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IFRC warns of declining refugee protection

Humanitarian organisations are increasingly concerned by declining standards in refugee protection in East Africa, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported this week. At a recent inter-agency training workshop for relief service providers, speakers painted a picture of deteriorating refugee protection - particularly in Kenya, which hosts over 250,000 refugees, mostly from Sudan and Somalia - and of serious constraints to effective action, the Federation stated on Monday. The situation was particularly worrying in light of the number of refugees continuing to flow into Kenya and Tanzania from the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa, it said. Most Somali and Sudanese refugees had been granted provisional refugee status but Kenya had yet to enact national refugee legislation and establish a documentation system for refugees, the Federation reported. Refugees were also restricted to camp areas, which reflected the Kenyan government's "reluctance to consider local integration as a durable solution", according to the Geneva-based organisation Reach Out, which organised and funded the Nairobi workshop. Reach Out is a multi-agency consortium which aims to build protection awareness, knowledge and skills among those delivering assistance to refugees. Among the issues in Kenya were violence (including the rape and murder of some refugees), poor living standards, inadequate facilities, insecurity and inadequate space for continually rising numbers of refugees, according to Abi Gitari of the Refugee Consortium of Kenya, quoted by the Federation. In this region, excepting a few bright spots, refugee numbers were continuing to climb, UN refugee agency spokesman Paul Stromberg told IRIN on Friday. At the source of this were a number of "intractable conflicts" [in the DRC, Burundi and Sudan, for instance] which failed to motivate donors, so that his agency and others had difficulty raising funds. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was continually pushing for refugee legislation in its contacts with the Kenyan government, and would also welcome greater flexibility in the Kenyan policy of encampment of all refugees, Stromberg said. Kenya's policy of restricting refugees' freedom of movement - for internal security, among other reasons - meant that UNHCR had to transfer Zanzibari refugees who arrived after political clashes in January to Dadaab in northeastern Kenya, against the refugee's will. It was unable to consider arrangements nearer Shimoni on the Kenyan coast, where they landed, which was much nearer their homes on Pemba and Unguja - and would have made it much easier for them to move home. Though Kenya's encampment policy for refugees that resulted was by no means unique (Tanzania insists that they should stay within a radius of 4km of camps in the northwest), it was in contrast with the situation in Uganda, where a policy of integration had proven beneficial to the refugees, the international community and the country itself, Stromberg said. It was difficult to suggest that there was any lack of political will in Tanzania, which hosts Africa's largest population of refugees (over 543,000 as of the end of August), but issues did sometimes arise - especially during election times - and inadequate funding was certainly a continual constraint to refugee services, he added. "It is fair to say that East Africa has, these last few years, suffered more than most because the number of refugees has moved forward - even though there is no [acute] 'emergency' - while funding has moved resolutely backwards," Stromberg told IRIN. The Nairobi workshop identified at least nine separate "constraints to effective refugee protection", including inadequate coordination between agencies, difficulties in communicating with refugees, poor funding and lack of political will, according to the Federation. Consideration should be given to improving public awareness of refugee issues, educating governments and NGOs (particularly on legal instruments governing refugee protection) and improving NGO collaboration with the UN refugee agency, among other issues, according to participants cited by it. The Federation's expression of concern for refugees came less than a week after the World Bank warned that Africa may become one of the worst economic casualties of the war against terrorism and the global economic slowdown. Lack of investment, worsening trade terms and dwindling aid threatened hard-won political reforms on the continent, according to Mamphela Ramphele, the Bank's managing director for human development. The attacks on the US had further reduced growth, commodity prices and aid commitments, which spelled disaster for Africa, she said. "Aid flows have halved over the past few years. We anticipate further cuts," Ramphele added. Since the end of the cold war, African countries have lost much of their strategic value to the developed world and have also lost ground in attracting foreign direct investment, the 'Financial Times' reported on Tuesday, 23 October. Over the past six years, the continent's share of world flows fell from 1.25 percent to just under one percent, representing $40 billion, it said. As the west's attention is drawn by Asia and the Middle East, reduced aid is likely to stall the reconstruction of some of the poorest and most war-weary countries, including Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia, according to the World Bank. "There is a real concern that, with the world's attention on Afghanistan and Central Asia, Africa - and refugees in Africa - might get the short straw," Federation spokeswoman Caroline Hurford told IRIN.

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

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