![[Zambia] Refugee children in school.](https://assets.thenewhumanitarian.org/s3fs-public/styles/responsive_large_2x/public/images/20509.jpg.webp?itok=6qo2pQBF "Youth in rural areas knew little about the disease, the researchers found")
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Donor envoys have reacted "positively" to a new initiative aimed at developing the impoverished local communities that host refugees in western Zambia, a UNHCR spokesman told IRIN on Monday.
A consultative forum of representatives of donor embassies, the Zambian government and the UN refugee agency UNHCR, met in Lusaka on Monday to discuss funding for projects under the "Zambia Initiative" - an ambitious programme to help integrate refugees through the development of the local economy.
The rationale for the project is based on the acknowledgment that living conditions of some of the host communities in western Zambia are poorer than those they are sheltering. That is despite the potential wealth of the remote region, bordering Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which for decades has shouldered the burden of refugee inflows.
The Zambian government-proposed initiative is a "kind of thank you" to the neglected local communities who are hosting an estimated 150,000 refugees, UNHCR spokesman Kelvin Shimo told IRIN. The initiative aims to stem budding resentment towards the refugees by linking relief and development.
The Zambia Initiative aims to attract US $5 million in seed money for a range of poverty alleviation projects in agriculture, health, education and infrastructure in the districts neighbouring the refugee camps of Nangweshi and Mayukwayukwa. It is hoped that with donor assistance some of the small-scale schemes could be up and running by the end of this year.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
