The Myth of Self-Reliance. Naohiko Omata
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UNHCR’s Withdrawal Strategy
With the unsatisfactory results of the repatriation programme and very limited availability of resettlement opportunities for Liberian refugees, in about 2007 UNHCR shifted its focus to the local integration of the residual Liberian refugees in Ghana (Salducci 2008: 6). Nevertheless, the refugees strongly resisted local integration when they learned of UNHCR’s intentions, leading to a series of refugee protests in Buduburam refugee camp, as explained in the previous chapter.10
Nonetheless, the series of refugee protests had little impact on UNHCR’s integration plan. During my fieldwork between 2008 and 2009, UNHCR was quietly but gradually moving towards withdrawing from this long-term refugee population in Ghana. UNHCR’s scenario for withdrawal envisaged two phases: first, reduce the number of Liberian refugees as much as possible by means of ongoing repatriation; second, bring in a local integration scheme for the remaining refugees in Ghana. In an interview with UNHCR’s senior programme officer in August 2008, he explained frankly to me that:
UNHCR cannot maintain the status quo of the care and maintenance stage of Liberian refugees any more. What UNHCR can do for them is to encourage and support their repatriation to Liberia … Now the new stage of repatriation is ongoing. Four thousand refugees repatriated since this April [2008]. Our plan is to reduce the number of Liberian refugees to the level at which local integration would be more effective. The current number of refugees is too large for the Ghanaian government to feel comfortable to accept local integration.11
Given this exit strategy, between 2008 and 2009, UNHCR continued to put pressure on the remaining refugees in Ghana to repatriate, at times appearing almost threatening in their attempts. After extending the original deadline of the repatriation scheme from August 2008 to November 2008 and then to March 2009, UNHCR posted an announcement on bulletin boards inside the camp that it would terminate its food rations for vulnerable groups at the end of June 2009. The statement concluded: ‘Refugees are therefore encouraged to make informed decisions about their future, including opting for voluntary repatriation before the deadline of 31 March 2009’. UNHCR’s strategy appeared to work well, as the Buduburam refugee population was reduced by 40 per cent through the repatriation of more than 9,000 Liberians under this ‘voluntary’ programme.
Whereas the first part of UNHCR’s scenario for withdrawal generally succeeded, by decreasing the number of refugees in Ghana, the second part did not. Not only the Liberian refugees, but also the government of Ghana – the key stakeholder in the local integration of refugees – expressed strong resistance to UNHCR’s integration scheme and subsequent exit plan. In many refugee-receiving countries in the Global South, local integration is often a ‘forbidden or evaded solution’ due to the potential cost of integrating refugees (Hovil 2014). Similarly, the Ghanaian government saw that local integration of Liberian refugees would likely impose an increased burden on the government. In an interview with the secretary of the GRB, he described UNHCR’s plan for local integration without detailed follow-up strategies as ‘wholesale local integration for residual Liberians’.12 The tone of the secretary’s comments was ironic but acrimonious, corroborating the existence of acute tension, or at least major disagreements, between UNHCR and the host government over the issue of the residual refugees.
Despite resistance from both the Ghanaian government and the refugees, UNHCR completed its exit strategy in 2012. At the very beginning of 2012, UNHCR announced the cessation of refugee status of remaining Liberian refugees globally, given restored peace and stability in Liberia. The Liberian refugees in Ghana were left with two options: either repatriate before the invocation of the Cessation Clause by the end of June 2012, or remain in Ghana to be locally integrated as citizens of member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Chapter 6 provides more details of this significant moment, and specifically highlights refugees’ diverse responses to the end of their ‘formal’ refugee life.
Making a Living within Constraints
As their exile grew longer, it became necessary for most of the refugees in the camp to make a living under increasingly adverse conditions. While humanitarian aid for Liberian refugees in Buduburam had sharply decreased, the formal and informal restrictions on making a livelihood remained and new restrictions emerged. Arguably, Ghana had been applauded by UNHCR as an exemplary model state regarding refugee protection. UNHCR wrote:
Ghana has exemplified a number of objectives outlined in the Global Consultations and the Agenda for Protection, having ratified all the relevant refugee conventions, enacted national refugee law, and established a body for the determination of asylum claims. The refugee protection regime has been substantially reinvigorated by new procedures for refugee status determination and other protection activities. (UNHCR 2004c: 160)
In contrast with this positive reputation, the Ghanaian administration had actually set up several bureaucratic impediments to refugees’ economic activities, similar to those in other refugee-hosting countries in the Global South. For instance, refugees were required to obtain work permits from the government for formal employment, but this cumbersome process took several months, discouraging local employers from hiring refugees (also see Hampshire et al. 2008; Tanle 2013). The Ghanaian government did not recognize professional qualifications obtained in Liberia, such as those for doctors, nurses and teachers (Dick 2002b: 18; Porter et al. 2008: 238). Therefore, these professionals had to take their training again in Ghana to receive an official certificate from the Ghanaian authorities, an option which was not affordable for the majority of refugees. Also, certain types of employment such as taxi-driving and hairdressing were not open to foreigners, including refugees. These restrictions virtually excluded refugees from formal employment and forced them to work in informal sectors.
Even in the informal sector, refugees faced ‘invisible’ barriers erected by local people. Initially, the host community’s generosity to displaced Liberians played an important role in helping refugees to survive during the emergency phase. In later years, however, many Ghanaians started seeing Liberians as their competitors as the refugee presence became protracted (Agblorti 2011: 7). In local markets around the camp, Liberian refugees were not allowed to trade without paying so-called entry fees to Ghanaian market leaders. Even if refugees managed to pay these entrance fees, the xenophobic attitude of locals often limited refugees’ income-generating activities in these markets. For example, Ghanaians did not buy goods from refugees if they found that they were Liberians, even though they were selling the same items as local traders (also see Hardgrove 2009: 486). There was a general perception among Ghanaians that Liberian refugees were better off than local people in neighbouring areas because of refugee businesses in the camp (Porter et al. 2008: 245). This perception had given rise to reluctance among locals to purchase from Liberian traders.
Given these formal and informal restrictions on their livelihoods, the economic activities undertaken by Liberian refugees were inevitably confined to inside and around Buduburam camp. This also meant that the customers of refugees’ businesses were camp residents and a small number of nearby villagers.
As the period of asylum extended to nearly two decades, the refugees in Buduburam were treated as ‘guests who stayed too long’ by the host government and UNHCR. Apparently, when the main fieldwork of this book started in 2008, the occupants of Buduburam camp were already entering the final phase of their formal refugee life; UNHCR was closing off support for them and the host government was requesting their return to Liberia. Several years after Dick’s insightful work in 2002, Porter et al. (2008: 236) questioned whether refugee self-reliance in Buduburam was still viable given the livelihood constraints and the lack of humanitarian assistance.
In the face of these unfavourable conditions, were all of the 18,000 refugees still able to achieve the self-reliant status claimed for them by UNHCR? Who failed and who managed, and at what cost? Drawing upon the empirical evidence, the following chapters