Blog post by Tamara Wood and Ahmed Elbasyouny *
In both academic and policy circles, African states are frequently lauded for their use of group-based refugee recognition – that is, recognition of a group of refugees as a group, based on their shared nationality or place of origin, and without detailed examination of each individual’s claim. The use of group recognition by African governments is cited as evidence of the continent’s pragmatic approach to refugee hospitality, in contrast with more restrictive, individualised approaches to refugee recognition elsewhere.
Group recognition has been commonly associated with refugee protection in Africa, due to its historical use on the continent and the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention’s expanded definition of a ‘refugee’, which extends refugee protection to people fleeing widespread and indiscriminate forms of harm, such as events seriously disturbing public order.
Little is known about the operation of group recognition in practice, however. That’s why this month the RefMig project published our new study exploring the often-overlooked world of group recognition.
Via detailed analysis of statistical data and the domestic legislation of African states, and informed by individual country working papers commissioned by the RefMig project, we mapped the frequency, scale and spread of group refugee recognition across 55 African states, and analysed who is responsible for making group recognition decisions and the conditions under which group recognition occurs.
Our findings confirm that group recognition remains the dominant form of refugee recognition in Africa, accounting for 88% of all refugees recognised in the continent in the past decade. Beyond this, they paint a more nuanced picture of the role that group recognition plays in advancing refugee protection overall. Our study suggests that, in some cases at least, group recognition is linked to politicized decision-making and opaque implementation procedures, and leads to ‘second rate’ standards of protection for group-recognized refugees.
This blog post outlines of some of the key findings from this research. These findings are necessarily preliminary, owing to the limitations of available data and the lack of empirical evidence of the operation of group recognition in practice. However, we hope this research will inspire a more critical perspective on group refugee recognition and provide the starting point for further research, including more detailed analyses of the operation of group recognition at the national level.
How common is group refugee recognition in Africa?
Group recognition is both prevalent and the dominant form of refugee recognition in Africa. Between 2012 and 2021, 5.9 million refugees from 21 different countries were recognised on a group basis in Africa. Group recognition thus accounted for around 88% of the total 6.7 million refugees recognised during this period.
Group refugee recognition was reported in 30 of a total 55 African states, though the frequency and scale of group recognition varied significantly between them. Sudan, for example, reported group recognition every year of the period under study, recognising a total 1.2 million refugees from six different countries – Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen – on a group basis. In contrast, Angola recognised more than 32,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on a group basis in 2017, but reported no other group recognitions.
While group refugee recognition occurs across of Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (RECs), it is most common in the East and Horn of Africa. Six of the seven Partner States of the East African Community (EAC), for example, report group recognition. This is perhaps unsurprising, given the prevalence of conflict and disasters across the region. In 2016 and 2017, refugees fleeing conflict and famine in South Sudan accounted for around 76% of all group recognitions on the continent.
In all cases, group recognition was paired with individual recognition – that is, all 30 African states reporting group refugee recognition also reported individual refugee recognition. The reverse it not true, however, with a total of 20 African states reporting individual refugee recognition but not group refugee recognition. Thus, while group recognition is common in Africa, it is not universal.
Is group recognition used for large-scale displacement and mass influx situations?
Group recognition of refugees is commonly associated with situations involving large-scale displacement or mass influx, in which individual recognition is impractical or unnecessary. It is also sometimes conflated with prima facie recognition – a presumptive, but not necessarily conclusive, form of group recognition that is also used in situations of large-scale displacement. Though in Africa at least, both individual and group recognition result in a conclusive form of refugee status.
Certainly, large groups of refugees are recognised on a group basis across Africa. The average (mean) size of the ‘group’ of refugees recognised as such between 2012 and 2021 was 68,092. However, many groups were much larger. Uganda, for example, recognised almost 1.2 million South Sudanese refugees on a group basis.
However, our research reveals that the use of group recognition is not limited to large-scale displacement, but may be used for even relatively small groups of refugees, in situations where the shared need for international protection is self-evident. In 2015, Kenya reported group recognition of 25 refugees from Ethiopia. In 2021, Libya reported group recognition of 167 refugees from Sudan.
Even in situations where group recognition is initially triggered by large-scale displacement, it often continues to be used as over time and as the numbers diminish. For example, Burkina Faso reported group recognition of refugees from Mali every year during the study period, beginning with 38,379 refugees in 2012 and reducing to just 286 refugees in 2020.
How does group recognition impact the quality of protection in practice?
Our research analysed the domestic refugee legislation of 26 of the 30 African states that reported group refugee recognition between 2012 and 2021 (only four states have no current legislation in place). While such legislation does not always reflect the operation of refugee recognition in practice – indeed, in some Africa states, the gap between law and practice is wide – it nevertheless remains the source of domestic authority for group recognition, and sheds light on the legal implications for the protection of refugees recognised on a group basis in practice.
In the majority of states, authority for group recognition lies with an individual senior government official. Most commonly, this is the relevant Minister for Refugee Affairs, but in some states, it is the Secretary of State (Gambia), Prime Minister (Togo) or even President (Guinea). This high level decision-making suggests the potential for significant politicization of refugee decision-making.
Nine states require a group recognition decision to be issued in a specific form – by Declaration (Kenya, Liberia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda), Directive (Ethiopia) or Statutory Order (Gambia, Zambia). In practice, however, this frequently does not occur.
Significantly, several states limit the rights of group recognised refugees. Angola, Gambia, Rwanda and Togo require group recognised refugees to live in designated areas, while Gambia also limits their access to employment and identity cards. The de facto limitations on the rights of group recognised refugees may be more widespread and significant.
Finally, and concerningly, group recognition is not always confined (as it should be) to recognising refugees, but can lead to the rejection of refugees as well. For example, despite a 2012 Declaration by Niger recognising refugees fleeing conflict in Northern Mali, empirical in practice, individual refugees were rejected during screening interviews based on their reasons for leaving, credibility, or having returned to Niger after previous voluntary repatriation. There have also been anecdotal reports of individuals having their refugee claims rejected within group recognition procedures in Egypt.
Future research
Our working paper is intended as a necessary first step to understanding group recognition in Africa, and far from the final word. Many gaps and blind spots remain, due to limited data, insufficient practice, or the constraints of our own research design, which did not allow for extensive empirical or critical assessment.
We hope that future researchers will build on this work and yield further and deeper insights into this critical component of refugee recognition and protection, not only in Africa but worldwide.
*
Dr Tamara Wood is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Tasmania and a Senior Research Fellow at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law. She researches in the fields of international refugee law, regional refugee law (with a focus on Africa), free movement agreements, complementary pathways to protection, and displacement in the context of disasters and climate change. She has acted as a consultant to several regional and international organisations and teaches international refugee law at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Ahmed Elbasyouny is a PhD Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Democracy, Indiana University Maurer School of Law. At Indiana, he researches constitutional design and teaches as an Associate Instructor at the Department of International Studies. He has worked for five years with members of the Egyptian Parliament and has recently consulted for the UNDP Governance Team in Lao PDR and International IDEA Constitution Building Programme.
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