Dar es Salaam / TANZANIA, 18 April 2011 (VoM) – For more than 40 years now, asylum seekers from a swathe of countries across the breadth of East and Central Africa have found a home in Tanzania. And now, 35,000 refugee families stand to benefit from the country’s legacy of compassion.
16 out of a sum total of 26 regions across Tanzania are preparing themselves for a massive refugee absorption program. The program, outlined in a report entitled ‘National Strategy for Community Integration Programme 2011 – 2014’ is expected to see 35,000 refugee families of Burundian ancestry getting naturalised as Tanzanian citizens.
This project, which is intended to last for three years (2010, 2011, 2012) and is being implemented by the Government of Tanzania in close collaboration with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), is pegged to a budget of $ 144 million.
Understanding Tanzania’s citizenship law
The citizenship law of Tanzania guides the Government as it makes decisions on matters related to citizenship and nationality.
According to this law, there are three ways to obtain Tanzanian citizenship: by birth, by descent or by naturalization. Naturalization is the process by which a government grants citizenship to an individual who was not a national of the said government’s country at birth.
The 35,000 refugee families are going to obtain Tanzanian nationality by naturalization.
These families have lived in three settlement areas since the mid and late 1970s: the Ulyankulu settlement area in the Tabora region, and the Mishamo and Katumba settlement areas in the Rukwa region.
The strategic objective of this project is to close these three settlement areas and to facilitate the absorption of the refugees across 16 regions in Tanzania. (These 16 regions encompass 50 districts.)
The Protracted Refugee Situation in Tanzania
According the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), a Protracted Refugee Situation (PRS) is one with seemingly no end or solution in which more than 25,000 people flee their home country, settle in another country, and stay in an organized camp for over five years. In many cases, these are the refugees that stand a slim chance of being accepted elsewhere because they are, for example, the old, the disabled and other vulnerable segments of the society.
Tanzania has been dealing with a Protracted Refugee Situation since 1972 when the first lot of 160,000 Burundian refugees arrived on its soil. That number is believed to have increased to 220,000 Burundian refugees by 2007. The Government of Tanzania welcomed the refugees and granted them land in three settlement areas.
Weighing the pros and cons of the Government’s decision
This community of refugees have lived in peaceful co-existence with their host communities since the 1970s. Yet as much as there are many positive aspects of this project, there are also some bottlenecks that the Government should brace itself for.
Perhaps the most crucial benefit of the project is that the refugees will now have a place to call home. No longer a ‘stateless community’ with a scarred past and an uncertain future, these refugees now have their own safe space – a place where they can enjoy their full freedoms, can vote, can sustain their livelihoods and can watch their children grow up with equal access to all the opportunities that the hosting country provides to its citizens. In essence, they have just been handed a second lease on life.
Another positive aspect is the refugees’ likely contribution to Tanzania’s national economy. The citizenship law of Tanzania dictates that individuals who are naturalised must first prove that in the past they have contributed to the advancement of the national economy and that they have the capacity to continue in this trend. If the Government vetted the refugees to determine their ability to contribute to the country’s economy, then chances are that granted the full freedoms as the natives of Tanzanians, the refugees are bound to be able to contribute more than their share towards to the development of the nation. It is important to note that the three settlement areas that the Government granted the Burundian refugees were not refugee camps. In fact, throughout their stay, the Government has treated the refugees like guests. As such, they developed over the years and had gained economic self-sufficiency.
The greatest challenge that the Government of Tanzania is bound to face is dealing with the tension may arise between the refugees and the communities that will absorb them. According to the World Bank, Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world. This is determined in relation to the number of families that survive on less than $1 a day. This situation is bound to be exacerbated by the increase in the number of people that will now join in the struggle for scarce and very valuable resources like land and already stretched social amenities like medical and health facilities and education and training institutions. To its credit, the Government has allocated some money towards not only supporting the host communities but also empowering the refugees through livelihoods support projects. Yet the challenge still remains in ensuring that the plans on paper translate to a seamless transition for both the refugees and the host communities. It would be in the Government’s best interest to target a community-focused integration program that not only addresses the needs of the refugees but also the specific needs of the hosting communities.
Furthermore, the Government shall need to devise a strategy that increases the likelihood that the life skills and livelihood training that the refugees receive will translate to viable economic sources of livelihood. Even though a number of these refugees are reported to be economically self-sufficient; there are still a few of them that require a certain degree of assistance before they can realize full economic self-sufficiency. Without the means to support themselves and their families, the refugees could easily become victims of human trafficking, or could be lured into vices like prostitution and petty theft, in an effort to make ends meet.
Finally, the Government should be keen to avoid repeating the mistakes of past refugee absorption programs that have not been successful. Dear Government of Tanzania, remember: Attention to detail! Let’s say you would like to move them to land where they can grow their crops. Have you investigated to see that the land can produce crops? Have you checked to see whether the land you are moving them is sufficient enough to house them in their number, without cases of over-crowding? Will they have ample interaction with their host communities, as opposed to being secluded? Is running water available? Is the region you are planning to move them to plagued with diseases and disease-carrying vectors? Such are the detailed questions that the Government of Tanzania must subject itself to.
Lesson to be learned
Every new project, no matter how similar to others, presents its own set of unique lessons. These lessons are usually observed by analyzing the medium- and long-term impact of the project. As such, in all fairness, what there is to learn from this massive naturalization project is yet to be assessed.
Yet this project, even at this nascent stage, before any medium- or long-term assessment, draws attention to something that is very important.
And this is it: Where there is a will, there is a way. Against all odds, Tanzania – reputed by the World Bank to be one of the poorest countries in the world – has taken upon itself the responsibility of absorbing 35,000 refugee families.
What would happen if all the displaced communities in the world could get a place that they could call home?
Where there is a will, there is a way.
END//
Region: Africa, Eastern Africa, Tanzania
Theme(s): Migration, Refugees, Development, Newly Naturalized Tanzanians (NNT)
The author is a humanitarian analyst and she writes on migration. Email her on: msanyu@yahoo.com
