Refugee framework is nothing without international support

Uganda is one of the key testing grounds for a new approach to refugees that emerged from last year’s high-level summit in New York.

That approach is supposed to be based on principles of international cooperation and responsibility-sharing among states, and yet Uganda has struggled to secure sufficient donor support to manage the arrival of nearly one million refugees from neighbouring South Sudan, let alone to implement the new model.

The “Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework”, outlined in an annex to theNew York Declaration, is to form the basis for a global compact on refugees due to be adopted by member states in 2018. One of the stated objectives of the CRRF is to ease pressure on host countries; another is to expand access to resettlement in third countries. But while Uganda continues to admit an average of 2,000 refugees a day, solidarity from the international community is lagging far behind the commitments made in New York.

At a fundraising summit in Entebbe on June 22, Uganda and the UN appealed for $2 billion to assist the country’s emergency response to the influx from South Sudan as well as to fund the longer-term, more sustainable response envisaged by the CRRF. But donor governments pledged only $352 million and while further pledges have been made in the past two weeks, the current total still falls far short of the $637 million the UN estimates is needed just to cover the emergency response in Uganda.

The disappointing outcome of the summit has raised questions about the future of the CRRF and the global compact and how the new framework can be implemented in other countries with less progressive refugee policies than Uganda’s that attract even less funding.

“Uganda is a shining example when it comes to hosting refugees,” pointed out Gabriella Waaijman, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s regional director for the Horn of Africa. “They are allowing refugees the right to work and freedom of movement, giving them land. These were all highlighted as key ingredients for the CRRF and the global compact for refugees.

“All these agendas are being pushed by donors, and then there is an opportunity and a conducive environment, and this is the response,” she protested, referring to the outcome of summit. “This is not enough.”

Ahead of the summit, Uganda had been warning for months that the influx from South Sudan was pushing it to “breaking point”. A March statement made jointly by the Ugandan government and the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, noted that “in the face of severe underfunding and the fastest-growing refugee emergency in the world, Uganda’s ability to realise a model that allows refugees to thrive now risks being jeopardised – and the future of the new comprehensive refugee response framework thrown into question.”

Speaking to IRIN over the phone after the fundraising summit, Apollo Kazunga, Uganda’s commissioner for refugees, said the government remained committed to the CRRF, but that without more funding, it would not be able to implement many of the interventions that would have taken the response beyond an emergency one.

Waaijman pointed out that even the emergency response is severely under-funded. The World Food Programme was forced to halve rations for 800,000 South Sudanese refugees starting in late May. Funding for water and sanitation is also lacking, and health and education services over-stretched.

“If world leaders want to come to New York and say beautiful words, they create hope. But we can’t provide food and water based on hope. We need money and commitments,” Waaijman told IRIN.

Kristy Siegfried is IRIN’S Migration Editor