Blog post by Mehreteab Ghebregergs. Mehreteab is the country manager for Ethiopia for the Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat (ReDSS). Mehreteab’s research interests include human rights, in particular in the context of displacement.
Ethiopia has been in the top three of refugee hosting countries in Africa for more than a decade. Through its long history of hosting, Ethiopia has also been productive in making policies and adopting international standards in terms of refugee protection. For example, Ethiopia was one of the first signatories of the 1951 Refugee Convention. More recently, during the global summit that Ethiopia co-led in New York in 2016, the state tabled nine pledges to fundamentally improve the lives of refugees, ranging from inclusion to livelihood interventions. Six further pledges that built on the previous ones were then added in the recent Global Refugee Forum (GRF) pledging event in December 2023. The state was also one of the pilot countries in the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF).
At the continental level, the state has ratified the OAU Refugee Convention. The state is part of the East Africa refugee processes, through its membership in IGAD (the Intergovernmental Authority on Development) including the Nairobi Declaration and subsequent Declarations, including Djibouti on education, Kampala on jobs and livelihood, Mombasa on health and Munyonyo on durable solutions Ethiopia also revised its previous Refugee Proclamation in 2019 and adopted directives- including the recent revised directive on right to work– for its implementation to respond to the higher standards. In general, the state has robust legal framework to respond to the protection of refugees in its territory. Furthermore, to enable the implementation of all these commitments, Ethiopia designed robust institutional frameworks, with a multi-stakeholder steering committee at the helm.
Yet, despite these laws, commitments, and achievements, the situation of refugees in the country remains dire and their access to durable solutions elusive. As recently reported by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC), refugees continue to face, to mention a few, a lack of safety and security, restrictions to their right to movement, and limited humanitarian assistance.
Through an examination of programs and projects that have been implemented over the past several years, which have all had the aim of improving the lives of refugees living in Ethiopia, this blog post sets out two key two areas of intervention that have the potential to push the Ethiopia refugee response in a more positive direction. Firstly, the blog looks at ways to relax the encampment policy in the country, and then turns to consider the improved role of refugee led organizations (RLOs).
1. An Out of Camp Policy
The majority of the 1 million plus refugees who reside in Ethiopia, live in 24 refugee camps and settlements designated by the government. Some of these sites are so old that more than half of their population were born in them. Despite attempts to expand the ‘out of camp’ (OCP) policy in Ethiopia, more than 90% of the refugee population still reside in these camps and settlements. Moreover, freedom of movement is severely restricted for refugees, with the requirement of a permit to leave these sites. Thus, inevitably encampment remains a barrier to self-reliance and the economic inclusion of refugees.
As a result, many refugees resort to informal means of movement, and often travel to large urban areas. Yet, these movements can increase individual protection risks. Indeed, urban settings do not automatically improve the lives of refugees, particularly with the lack of funding or support from the national or international levels for most forms of assistance in urban spaces. For this reason, many researchers have recommended a ‘switch to in situ support within urban areas’, in particular in protracted cases.
This blog suggests two possible and pragmatic approaches to relaxing the encampment policy in Ethiopia: i) for the government to ease restrictions on movement within the country for refugees, through national law and/or policy; and ii) to transform existing refugee camps into urban settlements.
With regards the first approach, this could be done in a piecemeal way. For example, while a refugee would be designated to a refugee camp, there could be fewer restrictions of movement enabling a refugee to move from one place to another, after they have settled in the camp. This would improve the freedom of movement of refugees and in turn enable them to explore alternative ways of life. Without this more relaxed policy on movement, refugees inevitably have difficulty looking for wage earning employment, opening businesses in the place of their choosing, pursuing education in institutions of their choice, etc.
Complementing this or as an alternative, is allowing more refugees to move out of camps and settle in urban areas of their choice if certain conditions are fulfilled. This is the ‘out of camp policy’ (OCP) in Ethiopia later defined by a directive. The directive expanded the application of the policy, which previously has been restricted to Eritrean refugees, to all refugees in Ethiopia. The proportion of urban refugees to the total refugee population in Ethiopia has increased, for example in Addis Ababa, from just more than 2% in 2019 to more than 7% in 2024. However, this still remains a small percentage of the overall population, mainly because of the limited application of out of camp policy by the State.
The second approach as introduced above is to transform current refugee camps into urban settlements. This can be seen as an advanced version of inclusion that has been attempted through mainstreaming refugee issues in city action plans and area-based approaches in different contexts in Ethiopia. In addition, the establishment of settlements by merging refugee camps and host communities’ places has already been at trial in Ethiopia, in Kebrebeyah town in the Somali regional state.
This phased plan attempts to establish inclusive and sustainable urban communities for all categories of people, refugees included – living in the administration of one municipality. The existing plan tries to respond to the most protracted refugee situation in Ethiopia, where more than 70% of the refugees in Kebrebeyah were born in the camp. Though the refugees will retain their refugee status and will not acquire Ethiopian citizenship (one of the 9 pledges Ethiopia made in 2017 was to grant citizenship to some protracted refugees), their rights and protection will be enhanced as they will be treated as residents of a municipality in equal manner with Ethiopian citizens residing there.
There is the real potential for the expansion of this framework to other parts of the country. Ethiopia’s refugee operation is one of the most complex with diverse refugee nationalities and diverse host communities. Moving out of camps or moving away from an encampment policy would need to be gradual and take into consideration many factors. However, there should be progressive realization of this policy, with clear performance indicators.
2. RLOs support
The second area of intervention that has the potential to push the Ethiopia refugee response in a more positive direction is the meaningful participation of refugees in all stages of refugee response plans and programs. RLOs are regarded as first responders with contextual insights and knowledge. As expressed in the CRRF and Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), with a conducive environment, RLOs can represent the needs of the population and influence policy.
RLOs have played a crucial role in many neighboring countries to Ethiopia including Kenya and Uganda. Although it should be noted, a key challenge across different contexts remains funding. In Ethiopia, the RLO space is in its infancy, with the beginnings of discussions about basics such as formalization and initial technical capacity currently underway. There is lack of accessibility and sustainability in refugees’ engagement in the country currently. Policy discussions remain top-down, leaving very little space for refugees themselves to contribute to programing and prioritization. Refugees do not take the driving role in defining priorities and needs and there are no accountability mechanisms set up to aid organizations to meaningfully engage with refugees. Equally, refugees do not have a seat in coordination forums or have outlets to present their complaints to the government or donors.
The broader localization drive which has gained momentum in Ethiopia, particularly following the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit and the Grand Bargain, has also surprisingly not yet involved RLOs in the process. Refugees and their representatives have mainly been active in implementation of programs and projects, rather than defining the contents and approaches of these programs and projects.
Thus it is imperative that RLOs are able and supported to take center stage in the localization process in Ethiopia. This requires addressing barriers of registration by government, capacity building by relevant organizations, and willingness to directly fund RLOs by donors.
With very little chance of gaining a resettlement place, and current contexts suggesting the chance of returning home (repatriation) remain very slim, local integration is the only available durable solutions option for majority of refugees in Ethiopia. With socio-economic problems of its own, Ethiopia faces an uphill task of integrating more than 1 million refugees, especially at a time where financial resources are lacking. In this context, expanding the out of camp policy and promoting refugee led organizations are two areas that can meaningfully help realize the full potential of refugees and drive local integration in the right direction, in line with the state’s commitments.
This was produced as part of the ‘Refocus: An Online Summer Forced Migration in Africa Workshop Series’ which ran in April 2024. Look out for the special collection of blogs from the series shortly. To listen back to all four sessions, follow this link to our Spotify channel.
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