Making Refugee Self-Reliance Work in Sub-Sahara Africa

Overview & Synopsis

The refugee crisis in Africa is escalating and pressures on host countries are rapidly mounting. The existing refugee response system thus already struggles to deliver acceptable outcomes for refugees; worse, it is under increasing financial pressure. There is an urgent need to revamp the refugee response model. Advocacy for refugee financing that keeps pace with the growing number of refugees remains crucial. However, the immediate challenge is to shift away from a mindset focused on “care and maintenance” to one promoting more developmental solutions to displacement. It is essential that the shift towards Sustainable Responses is accompanied by a coherent, measurable understanding of what self-reliance means. This report presents a new approach to measuring refugee self-reliance that suggests refugees are self-reliant if their consumption from non-humanitarian sources exceeds the poverty line. African countries typically embrace self-reliance as a concept, even when in practice many refugees continue to face economic participation restrictions. Refugees already meet a considerable share of their subsistence needs through earned income. As a result of this shortfall in assistance, and a lack of labor market opportunities, poverty rates among refugees in SSA are high while self-reliance rates are low, in absolute terms and relative to the host population.