Transforming the relationship between aid agencies and refugees

Is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) succeeding in moving beyond the traditional role of supplier of food, water and shelter, towards an inclusive, community development approach? Is commitment to a rights-based approach to provision of refugee needs simply rhetorical? Are refugees enthusiastic about the new approach and seeing concrete benefits?

A report from UNHCR’s Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit assesses the extent to which UNHCR and its partners are implementing community service guidelines and principles. These suggest that programmes should empower refugees and enable them to rebuild a self-generating community. Examination of the experience of Rwandan refugees in Tanzania and Angolan refugees in Zambia shows that these inflated aspirations are unlikely to succeed within a refugee aid regime which continues to consider refugees a problem.

The 1994 Rwandan crisis was one of the first where the UNHCR emphasised community-based approaches – rather than a social welfare model – to meeting the social needs of refugees from the start of the emergency. Today, community services agencies are at the forefront of implementing the UNHCR’s community development approach. They are expected to increase the refugees’ participation in the management of their camp, ensure social needs are met, ideally through the work of community groups rather than agency handouts, and facilitate the development of refugees’ livelihoods.

However, despite an expanded role, community services do not have the same level of influence in the field or in funding as the priority ‘life support sectors’ of food, health, water and sanitation. The report notes that:

• Stakeholders have conflicting expectations of what community services are expected to deliver: there is a danger that community services programmes may fail to succeed from anyone’s perspective.
• Refugees are not very interested in the community development aspects of UNHCR’s work: their expectations remain focused on the delivery of material resources.
• Refugees may be justified in thinking that the new approach is little more than a way of saving money on refugee aid.
• Implementing NGOs have unrealistic expectations of the altruism of refugees.
• While agencies and donors prioritise HIV/AIDS education activities and tackling sexual and gender-based violence, these are not necessarily recognised as priorities by refugees, who may see the resultant activities as culturally inappropriate.

The paper concludes that agencies are not yet ready to adopt the principles and practices put forward within the UNHCR’s community development approach. Organisations that have not developed a participatory, empowering management structure cannot expect to successfully run participatory programmes. In order to succeed in the ambitious task of moving from needs-based to rights-based approaches, the UNHCR must:

• get rid of references to ‘dependency’ and ‘vulnerables’ from operational manuals
• remember that agencies practising development must negotiate their presence: pushing too strongly against the prevailing culture provokes rejection
• realise that when refugees take advantage of the situations they are placed in they are not exhibiting dependency so much as a capacity for changing their livelihood strategies
• realise that self-reliant refugees may be too busy using their time and labour to improve their living conditions (collecting firewood or seeking labour or trading opportunities) to work on what are seen as aid agency projects
• use situation analysis explicitly to investigate refugees’ capacities and resources rather than positioning them only as the source of needs and problems.

Source(s):
‘Community services in refugee aid programmes: a critical analysis’, Working Paper No. 82, Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit, UNHCR, by Oliver Bakewell, March 2003 Full document.

Funded by: UNHCR

id21 Research Highlight: 12 June 2003

Further Information:
Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Case Postale 2500
1211 Geneva 2
Switzerland

Tel: + 41 22 739 8249
Fax: +41 22 739 7344
Contact the contributor: hqep00@unhcr.ch

Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit, UNHCR

Oliver Bakewell
54 Ridley Road
Forest Gate
London E7 0LT
UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 8534 7824
Contact the contributor: oliver@bakewell.fsnet.co.uk

Other related links:
'Responding to displacement: Balancing needs and rights' Insights #44

See id21's links page on displacement issues

'Meeting the needs of refugee children: is UNHCR protection sufficient?'

'Living on charity: all that a refugee desires?'

'Palestinian refugees: in limbo forever?'

'Listen to the displaced: action research in Sri Lanka'

'Coping with conflict? Meeting the needs of older people'