Refugees in the East African country now have rights to jobs, schooling and bank accounts.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has hailed Ethiopia’s adoption of a new law that allows refugees a range of rights, including freedom of movement and access to the labour market.
The UN high commissioner Filippo Grandi made the remark on February 13th during talks with President Sahle-Work Zewde of Ethiopia, reported Journal du Cameroun.
UNHCR is to strengthen partnerships with Ethiopia in response to forced displacement and for increased investment in refugee-hosting areas, he said. President Sahle-Work on her part underscored that the Ethiopian government is working closely with development partners like UNHCR to provide jobs for refugees and help them feel at home.
Ethiopia is hosting close to 1m refugees, mainly from neighbouring countries Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.
On his four-day visit to Ethiopia, Grandi spent two days in Melkadida, a region bordering Somalia, which hosts over 200,000 refugees. He saw first-hand how a US$100m investment by the IKEA Foundation over the last seven years has transformed the semi-arid, isolated area into a thriving community.
Grandi visited projects funded by the Foundation, including an irrigation scheme where 1,000 hectares of previously barren land are now lush farms that enable refugees grow crops such as watermelon, tomatoes and corn up to three times a year.
He also visited markets supported by microfinance and other economic empowerment programmes, where refugees and the local community buy and sell their crops. The programme has been so successful that some of the crops are being exported to other regions in the country.
People displaced by drought in Somalia arrive at the Dolo Ado camp in neighbouring Ethiopia and queue to be registered by aid agencies. Image: CC 2011
“What has developed here is a unique approach to self-reliance of refugees where the government of Ethiopia has been extremely open to new approaches,” said Grandi. “The host communities and refugees have also been remarkably open to work together in harmony. This is something we don’t normally see.”
Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), told African leaders at the recent African Union (AU) summit that the West has much to learn from them about the treatment of refugees, Nigeria’s Daily Trust reported.
Speaking during the opening day of the summit held in Addis Ababa, he said the continent had kept borders open to millions of displaced people despite its limited resources.
Africa hosts more than a quarter of the world’s refugees and internally displaced – a total of more than 20m people. Their plight was high on the summit’s agenda, along with the AU’s attempts to build a continent-wide free trade zone.
The AU has made 2019 the Year of Refugees, Returnees, and Internally Displaced Persons.
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