Respecting refugees’ dignity in Africa
Christian Science Monitor · C · trust 42/100
A new integration program in Ethiopia confirms a broader shift in outlook that recognizes the individual worth and potential of refugees as assets to society.
| David Lewis/Reuters/File South Sudanese men at a camp in Gambella, Ethiopia, marked World Refugee Day in 2017: Ethiopia’s new “inclusion” program opens a path to fully integrate refugees such as these into the national mainstream. Loading...
Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most-populous nation, also hosts one of the continent’s largest refugee populations – 1.1 million, and growing. Yet, even as the country grapples with its internal political and ethnic tensions and weather vulnerabilities, it is working to legalize and integrate these large numbers of regional migrants into the national mainstream.
Just a few weeks ago, the government officially launched Makatet (Amharic for “inclusion”). This five-year plan intends to fully incorporate refugees into the national education and health systems and enable them to pursue employment and build economic independence.
More broadly, Makatet points to the significant shift in perspective and practice that has taken hold across the region: Instead of categorizing forced migrants as victims and long-term economic liabilities, governments and humanitarian agencies are increasingly viewing them as potential assets to society and their host country.
That elevated outlook is succinctly expressed by Barham Salih, who fled violence in his native Iraq as a teenager and is now the United Nations high commissioner for refugees.
“Behind every statistic is a life, a person with aspiration, with a right to dignity, with the right to a better future,” Mr. Salih told UN News in March. “As a former refugee,” he has said, “I know first-hand how protection and opportunity can change the course of a life.”
Combining long-standing protections with fresh opportunity is what Kenya’s government hopes to do, too. Its Shirika program, launched in March 2025, seeks to transform longtime refugee encampments into viable local towns with municipal infrastructure designed to serve both local residents and refugees.
An increasing number of smaller-scale efforts in parts of Africa are recognizing the legitimate concerns and individual agency of all residents in migration-affected areas, helping lay the groundwork for acceptance and cooperation. A pilot program in Mozambique that trained refugees alongside local residents increased household incomes by 66% and monthly savings by 600%. Plus, an evaluation noted, it made hosts “more trusting [and] more likely to have refugee friends,” as well as “more willing to share scarce resources such as jobs and government support with foreigners.”
In other areas, refugees are actively repaying the hospitality of host communities, as in the case of Malians who fled to neighboring Mauritania. There, a group of 200 Malian refugees runs a volunteer fire brigade, using traditional methods to suppress hazardous bushfires that threaten livestock and livelihoods.
“There is this amazing generosity of the host community. These people share with us everything they have,” one Malian told The Associated Press. “We needed to do something to lessen the burden.”
For millions of refugees across the continent, integrating into the daily life and rhythms in their host countries appears to be an increasingly viable option – but one that still requires global financial support. The joint Ethiopia-U.N. 2026 refugee program is only 24% funded so far. Both Europe and the United States have enforced strict limits on refugee intake and asylum requests, and have drastically cut humanitarian funding.
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“This is not the moment to look away,” Mr. Salih told The Guardian this week. Africa’s efforts to integrate refugees “must not be about shifting responsibility” from the wider international community, he said. “This has to be about sharing responsibility.”
Ultimately, as this former refugee has emphasized, “Being a refugee is ... meant to be a temporary condition” – not a permanent one.
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