BY YOHANES JEMANEH
Every person on this planet has the right to seek safety, and privileges to human rights protection. World Refugee Day takes place each year on June 20. This year’s focus is on “The Right to Seek Safety.”
According to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, World Refugee Day is intended to be a celebration of the human spirit and of the fortitude of the millions of people who, despite being displaced and dispossessed, relentlessly strive to improve their lives and those of their families and communities.
“Yet this year we are again reminded of the work we have ahead of us as world leaders remain unable or unwilling to resolve conflicts. We at UNHCR recently announced the seemingly unimaginable: 100 million people have now been forced to flee their homes,” he said in his message regarding this year’s celebration.
While other countries closed their doors due to coronavirus and other reasons, Ethiopia has received more than 31,000 refugees this year despite the natural and manmade problems. As to Tesfahun, Ethiopia has been working with neighboring countries in supporting refugees.
Despite all internal challenges, Ethiopia is receiving refugees, registering, and providing them with basic services. The government has been facilitating shelter, keeping their security and enabling them to share the country’s natural resources, according to Ethiopian Refugees and Returnees Service (RRS) Director-General Tesfahun Gobezay.
Ethiopia is currently hosting nearly 900,000 refugees or 3.2 percent of the global refugees. The refugees sheltered in Ethiopia live in more than 20 camps in various parts of the country. Many of them are incorporated from 27 countries mainly from South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Sudan.
Ethiopia is among the world countries that have a progressive policy for refugees. The country allows refugees to live out of camps, and be productive. Ethiopia also provides knowledge and skills development programs to capacitate the refugees and improve their lives not only here, but also after returning home.
The policy granted fundamental rights to refugees including basic needs, health and education services. Accordingly, some 200,000 refugees are following their education in Ethiopia. Many refugees are also employed in various agricultural activities mainly in irrigation projects. Since 2016, the refugees are working with their hosting communities. They also engaged in small business either in or out of their camps. These activities help to improve the relation between refugees and the local citizens.
Although many of these efforts are being put with the support of pertinent stakeholders, Ethiopia is not receiving the needed amount of assistance since the nation is hosting a huge number of refugees. There are refugees who lived for more than 30 years in Ethiopia, said Mamadou Dian Balde, UNHCR Ethiopia Representative. The federal government of Ethiopia and regional administrations are highly cooperative to work in supporting refugees. The people of Ethiopia also share what it has with the refugees. “We are consolidating cooperation with international organizations to increase the fund for improving the lives of refugees,” he said.
“We believe that the refugee response management in Ethiopia is a demonstration of how a country with limited resources and socio-economic challenges of its own keeps its door open for those who are in need of protection and assistance and maintains its longstanding commitment to improving the lives of refugees and host communities despite any political, ideological and/or situational changes,” Tesfahun said.
Among other things, the special initiatives include the adoption of the very historic and progressive refugee proclamation that grants more righteous benefits to refugees and enables them to access basic and social services such as all levels of education, socio-economic opportunities, freedom of movement, access to civil registration, work and learn new skills, and make a positive contribution in the country of asylum and also their countries of origin.
The newly revised refugee proclamation is believed to serve as a model for other refugee-hosting nations given that it creates a conducive legal environment for Comprehensive Refugee Responses. The ongoing legal and policy reforms are also expected to create a conducive legal environment for the implementation of the nine pledges that the Government has made during the Leaders’ Summit in 2016 in New York and for the practical application of the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) in the country.
“We are also finalizing the drafting of a long-term National Comprehensive Refugee Response Strategy that takes into account contextual diversities and ultimately aims at creating self-reliant and resilient refugees and host communities through meaningful consultation and coordination at all levels,” he noted.
RRS expressed commitment to expand its partnership to ensure comprehensive and holistic reintegration support, improve national reintegration frameworks, and mobilize more resources. To this effect, we are closely working with the European Union and other partners to provide sustainable reintegration support to Ethiopian returnees from the European Union Member States plus Norway and Switzerland and other parts of the globe.
A protracted and very complex emergency situation, which portrays the current refugee displacement in Ethiopia, is now creating immense socio-economic and environmental impacts including significant strain on the natural resources. Therefore, it is important to stress that the solution towards such a prolonged stay of the refugees together with tens of thousands of new arrivals entering into the country critically entails the need to expand development approaches linked with humanitarian assistance and peace-building initiatives so that the goal of ensuring long-term resilience both for refugees and host communities can be attained.
For Filippo Grandi, the ongoing conflicts in various parts of the world take the lion’s share of the increment in the number of refugees. The solutions deficit continues to grow as more people are forced to flee than are able to return home, resettle to a third country, or integrate fully into the country where they have sought safety. In other words, forced displacement is outpacing solutions for those on the run. Leaders can work together to make peace and resolve the plight of those who have been displaced with lasting and humane solutions. Returning home, or permanently establishing themselves in their new one, provides a life-changing sense of security for those who once had to leave everything.
According to UNHCR, over the span of the year, the number of refugees worldwide increased from 20.7 in 2020 to 21.3 million at the end of 2021, more than double the 10.5 million a decade ago. Around one-third to one-half of other refugee populations have expressed a willingness to return in the future in similar surveys. If lasting peace were achieved in a few key locations, global refugee figures could halve to around 10 million, where they stood two decades ago.
The most common reasons refugees tell us why the return is not possible are ongoing insecurity and the lack of livelihoods or housing. But without the political will to make peace, the prospect for large numbers of refugees returning home in the near future will remain out of reach. The international community can take action, to redouble efforts to share responsibilities and find durable solutions, which could reverse the current trend, bringing displacement levels down significantly.
The Ethiopian Herald June 22/2022
