Developing Expertise in Refugee
Issues in Africa

Since 1992, the Refugee Program has developed a sustained focus on refugee issues in Africa. In 1994, we produced a paper, “The Role and Place of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Bureau for Refugees in the African Refugee Crisis.” The paper examined the evolution of the Bureau and the constraints that inhibited it from functioning effectively in resolving refugee crises. The report concluded that while resource and political problems were constraining, the primary problem lied in the Bureau’s conceptualization of the main issues involved in the African refugee crisis and offered a series of recommendations regarding the possibilities for the institution to function ensure a more comprehensive system of refugee protection on the continent. In September 1994, Human Rights First presented a paper, “Safe Return: Protection and Repatriation of Refugees—the Example of Mozambique,” which examined the massive return of refugee to Mozambique following the September 1992 General Peace Accord, at the OAU-UNHCR Commemorative Symposium on Refugees and Forced Population Displacements in Africa. The report examined the Mozambican repatriation program in the context of a growing trend in the 1990s to emphasize repatriation over other durable solutions to refugees’ plight such as local integration or resettlement in a third country, in what former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata termed the “decade of repatriation.” While voluntary repatriation is clearly a desirable outcome, the commitment of Human Rights First is to ensure that repatriation is truly voluntary and that refugees’ rights continue to be respected throughout the process of their return and reintegration. The study of the repatriation program in Mozambique offered valuable lessons for repatriation programs across the continent.

Building on this expertise, Human Rights First published African Exodus the first comprehensive study of refugee protection in Africa in 1995. The study, which Foreign Affairs called “the most succinct analysis so far of the legal protection of African refugees,” was presented at a meeting of NGO representatives from 12 countries in Africa in Dakar, Senegal.

This major study and the response to it identified several major challenges. These included the need to identify methods for more effectively addressing the security needs in refugee camps, which are often located so close to the borders that refugees are vulnerable to attack from the very groups they sought to flee. The report also identified the opportunity to work with a variety of organizations in Africa to enhance local capacity to respond to refugee crises.

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