BY YOHANES JEMANEH
Improving the lives of refugees, returnees and host communities needs to be brought to the fore. Many countries are working in the area to help these people to have a better life and be part of development programs.
Although some countries block refugees from entering their territory, there are several nations that understand the pushing factors of refugees and provide them with the needed support as far as they can. What makes this situation more interesting is witnessing developing countries like African nations hosting a huge number of refugees and trying to offer services and products in demand by the refugees.
African countries like Ethiopia and Uganda are worthy of mentioning here as they demonstrated commitment to providing essential support and endorsing favorable legal frameworks that protect the rights of refugees, returnees, and host communities. The two east African nations provide this support to more than two million refugees and asylum seekers in cooperation with their regional bloc and international partners.
The East African Regional Bloc, Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has been striving for regional integration in a way that can improve the lives of people in member states. Facilitating quality education, and job opportunities to refugees, returnees and internally displaced peoples among others are the programs in the social sphere development.
Most of the refugees and asylum seekers in the region experienced protracted displacement. Despite individual efforts by the IGAD Member States (MS) to strengthen their legislation and implementation of refugee and asylum policies, there are challenges in effective refugee protection, including the high costs of hosting large numbers of refugees.
The increasing number of refugees and asylum seekers put a significant strain on already overburdened social services serving host communities. MS developed the agenda for experience sharing to serve as a peer-to-peer learning platform and to promote good practices in the provision of protection and assistance to refugees and asylum seekers in the region. The overall goal was to harmonize refugee protection legislation, policies and practices in the region in line with IGAD’s regional approach to forced displacement.
Recently, the regional bloc has conducted an experience-sharing platform organized in Uganda on the services and legal frameworks refugees and returnees seek for. Uganda’s Health and Social Development Division was organized the Learning and Experience Sharing between Uganda’s Department of Refugees, Ethiopia’s Refugee and Returnees Services, Kenya’s Department of Refugee Services, Somalia’s National Commission for Refugees and IDPs (NCRI), South Sudan’s Commission for Refugees Affairs (CRA) and Sudan’s Commissioner for Refugees (COR) to Kisoro Isingiro and Mbarara Districts in Uganda.
The hosting nation Uganda is one of Africa’s largest refugee-hosting countries with over 1.5 million refugees from South Sudan, the DRC and Somalia sharing 65.2, 31.1, and 3.8 percent respectively. In general, 93 percent of the refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda live in settlements alongside the local communities; mainly in West Nile, South-West and Northern Uganda, while 7 percent live in urban areas such as Kampala.
According to Uganda’s Acting Commissioner for Refugees Douglas Asiimwe, Uganda’s progressive national refugee law provided refugees extensive with rights and fundamental freedoms in line with international standards.
The experience sharing held in Uganda involved field visits to observe policy implementation followed by a debrief workshop. The delegates visited to Kisoro District coincided with the ongoing emergency response to the conflict in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. While in Kisoro, the delegates observed Uganda’s implementation of its Open-Door Policy and Admission procedures that allowed those fleeing conflict in the Eastern DRC access to its territory and receipt of the critical life-saving humanitarian assistance from its Transit and Holding centers used in managing the influx. The delegates also tracked a group of asylum seekers as they transitioned from Kisoro Transit Center to Nakivale Refugee Settlement.
The inclusive partnership and effective systems in place ensured the new arrivals were allocated pieces of land, core relief items and non-food Items to start a new life within a day of arrival in Nakivale. The settlement also provided services such as health, education, livelihoods and worked towards solutions for refugees.
It was evident that Uganda’s success was anchored in the strong leadership and political will of the Government of Uganda, and high levels of coordination between the different levels of governments, Ministries, Departments and Agencies, International and National Non-Governmental Organizations and Community Based Organizations, IGAD observed. Uganda’s refugee protection model also sought to empower refugees, such that they lived in safety and dignity and positively contributed to their local economies.
At the end of the experience sharing, MS recommended increased bilateral and multilateral engagements among IGAD countries on aspects of refugee protection and management, called for harmonized approaches in refugee protection and appealed for more support to countries that continued receiving and hosting refugees. Teen
In addition to the protection of refugee management, the regional bloc has been working on facilitating refugees with quality education in which they can improve their lives working in the countries they live and contribute fair share in the development of hosting countries.
In this regard, MS have approved the Djibouti Declaration which consists of legal frameworks that support the refugee’s right to education and be employed in hosting nations. Among the member states that approved the declaration and working for its implementation is found Ethiopia.
Recently, the Government of Ethiopia, IGAD and GIZ Conducted a two-day Consultation meeting on country’s Costed National Education Response Plan for the implementation of the Djibouti Declaration on education for refugees, returnees and host communities.
The objective of the national consultation meeting was to review the progress in the implementation of the Ethiopian Costed National Education Response Plan for inclusive education and to identify challenges and opportunities in the implementation process including, generating recommendations on the way forward toward ensuring access to quality education for refugees, returnees and host communities using the costed plan.
Speaking at the event on behalf of IGAD Executive Secretary Workneh Gebeyehu (PhD), IGAD Director for Health and Social Development Fathia Alwan commended Ethiopia’s efforts for playtime roles in facilitating the implementation of the IGAD initiatives.
“We have done a lot in the last four years but we also have a long way to go. We therefore urge all partners and stakeholders to continue to exert maximum efforts to achieve the stated targets in the coming years,” she said.
The Director stated that IGAD and its partners have been supporting both the development and implementation of the Djibouti Declaration since its adoption in 2017. The costed plans have helped a lot in identifying key priorities and estimating the costs.
Ministry of Education Executive Officer for Strategic Affairs Mezgebu Biazen said that his ministry is working with all stakeholders to ensure quality education for refugees benefit by cascading regional and national commitments. Mezgebu emphasized that the deliberations and outcomes of the consultation meeting will inform and guide MS’s engagement for the next harmonization and integration of refugee education.
Attending the meeting, IGAD Senior Program Coordinator of Education, Science and Technology Kebede Tsegayeab (PhD), mentioned that IGAD has been tasked to support the development and implementation of multi-year costed national education response plans to ensure inclusive education for refugees, IDPs and returnees, and host communities.
IGAD has been working with member states and partners to develop costed plans. Some of them have adopted their plans and have already started the implementation. Other countries like Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya are still working on the elaboration of their plans.
The dialogue on the Djibouti Declaration will further accelerate the IGAD and member states agenda of integration of basic services, education and health to meet the special needs of refugees, migrants in the IGAD region.
The series of national consultations generated important information and knowledge on the status of preparation of national costed plans, which was one of the commitments of IGAD member states and partners. And identified gaps and recommendations to fill them and agreed on the next steps in terms of the effective implementation of the Ethiopian Costed Plan in order to accelerate inclusive access to quality education for refugees, returnees and host communities in the country.
The national consultations in Ethiopia brought together partners such as UNESCO, GIZ, experts from IGAD and participants from relevant government offices, including Ministry of Education, higher education and training institutions.
IGAD has been working closely with relevant partners and stakeholders, including the Government of Germany through GIZ, UNHCR, UNESCO, UNICEF, ECW and the European Union to implement the various actions outlined in the Djibouti Declaration.
The regional bloc has been supporting member states to develop and implement costed plans for national education response plans towards the implementation of the Djibouti Declaration. The Djibouti Declaration amplifies the need to accelerate the inclusion of refugees into national education systems and ensure that no one is left behind with regard to access to education, skills development and building competencies.
In 2017, IGAD Member States jointly signed the Djibouti Declaration where, among other areas of action, the development of a Regional Qualifications Framework (RQF) was identified as one of its five strategic interventions. The IGAD regional interventions in education are informed by the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact on Migration.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 3 AUGUST 2022
