The Authorities of Kenya launched a groundbreaking initiative on Friday to enhance the lives of greater than 830,000 refugees and asylum-seekers and their beneficiant hosts, by transitioning the nation’s refugee camps into built-in settlements the place refugees and native communities get pleasure from higher financial alternatives and entry to improved well being, schooling and different companies collectively.
The Shirika Plan – which interprets to “cooperation” in Swahili – is the fruits of years of labor in direction of higher refugee inclusion, led by the Authorities of Kenya along with native authorities, with sturdy help from UNHCR and different UN businesses, donors, humanitarian and growth companions and the personal sector.
The initiative marks a major growth within the nation’s transfer towards implementing insurance policies to enhance the lives of refugees and their long-time hosts.
For greater than three many years, Kenya has generously hosted refugees and asylum-seekers, primarily from Somalia, South Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The nation is dwelling to 2 of the world’s largest refugee camps – Dadaab in Garissa County, which hosts over 420,000 individuals, and Kakuma in Turkana County, dwelling to greater than 300,000.
Beneath the Shirika Plan, these refugee-hosting areas will likely be developed into municipalities to extend financial alternatives, schooling, well being, and important companies for each refugees and native communities. This initiative aligns with Kenya’s dedication to the International Compact on Refugees and builds upon legislative milestones such because the Refugees Act of 2021.
UN Excessive Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, congratulated the Government of Kenya on the plan at a launch event in Nairobi.
“Kenya is displaying the world {that a} story of cooperation, inclusion and hope just isn’t solely potential, but in addition needed and of benefit to all,” Grandi stated. “Shirika acknowledges that options, which shift away from refugee dependency on humanitarian help in direction of higher self-reliance, are potential. UNHCR is dedicated to supporting the federal government of Kenya to now flip this revolutionary plan, right into a actuality.”
In his keynote tackle on the plan’s launch in Nairobi, Kenya’s President, H.E. Dr. William Samoei Ruto, reaffirmed the nation’s pledge to work in direction of long-term options for the a whole lot of hundreds displaced individuals dwelling in Kenya, typically for many years.
“The Shirika Plan now provides us a framework to collaborate extra ambitiously and pursue historic achievements that may assure hope and dignity for refugees, and provides host communities due recognition,” stated President Ruto, calling the plan “our daring, homegrown resolution, which amplifies the African Union’s name for African options to not solely Africa’s issues but in addition international challenges as nicely.”
UNHCR joins the Authorities of Kenya to enchantment to all States, monetary establishments and personal organizations and growth companions to proceed to offer help and financing to this essential to make sure the total realization of the Shirika Plan and enhance the lives of refugees and their Kenyan hosts.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
