2010 Regional Operations Profile - Africa

Working environment

At the beginning of 2009, there were more than 10 million people of concern to UNHCR in sub-Saharan Africa, including some 2.1 million refugees, 305,000 asylum-seekers, more than 6.3 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and an estimated 100,000 stateless people. In contrast with global trends, the number of refugees in the region is on the decline. However, nearly 98 per cent of the refugees who remain have been trapped in exile for protracted periods.

Comprehensive strategies, including voluntary repatriation, local integration and resettlement, have helped many refugees in the region find a durable solution. While repatriation has remained the main solution, it is encouraging that local integration is also becoming a more realistic option. This is particularly the case in asylum countries in West Africa, but also elsewhere, most notably the United Republic of Tanzania, which is reviewing the applications for citizenship of some 165,000 Burundian refugees. UNHCR will work with governments and other partners to make these solutions sustainable.

Many IDPs, too, are returning to their places of origin and the Office has assisted some one million IDPs with their return in 2009. Nonetheless, UNHCR and its partners in the region are still protecting and assisting some 6.3 million IDPs for whom no solutions had been found. Moreover, many more people have been displaced both internally and externally by conflict and natural disasters.

Somalia faces one of the most severe forced displacements in the region, with more than 1.5 million of its citizens uprooted, many several times over. Thousands have entered Ethiopia and Kenya as refugees. In the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya, overcrowding is putting a severe strain on infrastructure and services and leading to reductions in the standard of assistance.

Mixed-migration movements in the region involve not only flows out of Africa, such as the dangerous journeys across the Gulf of Aden or the Mediterranean. They also include people moving from Central and West Africa to North Africa, and from the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes region and Zimbabwe to South Africa. Indeed, in 2008, South Africa was by far the leading recipient of new asylum claims in the world, totalling some 207,000. UNHCR will continue to work with governments, in particular those of countries on the migration routes, to strengthen national asylum systems and protection capacities.

Strategic objectives

Promoting a favourable protection environment

UNHCR will seek to improve the protection environment of refugees and other displaced people by promoting the inclusion of their rights in regional instruments and national legal frameworks. It will help African authorities to build the administrative capacity needed to implement fully international protection standards. Special attention will be paid to monitoring entry points and assisting governments to establish protection-sensitive admission practices.

To cope with the growth in mixed-migration movements in Africa, UNHCR will support national authorities to develop migration policies that take protection needs into account. It will also seek to ensure that measures to counter the smuggling and trafficking of people do not obstruct refugees from seeking asylum. Partnerships with governments and multilateral and non-governmental organizations are crucial. A broad collaborative approach is essential to ensure that those categories of people whom the Office does not normally assist receive appropriate protection and care.

Efforts to identify stateless populations and people at risk of becoming stateless will be intensified. Together with governments, UNHCR will endeavour to identify the causes of statelessness and propose solutions for the people affected.

Ensuring fair, efficient and non-discriminatory treatment and the provision of adequate documentation

UNHCR will continue its efforts to make sure that people of concern are registered or profiled in a manner that enhances protection. This includes ensuring that all people are individually registered in a timely way, and that all female adults of concern receive individual documentation. The Office is working with national authorities in several African countries to strengthen their capacity to register and document refugees and others of concern.

Creating safe and secure environments for all people of concern

The Office will spare no efforts to make sure that people of concern, in particular children, women, older people and those with disabilities, are safe from violence, abuse and exploitation. This will entail measures to minimize the risks of infiltration by armed elements into displaced communities and of forced recruitment. It also includes the organization of community-watch groups and the training of national and local security forces.

UNHCR will strengthen efforts to ensure that Best Interest Determination procedures for children are used in order to ensure that the best possible decisions are taken with regard to a displaced child's care and future.

UNHCR will pay special attention to activities to prevent and counter sexual and gender-based violence, and to provide legal and medical help for its victims. This includes establishing safe houses for women- and girls-at-risk, as well as setting up secure and confidential referral and reporting systems. Special procedures to treat child victims will be developed and sustained.

Addressing basic needs and providing essential services

UNHCR will strive to meet the basic needs of all people of concern in Africa, including sufficient food and drinking water, and to make certain that they have access to adequate housing and basic household and hygiene items, as well as proper sanitation and primary health care. Furthermore, UNHCR and its partners will promote the equal access of displaced people to HIV and AIDS prevention, care and support services. Ensuring the availability of primary education for displaced boys and girls and promoting safe learning environments continue to be key objectives in Africa.

Promoting community participation and self-reliance to help people of concern live productive lives

The Office will undertake participatory assessments involving beneficiaries in order to identify their needs, priorities and capacities. Men and women of differing ages and abilities will be helped to become self-reliant so that they can lead dignified and fulfilling lives and reduce their dependence on assistance.

Mobilizing international support for durable solutions in Africa

UNHCR will continue to search for comprehensive durable solutions for displaced people in Africa, in particular for those who have been in exile for a prolonged period.

Where conditions permit, the Office will promote voluntary return and assist those going home and help rehabilitate former refugee sites, as well as assist with reintegration efforts to help make returns sustainable. At the same time, it will work to make other durable solutions, such as local integration and resettlement, realistic options for displaced people.

Challenges

Peace and security remain fragile in significant parts of Africa. This makes the delivery of protection and assistance challenging, complicated and frequently dangerous. Instability, conflict and lack of security provoke new displacement, in particular in the Horn of Africa, and prevent the voluntary return home of many people. They also restrict humanitarian access.

Despite such measures as the deployment of peacekeeping forces, fighting and insecurity still hinder access to those in need of protection and assistance. The security of many people of concern to UNHCR continued to be at risk in the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and Sudan.

Elsewhere, difficult socio-economic conditions, compounded by the global financial crisis, make it extremely challenging for refugees, returnees or locally integrated people to attain self-reliance. Furthermore, UNHCR's limited presence in several countries has prevented it from playing a full role in country-level inter-agency processes.

Financial information

The comprehensive needs assessments have led to a significant increase in UNHCR's budget for Africa. The previous year, the comprehensive needs assessments had been piloted in Cameroon, Rwanda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia. The results showed that an estimated 30 per cent of the needs of people of concern to UNHCR remained unmet. They also underlined that access to asylum systems, reception facilities, registration, documentation and border monitoring needed to be improved. Furthermore, disturbing gaps in health services, education, shelter and food security were identified. Most of these needs are included in the budget presented in this Global Appeal.

If fully funded, UNHCR will be able to reduce global acute malnutrition rates in refugee camps; enrol more boys and girls of concern in primary education; and improve shelter and other facilities. If not fully funded, most operations will have to reduce essential services and be forced to prioritize basic, life-saving assistance. A funding shortfall will mean that the provision of shelter materials will be drastically reduced in Darfur, for instance, while facilities to house new arrivals in Kenya and Ethiopia will not be expanded or upgraded. A shortage of resources will also mean that many operations will not be able to take all the necessary measures to treat and counter the spread of HIV and AIDS.

UNHCR budget for Africa (USD)
OPERATION	2009 REVISED BUDGET [1]	2010					2011
		REFUGEE PROG. PILLAR 1	STATELESS PROG. PILLAR 2	REINTE- GRATION PROJECTS PILLAR 3	IDP PROJECTS PILLAR 4	TOTAL
Total budget	800,660,308	879,894,017	8,186,647	55,347,653	182,439,957	1,125,868,274	1,022,030,500
[1] Includes supplementary programme requirements of USD 296,555,506. [2] Includes the Regional Liaison Office in Addis Ababa. [3] Includes regional activities and the Regional Support Hub in Nairobi. [4] Includes activities in Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo. [5] Includes regional activities in Southern Africa.
CENTRAL AFRICA AND THE GREAT LAKES
Burundi	39,425,537	33,397,699	309,687	2,879,506	440,254	37,027,145	27,100,000
Cameroon	12,158,513	20,636,773	0	0	0	20,636,773	21,125,600
Central African Republic	6,730,942	5,930,808	0	0	5,541,561	11,472,369	11,635,000
Chad	101,661,085	139,547,745	0	0	22,081,862	161,629,607	154,181,000
Congo, Republic of the	6,054,743	9,137,767	0	0	0	9,137,767	8,302,200
DRC	75,351,003	65,584,652	2,151,087	0	33,887,567	101,623,306	104,314,700
Gabon	2,244,021	2,943,788	0	0	0	2,943,788	2,600,000
Rwanda	13,265,626	19,937,999	0	2,401,659	0	22,339,658	20,611,000
United Rep. of Tanzania	49,831,495	32,180,735	0	13,168,673	0	45,349,408	38,343,600
Regional activities	7,460,000	0	0	0	0	0	0
Subtotal	314,182,965	329,297,966	2,460,774	18,449,837	61,951,244	412,159,821	388,213,100
EAST AND HORN OF AFRICA
Djibouti	7,611,088	17,827,003	259,324	0	0	18,086,327	19,895,000
Eritrea	4,136,557	5,817,968	0	0	0	5,817,968	6,399,800
Ethiopia Regional Office [2]	48,835,883	88,194,652	0	0	0	88,194,652	97,027,600
Kenya Regional Office [3]	127,570,058	150,591,792	1,437,771	0	0	152,029,563	166,342,100
Somalia	31,072,535	14,630,158	0	2,825,023	48,011,309	65,466,491	51,690,400
Sudan	108,744,158	93,352,763	0	25,810,157	55,131,234	174,294,154	133,453,000
Uganda	40,484,587	44,790,757	0	0	9,702,896	54,493,653	30,284,500
Regional activities	3,250,000	0	0	0	0	0	0
Subtotal	371,704,866	415,205,093	1,697,095	28,635,180	112,845,440	558,382,807	505,092,400
WEST AFRICA
Benin	1,555,738	0	0	0	0	0	0
Côte d'Ivoire	9,596,067	8,694,556	2,733,142	0	4,615,756	16,043,455	10,630,700
Gambia	640,469	0	0	0	0	0	0
Ghana	8,056,916	8,557,847	0	0	0	8,557,847	6,149,000
Guinea	7,088,649	7,269,444	0	0	0	7,269,444	5,539,800
Guinea-Bissau	77,589	0	0	0	0	0	0
Liberia	12,130,849	7,534,672	0	0	0	7,534,672	5,361,200
Mali	108,215	0	0	0	0	0	0
Nigeria	3,055,167	0	0	0	0	0	0
Senegal Regional Office [4]	9,266,647	40,736,856	678,780	0	0	41,415,636	40,448,900
Sierra Leone	4,867,572	0	0	0	0	0	0
Togo	1,189,407	0	0	0	0	0	0
Regional activities	4,386,505	0	0	0	0	0	0
Subtotal	62,019,790	72,793,375	3,411,922	0	4,615,756	80,821,054	68,129,600
SOUTHERN AFRICA
Angola	4,340,132	7,432,733	0	5,908,389	0	13,341,121	6,970,000
Botswana	2,983,730	3,253,615	0	0	0	3,253,615	2,380,000
Malawi	2,473,774	3,456,591	0	0	0	3,456,591	3,010,000
Mozambique	3,250,779	4,079,998	90,104	0	0	4,170,102	3,465,400
Namibia	2,708,690	3,773,520	0	9,727	0	3,783,247	2,500,000
South Africa Regional Office [5]	10,419,690	26,387,840	350,000	0	0	26,737,840	22,470,000
Zambia	16,128,380	11,396,776	0	0	0	11,396,776	10,600,000
Zimbabwe	7,170,512	2,816,511	176,752	2,344,521	3,027,517	8,365,300	9,200,000
Regional activities	3,277,000	0	0	0	0	0	0
Subtotal	52,752,687	62,597,583	616,856	8,262,636	3,027,517	74,504,592	60,595,400

Source: UNHCR Global Appeal 2010-2011