Building Evidence to Enhance the Welfare of Refugees and Host Communities in Kenya

Nairobi, August 21, 2024 - Kenya has made significant progress in developing a policy framework aimed at refugee and host community's self-reliance, but they continue to face challenges in accessing services and improving their welfare. This is according to a new report - Building Evidence to Enhance the Welfare of Refugees and Host Communities in Kenya,which underscores the urgency of addressing the immediate, mid-term, and long-term needs of both groups.

Kenya is the fifth largest refugee-hosting country in Africa and the thirteenth largest globally, with 774,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers from neighboring countries, primarily from Somalia, South Sudan, and Ethiopia. The Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps, operational since 1991 and 1992 respectively, are among the five biggest refugee camps in the world. Refugees have thus become an integral part of Kenya's social, cultural, and economic fabric. A thorough understanding of socioeconomic conditions, needs, vulnerabilities, and potential of refugees and hosts is therefore crucial for developing programs and policies that improve their welfare. Moreover, robust data is important to support Kenya's efforts to adopt a humanitarian-development approach for durable solutions.

The new report, which draws from the Kenya Longitudinal Socioeconomic Study of Refugees and Host Communities (K-LSRH), underscores the importance of enhancing service provision, self-reliance, and resilience of refugees as part of a broader strategy to address spatial inequalities in Kenya. Conducted between June 2022 and 2023, K-LSRH is the first nationally comparable survey of registered refugees and hosts in Kenya, offering detailed insights into the living conditions and challenges for both refugee and host communities. It aligns with the Government of Kenya's policy shift from camps to integrated settlements.

Key highlights of the report

• Kenya has made significant strides towards a policy framework oriented towards refugee self-reliance including the adoption of the 2021 Refugee Act. But more could be done. Streamlining procedures for work permits, movement passes, and banking access can allow refugees to move to where opportunities are and pave the way for greater self-reliance and reduce the long-term costs of hosting refugees.
• Demand-side solutions, including self-employment, are crucial for addressing job scarcity. Both refugees and host communities consistently cite the scarcity of jobs as a major obstacle to employment, particularly within refugee camps. Current self-employment ventures tend to be small-scale and informal. Since these are still likely to be a realistic pathway for some population segments, expanding access to finance, supporting microbusinesses, and establishing market linkages beyond the camps can enhance the effectiveness of such ventures. Parallel efforts can be pursued for the generation of formal employment although such initiatives may be more suitable for urban settings. Policy interventions should aim not only to transition the unemployed into self-employment but also to scale ventures and generate more jobs within the labor market.
• Addressing spatial inequalities through targeted, area-based development initiatives will enhance the welfare of refugees and host communities: Refugee camps and settlements, where most refugees live, are in arid and semi-arid regions that have for long lagged in development indicators. In 2021, Turkana, Kenya's northernmost county, recorded the highest poverty rate while two-thirds of residents in Garissa also lived in poverty. Overall, addressing broader spatial disparities within Kenya, beyond refugee-related issues, is important. Initiatives that support both refugees and host communities are therefore crucial, using community-driven approaches by involving local stakeholders in planning and decision-making, ensuring interventions meet specific needs.
• Strengthening household resilience to socioeconomic and extreme weather shocks for both hosts and refugees will support sustained self-reliance:Shock-responsive social protection can be an important strategy to provide immediate relief during crises and prevent vulnerable households from falling deeper into poverty. Incorporating psychosocial support is essential to building resilience in the long run.
• Addressing barriers to education access is essential for improving and sustaining the prospects for children from both refugee and host communities: Key strategies to enhance children's educational attainment include tackling cost and language barriers, offering accelerated and adult education for older learners, and implementing targeted interventions for unenrolled children with no prior schooling experience. Additionally, more resources are needed in national education systems to effectively integrate newcomers and improve both the quantity and quality of schools.
• Timely and comparable quality data on refugees and host communities is key to monitoring and assessing progress. Continued efforts by the government, humanitarian agencies, and development partners to improve the coverage, accuracy, reliability, quality, and comparability of data will provide the necessary analytical foundation for informed policy decisions.
• Continued improvement of the legal and policy framework is important for sustained socioeconomic integration of refugees. To ensure effectiveness, national and sub-national laws and policies should be harmonized and consistently applied across spheres of government. This approach will foster a cohesive legal environment. In this regard, establishing a robust monitoring and evaluation framework is crucial.

There is immense potential waiting to be harnessed. Both refugees and hosts have high aspirations, suggesting that with the right support, they can move towards long-term resilience.

The report, Building Evidence to Enhance the Welfare of Refugees and Host Communities in Kenya, and the K-LSRH are products prepared under the Kenya Analytical Program on Forced Displacement (KAP-FD). KAP-FD is implemented by the World Bank, UNHCR, and Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at the University of California, Berkeley. It is funded by the Government of the Netherlands through the Partnership for Improving Prospects for Host Communities and Forcibly Displaced Persons