14 Apr Kenya travel dates announced

The plane tickets are booked! My colleague Hubert Hayaud (who will be the photographer for this trip) and I will be in Kenya from May 2-17 to continue reporting for #RefugeeEconomics. We will be spending time in Nairobi and particularly in the Eastleigh neighbourhood, and we’ll head to the Kakuma refugee camp for a couple of days.

Why Kenya?

As of January 2016, Kenya is hosting close to 600,000 refugees from Somalia, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Sudan, DRC and more. Kenya’s policy regarding refugees is stricter than Uganda’s. Refugees are officially required to remain in camps in order to receive assistance – think countless rows of white UNHCR tents, quite unlike Uganda’s settlements. However many refugees have chosen to settle in cities in order to improve their living conditions. As of February 2016, the number of urban refugees stands at 62,000, but I suspect this number to be higher, as many refugees do not go through the formal registering process through UNHCR.

Several studies have shown that refugee camps in Kenya, notably the biggest camps of Dadaab and Kakuma, do have a positive economic impact on the host population, because of the trading and employment opportunities they generate. The Oxford Humanitarian Innovation Project is currently doing research on Kakuma to look at the economic activity generated by refugees in the camp.

Numerous studies have also demonstrated the crucial role that Eastleigh, a neighbourhood in Nairobi mostly populated by Somali migrants, Somali refugees and Somali Kenyans (a part of Kenya is populated by ethnic Somalis), is playing in the country’s economy. Eastleigh is at the centre of a vast trading network between East Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Arabic peninsula and beyond. Somali-run businesses in Eastleigh also directly contribute to rebuilding Somalia’s economy through remittances and investments.

We look forward to meeting with refugees and other displaced persons, as well as refugee groups, businesses and NGOs.