Radio Miraya
2766: MBS. World Refugee Day: Durable Solutions
Yesterday we celebrated the international refugees days, where we recognized the experiences and challenges that have been tracing by the refugees across the globe, and especially in South Sudan, where South Sudan is hosting more than 400,000 refugees, mostly from Sudan, DRC and the rest of the country, including Lithuania. The European Union has been a major partner in supporting refugees and internally displaced and in South Sudan. The international organization for Migration IOM also has been working closely with the government of South Sudan, humanitarian partners and local communities to provide the life-saving assistance to those affected by the conflict and displacements. As the world, Mark, the World Refugees Day yesterday, the 20th of June, 2024, we will be discussing this morning, this significant of these days, and the durable solution regarding two issues. And we also joined now this morning with the studio right back for the ALU program manager in South Sudan, Debora Connelly. Good morning, Debora. I hope that's pronounced your name well. Good morning, Abraham. Thank you, yes. And also, my second guest is Kaki Abdenevi, program manager at IOM. Welcome. Good morning, bro. Yes. If we are starting this, can you tell us what made this day very special, as if we can have these days, in contact of South Sudan? Yes, yes. Thank you. First of all, let me thank Radio for hosting us. And this is the last episode of a series of radio shows that were hosted for World Refugee Day, and also part of a bigger program of events that also saw the presence of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. So I think that also shows how this day is important for South Sudan. And the World Refugee Day, which, as you mentioned, was celebrated yesterday, the 20th of June, gives us a chance to highlight and honor the resilience and the strength of refugees and all people forced to flee their homes. In South Sudan, the displacement situation is quite complex. As you mentioned, there are many refugees. In South Sudan, there are many South Sudanese refugees hosted mostly in neighboring countries, like Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia. There are also many IDPs, internally displaced persons. And the war in Sudan is putting further strain on this, and so far, slightly more than one year, since the war started already 700,000 people across the border from Sudan to South Sudan. They are refugees, so they are not only Sudanese people, but also South Sudanese who come back and try to rebuild their life here. And this 700,000 is a quite significant number for a country of around 12 million people. South Sudan is maintaining an open-door policy, which is a very commendable choice. And the EU, through these partners, not a UNHCR and a UM, as well as other development partners are here to support and to really help improve the lives of displaced persons, as well as their host communities. Yes, talking of us, the durable solutions. In contacts of South Sudan, what does that mean? Because looking for a durable solutions for refugees and returnists, as well as you mentioned, what does that mean? We will jump for this question. For the definition, normally, we speak about the solutions to go for either integration, resettlement, or returns. When we speak about the current situation in South Sudan, we have talked about complex situations as well. We do have thousands of people, like they are displaced in the country, which is like they need a special attempt, like support as well, either for which in this case will be eligible either for integration or return to their area of origin. Well, for refugees, it's a bit of a different definition. Because most of them, they are fleeing, and they are seeking safe-based or safe environment, where they can take shelter or safety away from the crisis having to get home, which normally will be a return to their homeland, or resettlement, or local integration. The current situation in South Sudan, like as we all were a bit tough, hard, like for both the either of the IDBs or refugees, the economic situation is making it even more difficult, especially with the current situation in the country. Like refugees or even IDB have to make a tough choice of how they will survive and how they will even integrate in the country. So far, at least compared to other countries, like most refugees in the country here, they are trying to integrate and engage with staying in the country, like maintain themselves in the country, through identifying different livelihood opportunities. And also thanks for donors like such EU and other donors, and the generous support, and how to address a lot of issues to support their integration or even support the host community in the country. I do, maybe saying that I would like to give a special thanks to the EU, because during the moment the crisis of Sudan had been done, all the refugees and refugees jumped, started coming back. One of the first response we received was support, we received was from the EU, like seeking to support all the refugees and refugees coming and finding a way to support the economy as well of South Sudan. Yes, and what as you mentioned earlier that the South Sudan has already opened hands to welcome everybody, I mean, especially the refugees coming from never in countries, including Sudan. How do you, EU, together with IOM, how do you make these durable solutions for refugees to settle? Yes, so from the European Union we work with a number of partners, UNHR and the U.M. are very much at the forefront. And what we try to do to improve the, again, the lives of refugees, refugees, refugees, but also host communities, it's also very important to be very inclusive and to factor in host communities at the center of our programs. And what we do is combine through various programs, humanitarian aid, so this is really life-saving support, which is essential in the first phase when people arrive, with development funding, which is a longer-term oriented type of interventions, and peace-building social cohesion interventions. So this really tries to integrate different approaches and, let's say, different interventions to go a bit over the short term and really provide more sustainable and, again, durable patterns for displaced persons. This includes providing a variety of basic services to displaced persons and to those communities at the same time, providing livelihood opportunities, income-generating activities, which, again, tend to go beyond the short term, also build government capacity on a number of areas, including documentation, registration, and provision of services. And at the same time, health community dialogues, peace dialogues, so to ensure that there is such a cohesion and peaceful coexistence. And of course, the needs and the situations of displaced persons are very specific and very unique. So considerations of gender, but also of age, of health status, of composition of the household are always taken very much into account. And human rights is another area we remain streaming all our programs, and another one is also responsiveness to climate change. So, for instance, the livelihood activities tend to be climate smart, so there is a consideration of these global issues. And this is very much aligned with the EU's development framework on force displacement, which combines humanitarian aid and development. And we have this communication that is a bit of our guiding framework that is called lives in dignity from independence to self-reliance. So it really gives the idea, it really puts at the center the idea of building resilience of communities. So it's also an approach that looks at a community as a whole and really tries to make communities stronger and enable them to welcome and to integrate displaced persons. Yes, there may be the same things as both of you will be answering this. Sometime when you're working with this such situation where people are fleeing war with nothing in their hands, looking for a new life, getting things very, it's not an easy task. What are some challenges that you're facing in addressing these terrificist problems? I don't want to say like at least just we, at least like we are like here just mostly supporting the community or like be with fleeing, which is the other one actually facing the challenges, most of the challenges, especially with the current situation of the communities also done. They are facing massive challenges that are related for access to services, livelihood, remain another obstacle for most of them, movement around the country. I do not say movements around the country because of their road and the situation and how they can move or move from one location to another location to become a very difficult situation as well. For us, we try to support, which is for us as a challenge as well, especially when we are trying to move assistance or support the refugees or the host community. Currently we are supporting our best or through support for the donors to provide transportation or at least to make it easier for refugees or being fleeing the war to move around or moving from a location to another location. As Debra mentioned, we provide like an interim assistant and all this, but still moving around like delivering the service is very difficult and very challenging in the country here. Yeah, Debra, can you share also the same because you're one of the main partners supporting refugees as Gaki has already mentioned. Do you have certain challenges that this hinder you to support or to deliver support to the refugees in terms of using this support by IOM and the other partners? Yeah, thank you. I think the situation itself is quite complex. There are different aspects of this crisis and different contextual factors who make it, who can make it more complicated. For instance, I'm thinking about instances of local conflict or also extreme weather or climate events who can really make it more difficult, technically more risky and more expensive to reach people in need. So these are, I would say, when we implement or when our partners implement on the ground, these are factors that we tend to factor in but that can make the response more complex. Of course, the needs are very significant. These are people who basically left everything behind. So their needs are quite broad and we are really trying to provide a comprehensive package of services, of income generating activities, of social cohesion, but we also realize that the needs are very significant and there is still a lot that needs to be done. Yeah, in terms of this getting the international support and the national community, what do you think the world could be done by international community in lines of supporting reintegrations, the settlement and all this process? Yeah, I think a very promising approach that we see in action here in South Sudan is ARIA-based programs and in general ARIA-based approaches. So this is a way of programming that really puts communities at the center and local authorities at the center and tries to somehow go beyond a strict distinction among sectors and really provide integrated programs based on the need of the specific area or the specific community. And this is also an operationalization of what we call HDP nexus or triple nexus so that it's the combination of humanitarian support, development support and peace building. So this seems to be a promising approach that can really respond to the specific need of areas and again putting community at the center and building on and working under the leadership of local authorities. So I think this is a quite promising approach. We are seeing it quite a lot in in a Pernile and in Malachal and yeah, that's something we are supporting through our partners and we believe it's a good approach. We hope for the best. Okay, coming to the host community sometimes, it's going to be quite challenging. I mean sharing the resources a little bit, the small resource that's happening. How do you maintain this? Sometimes they can get into misunderstanding. So how do you maintain the host community that will come in refugees and sharing these small resources? Exactly, like we mentioned it looks the needs in South Sudan, in general it's very high and especially in the remote areas where most refugees are hosted. We do like through our operation or programming, we do engage with the host community. Like when we do targeting for support, like we do usually equally for all the community, for most vulnerable, more people need even the programming like most they targeted for refugees, but we still include host community and we include IDBs as well. If there's an IDBs from other locations, they are based in this area. So we try as much as we can to make it inclusive as well, discuss to the community that like the other one becomes a burden with especially if there's a wealth of refugees or IDBs to reintegrate within the community who need to be accepted. So as much as we can, we are trying to make sure that like it's built in a coherence or like in a matter of acceptance. Yes, the EU program manager Debora, thank you for coming to live breakfast this morning. Thank you very much. Gaki, thank you also for coming.