{"id":6323,"date":"2019-11-04T07:58:05","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T04:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6323"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:39","slug":"refugee-camps-versus-urban-refugees-whats-been-said-and-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/11\/04\/refugee-camps-versus-urban-refugees-whats-been-said-and-done\/","title":{"rendered":"Refugee Camps Versus Urban Refugees: What\u2019s Been Said \u2013 And Done"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Cristiano D’Orsi<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tens of cities in\nAfrica, such as Johannesburg<\/a>,\nDar es Salaam and Kampala are overwhelmed<\/a> by\nan inflow of people fleeing conflicts in different parts of the continent. In\nparticular people living in Mali, Somalia and South Sudan flee their home\ncountries to seek safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 17.5 million\nrefugees worldwide don\u2019t live in camps, but live in\nurban areas<\/a>. The 2018 World Refugee Council report<\/a> shows\nthat 60% of all refugees and 80% of all internally displaced persons are living\nin urban areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a result of\nconscious policy. For example the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees\n(UNHCR) recognises that camps can turn into de facto prisons<\/a>. But\nit\u2019s also because many refugees don\u2019t want to live in camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the 1967\nBiafra civil war<\/a> \u2013 the first major refugee crisis in independent\nAfrica \u2013 international aid organisations have primarily housed refugees in\nrural camps, where they were provided basic assistance. That year the then\nUNHCR Commissioner Sadruddin Aga Khan commented<\/a> that\nurban refugees were viewed\nas a problem<\/a>, even by the most sympathetic commentators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t until\nthree decades later that the UN refugee agency issued its first official policy\nstatement on urban refugees<\/a>. Concerned that making it easier for refugees\nto live in urban areas might pull them away from remote camps, it promoted a model of \u2018self-reliance\u2019<\/a> to\nkeep them at bay. This approach involved pressing governments to allow refugees\nto be able to generate income, including being able to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agency has\ncontinued to update its policies. Its 2009 policy paper<\/a> reflected the\nreality that more than half of all refugees were living in urban areas. This\nwas the first major shift away from giving primary attention to camps. The\npolicy ensured that cities were recognised as legitimate places for refugees to\nlive in and exercise their rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read\nmore\u2026<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Cristiano D’Orsi Tens of cities in Africa, such as Johannesburg, Dar es Salaam and Kampala are overwhelmed by an inflow of people fleeing conflicts in different parts of the continent. In particular…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}