroyed, at a time when the situation was really bad, we were welcomed, got refuge, and different services. From that perspective, it is a golden opportunity. On the other hand, it is an open-air prison because we have no freedom to even go to the nearest town outside of Dadaab.

Generally speaking, when you look at the foundation of society, you’ll find that there has been a decline in the last few years. There are challenges which we cannot blind ourselves to. The challenges include the educated youth, who had a lot invested in them until they reached higher learning; they are paid poorly. It is a challenge felt by the youth, and they would love it if something were to be done about it.

The other challenge is the freedom of movement. A refugee, whether faced with an emergency or has other needs in the nearest town, cannot do so freely. Those three challenges are the biggest, as far as I can recall for now.

Where God wills is where I want to be. But I hope in the next five years I will live a life better than the one I’m living now, better in terms of education, quality of life, and a more developed country than the one I’m living in now.

My fear is that if things change like they did in 2016 when the government of Kenya made an urgent decision to swiftly close down refugee camps, if that happens again, chances are we will end up in a not-so-pleasant place. But I hope that won’t happen, God willing.

If you look at the document, it’s a project that is highly valued, and I can say it is a positive project and should be implemented as it is written. What happens most of the time is that the writing is beautified, but the shortcoming always comes during implementation.

My fear is in the implementation of this project: how it will be implemented, who will implement it, and when it will be implemented. That makes us worry a lot. What impact will it have on the people living within the Dadaab refugee camp? That worries us too. It is possible that the project falls into the wrong hands, and with that, it will have a negative impact on refugees. So this matter worries us a lot.

There’s also the worry that it will create competition between the citizens of the area and the refugees. I would say it can be progressed by making it fair and equal between the refugees living here and the Kenyan citizens in terms of resources, employment opportunities, education, and so on.

Take, for example, among the discriminative things today is the salary someone gets. It is very low and not praiseworthy, and the refugees don’t appreciate it, but circumstances force them into it. But the Kenyan citizen is given a reasonable and adequate salary. It could be that you’re doing the same job, but they earn more. So we would want equality in that.

If you look at the connection between us and the citizens living here, it is a good connection for the most part. The people we live with here mostly are Somalis. We share a language, a religion, and a culture, so for the most part, there isn’t a problem. We are brothers who have mingled, but when you look at legality and the documents, we are different. For refugees, it is difficult to get documents, especially in terms of movement. It is difficult for us to move around, but it is easy for them. They have a national ID, and it helps them go anywhere they want at any time.

Both are reasonable. It is possible to gain many benefits from it, and it is also possible to get burdens and problems from it. I always see that it is all dependent on how it will be implemented. If it is implemented in a good way as it is required and as it is written, it will be a project that comes with benefits. But if it is not implemented as it is written and many hands become involved and it is tampered with, then it will come with problems, grabbing, and conflict.

Adan Mohamed Abdi

The life of a refugee is a very difficult one with many challenges. It is not a good life. It is like living in an open-air prison.

There are many challenges here in Dadaab. You can sum it up in three, two, or one. But if I’m looking at the main challenges, there is a lack of water, even though I can’t say that there is totally no water in the camp, there isn’t enough water. People have to go a distance to fetch water. The other challenge from that is that children are the ones being sent to fetch water. Instead of a child going to school, they are busy fetching water for the family. So the scarcity of water has led to the decline of education.

The other challenge is healthcare. As we know, the camp from the past, people used to get complete healthcare. But nowadays, you see people dying of minor illnesses that can be cured because there is no medicine. And if it comes down to referrals, we cannot afford that.

The third challenge is also heated, and it is that people do not have the freedom of movement. We’ve been living in this camp for 33 years now, and it is difficult to get to Dadaab. You can imagine someone living for 33 years in Hagadera who can’t even get to Dadaab. It is a very difficult matter. Someone is given an alien card to move around with. It expires after five years. It expires before you even get to go anywhere. Then you start looking for another one. At times, when you’re looking for documents to travel, you fail to get an alien card to travel with. The alien card is provided by the government, and it is like an ID. When the government provides it, you can’t go anywhere with it. So I say to myself, since the government is giving us this card and it is useless, they can have them back.

I have many dreams as a young man. Very good dreams. But as things are going on right now, I don’t think those dreams can come true. Because as someone who was born and raised here, got educated here, and lived here for all those years yet can’t go anywhere, it is a challenge. But if things don’t change from what they are now, I don’t think my dreams will come true.

My fear is that being a hopeless refugee with no end in sight and no hopes for a durable solution in the country (assuming he is referring to Somalia), I fear my future will be tragic.

I heard Shirika Plan is ongoing, and I’ve seen many meetings where they speak on it, but if you look at it, it adds nothing of value to the refugees because they were not given a chance to participate in its formation. And because of that, it will be beneficial for the people who came up with it and the community here (citizens), but for the refugees, they are just being used in this, and there is nothing in it for them.

Because you weren’t consulted in the first place when the meeting was happening, and then after that, it is brought to you to be implemented upon you, it won’t benefit you because you don’t have a stake in it. You weren’t told what benefits or challenges it will come with. So there’s no benefit for you in it.

What I can say is that we need to escape being refugees. Before we reach the settlement, we can fall in the middle and lose on both sides. That’s what we fear Shirika Plan will bring us. Shirika Plan needs to go back to the drawing board, and it should have different stakeholders from the society. They should bring it to the refugees and say, “This is what we have,” and then the community and refugees need to come together, meet about it, and know the repercussions that will come with it. Only after that can it be implemented.

The connection between the refugees and the settlers (citizens), mostly they need to be united. There are marital ties between them, and there is Somaliness between them. It should continue that way, but at times, there is politics between them. But if we continue as it should be, then that connection won’t be bad. It will get better.

Shirika Plan, if it goes on as it is right now, which is forcing it on people, it will bring a problem to both the refugees and the citizens. But if it is integrated and it is clear what shares the refugees get and what the citizens get, and then those two are brought together, it will be a different culture. But if it goes on as it is right now and the government imposes it on people, it won’t add any meaning and it will only bring problems between the refugees and the citizens.

For the citizens and the refugees to fight over the resources by Shirika Plan later on, that is our fear as refugees.

Nasteho Dumad Hassan

When I look at life as a refugee from my end, at times it is a good one where I find plenty of opportunities to learn and improve my life to a higher standard. And other times, it is a challenge, like a prison, where you can’t go anywhere. And if you want to work, you won’t find anything that satisfies you. If you go to the market today, you won’t find anything that will help you pay bills for a month.

The challenges include people not having the legal documents to move around. The other challenge is that water has been very scarce lately. The other challenge is the youth working in organizations being paid only KSh 9,000 [$70], and they do the jobs of the National Staff who come in the morning and leave by around 9am or 10am. The youth do their job and still only get KSh 9,000, while the national staff are paid KSh 60,000 [$460] or more. If the youth were given half of that salary, they would be content. It is one of the reasons that has made the refugee youth heartbroken.

The other thing is increased under-marking in recent years, which has demoralized children from education. To be honest, I hope to reach far in education and mentally. In terms of education and finances. I hope to be an all-rounded established person, God willing.

I am very afraid of the corruption increasing. I have finished school and am waiting to get into university. I’ve been waiting for two years. Each time we apply, we aren’t interviewed. We become victims of corruption. At times, we are interviewed, but we are never selected. The other day, there was a boy who was rejected just like all of us. And then a month later, I heard the boy was about to leave, and he got accepted into university. And that is fishy. When you ask them, they keep quiet and don’t tell you anything. If this corruption goes on, our children will have a bad future. They may turn to drugs, be stressed, and their future becomes bad.

Being that the citizens here are Somalis and we share the same religion, they still show us that they have more power than us simply because they have an ID. They deal with us in an arrogant and wrong manner. So if they stop that, I think we can live well with each other. But if they continue discriminating against us, then it won’t be peaceful.

I am young, and I have knowledge and wisdom. A lot of stress comes up, and I say to myself that if I leave this place, I will do well for myself. But I’m always grateful to God and turn back to him. There are people who have a weak connection with God. To discriminate against children who are coming up, even the elderly need aid and a future, but for now, the upcoming generation are the flower of the nation. If they are discriminated against, I fear they will have a bad future, and the country too will have a bad future. And out of spite, they may do bad things.

It can be improved by dealing with people equally without corruption or discrimination or making anyone feel inferior. And people should achieve things based on their knowledge and merit. Us as refugee youth with good grades and education, we still feel inferior to others because they are citizens and we are refugees. They tell us we can leave anytime.

The citizens and the refugees have a fluctuating relationship. When they need us, they are good to us. But when they don’t need us, we encounter a lot of foulness from them.

Naturally, the Shirika Plan can bring many challenges and competition, which can be one of two ways. Either it brings progress and development where everyone brings their talents, or it can create more discrimination and problems where people undermine each other, and it can also bring clanism. So it depends on everyone and how they think and act.

God willing, I hope this program will be a good one that will benefit everyone.

Abdirazaq Kahiye 

Refugee life is like a living person condemned to perpetual prison. What I mean by that is the person in prison is someone waiting for death. As refugees, we are just awaiting our death. And the reason for that is we don’t see a pathway for leaving this refugee life. I married here, and my children were born here. And it seems like my kids will get married here and have their own kids here.

This refugee camp has been around for 32 years, and for those 32 years we have been living here, there is no escape that we see. We can’t go to the interior of the country or work from there. So that’s my view of refugee life.

The first problem the refugees face is that we can’t leave the camp. We can’t go to the rest of the country from nearby Garissa. When you are leaving, they have to know, and the same for when you are returning. You have no permission to move about. That is difficult, and every refugee would like the chance to move freely.

The second challenge facing the refugees is in terms of lifestyle. There is a big difference between the refugees of 2010 and the refugees now in 2024. In 2010, people were given good quality food that could be consumed, from flour to beans. But now we are getting food that even a donkey would find difficult to eat. It’s hard giving a newborn baby millet. Or even the elderly. We have 80-year-old women living here. There are pregnant women who can easily get malnourished. So there are major challenges. There are poor economic conditions in the camp.

There is also a water problem. For example, the block where I live, we haven’t had water for a whole month. The mothers and children fetch water from other neighborhoods, which can be a kilometer away. Some don’t have the money to purchase the water. Each jerrycan of water goes for KSh 50. You can imagine if a refugee is further punished with a lack of water. The most important thing in life is water. So the water issue is one of our biggest problems here.

The second point is regarding education. The standards of education in 2008 and 2010 compared to 2024 are very different. In the past, they used to think about the children, their textbooks, their exercise books, and the stationery they need. The teachers. There used to be an attempt by the organizations to address all that. But today, all that is out of the window. Even the snacks kids used to get during break time are not there. There has been a big change there.

There are youth who, when they say the standards of the schools dropped, dropped out and started doing drugs. Some even rob people’s houses.

The third challenge facing the kids is poor health. One day I went to one of the health centers here in Dadaab refugee camp. I had taken my brother who had an injured leg. I was told to take him to the OBD, and there was only one staff member, and it was difficult even getting them. He looked at the wound, but there was no medicine. He told us to buy anesthesia from the pharmacy. So there is a lack of medicines in the hospitals. The doctor gives you a prescription and tells you to go to the nearest pharmacy or to the market. You have to look for it yourself.

The other thing is there are new refugees living in the camp. And they have come from many different countries. They haven’t been registered. They don’t have the food card, they can’t access water, healthcare, and the basic needs of life. The problems in the refugee camps are so many and major.

I have no hopes for the next five years. I have lived in the refugee camp for 14 years, and in that period, the quality of life declines each year. I don’t think I’m heading anywhere in the next five or even ten years. I expect our lives to get worse and stay here at the camp.

My only fear is being returned to my country, where I fled from all those years ago, where there was no peace. To be returned back and for my life to get even more constricted, that is all I fear.

When I look at the Shirika Plan project, at times it is good, but other times it is not. We just heard of it, and no one has approached us to tell us what exactly it is. But from what we hear, the refugees can live in other parts of the country and will get the same rights as Kenyans. But if you look again, you’ll think it is a plan that is there to benefit the citizens of this country and is using the name of refugees. Until now, no one has come to us to tell us or give us a document. No committee has been called to participate in the project.

The fear I have with Shirika Plan is that the quality of life will decline and there will be a conflict between the refugees and the citizens of the country, who we live with and are our brothers. Up until now, it is not clear to the refugees what the Shirika Plan is. It is something organizations and the government have decided upon, even though it hasn’t been presented to the refugees. 

It would have been better before they came to a decision to consult the refugees as stakeholders because they know what’s good for them and what’s not. But if a person who has never lived the refugee life decides on the interests of the refugees, then it will be a wasteful project.

The other day, I heard on the news that the Shirika Plan in the next four years will spend KSh 113 billion [$870 million]. Will that money reach us? When they are preparing the budget, the pretext they use to their donors is that that money will be used to aid refugees. But we won’t see any of that. They say the first phase of the project will go on for four years. But nothing will change. I know the organizations and government colluded to take the majority of the contracts and money.

Shirika Plan can be improved by having educated refugees as part of the project planning. There are leaders who are elderly and didn’t go to school. But we have young people who went to school and can speak in any language. And they can talk to any donor about the needs of the refugees. They should be part of the planning.

There is a good connection between the citizens and the refugees before the implementation of the Shirika Plan. But when the Shirika Plan is implemented, there is a chance that we will have competition for the services that come from the government. 

Kenyan citizens have their rights, but we don’t have any representation. They have MCAs [Members of the County Assembly], MPs, a president and governors. But we have no one to represent us. The only representation we have is in [the UN refugee agency] UNHCR. Our representation starts there and ends there. And in any conflict, the one who will be affected is the refugee.

Shirika Plan may benefit the refugee, but that benefit is 25%. 75% of the plan is not beneficial. Because we don’t have any clarity. It may instigate competition. For example, if a well is being dug for refugees, the citizens will want the same. If the refugees are given rice, the citizens will want that too. At times, there may be conflicts arising. There are things that can be given to the citizens but not given to refugees.

Anonymous interviewee*

Life as a refugee is very difficult, and everyone feels that. A refugee is someone who has no freedom, doesn’t live in their country, and is in an open-air prison. It is a very difficult life.

The difficulties a refugee faces are, when you are a refugee, you are not a free person. You can’t get what you want or need. You are in captivity. Take, for example, the youth living in the camps; they go through many problems, and they can’t get what they want. They can’t leave the camp even though they are skilled and can work. In terms of education, maybe 10% of the refugees can get it. So you can’t summarize the many problems here.

In the next five years, I hope to escape being a refugee and be a free person who can move freely, work, and leave this camp or prison that I’m in. My fear is that I don’t achieve that and remain a refugee forever.

The other thing is, when I talk about Shirika Plan, the government is talking about it, and as they’ve said, it has benefits and losses. If we reference what they’ve presented, there are benefits. But my fear is that it won’t be implemented as planned. They said there will be integration within the society, and people will work together, and it will have many benefits. But I fear the refugees won’t benefit as they should. What always happens is that a project is presented, and the society doesn’t benefit from it.

Among the many fears we have regarding Shirika Plan is, when you hear the organizations and government talk about it, they say positive things, but things don’t always happen as they are said. It can be improved by including the community in the meetings discussing the project, including the refugees, and they should participate in the outcome just the same way the citizens participated.

If I talk about the connection between citizens and refugees, Shirika Plan can bring competition between the different people living here. And this is part of the larger fear I had mentioned. Refugees have little capability. They don’t live in their countries, and they don’t get what they want. So the citizens here can take advantage of that opportunity, and the refugees won’t get what they want. But if things are done correctly, everyone will benefit. But if things are crooked, corrupt, and confused, maybe the citizens can benefit from that, but the refugees can’t.

We need constant awareness in society. When something new is proposed, you first address the community and give them awareness of the challenges and advantages of the proposal. Then after that, with people informed, you introduce this issue. The integration of the community, the citizens, and the refugees, Shirika Plan has good parts and bad parts that affect people. The integration of the population, the freedom, the investors representing the citizens and the refugees who are involved in this project of Shirika Plan… as I said before, if it is implemented as planned, it will benefit the populace. If, during the integration, they are given awareness and informed that the refugees are their brothers and to clarify that the refugees also have the same rights as Kenyans and should be considered as such, then it will be beneficial.

But if the refugee is discriminated against and told, “You bad refugee, this project belongs to the citizens, and the refugees have nothing in it,” and it is not implemented as planned, and corruption and other issues come into play, then it will be challenging and affect all parts of the population. But if it is implemented as planned and everyone is involved, then it will be very beneficial for the people.