Refugee Impacts on Turkana Hosts : A Social Impact Analysis for Kakuma Town and Refugee Camp, Turkana County, Kenya
In June 2015, the World Bank in partnership with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the University of Notre Dame, conducted an economic and social impact analysis of refugees on hosts in Turkana County, Northwestern Kenya, oc...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/359161482490953624/Refugee-impacts-on-Turkana-hosts-a-social-impact-analysis-for-Kakuma-town-and-refugee-camp-Turkana-County-Kenya http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25863 |
| Summary: | In June 2015, the World Bank in
partnership with United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) and the University of Notre Dame, conducted
an economic and social impact analysis of refugees on hosts
in Turkana County, Northwestern Kenya, occupied by the
Turkana community (pop. 1.2 million) and Kakuma Refugee Camp
(pop. 200,000). Renowned for their herding abilities in the
harsh arid landscape of Turkana County, the Turkana host
community has been systematically marginalized from
mainstream development programs under both colonial and
post-colonial governments, and are among the most
impoverished groups in Sub‐Saharan Africa. The goal was to
measure the economic and social impact of the refugees on
the Turkana community. The study finds that while the
Turkana overall continue to show extremely low indicators of
socio‐economic and physical‐emotional well‐being, there is a
net positive impact on the local Turkana communities of
Kakuma who engage with the refugees in Kakuma. These impacts
are seen in greater access to: (1) cash, credit, and
consumption through exchange of goods, labor, and services;
(2) health and educational facilities established for the
refugees; and (3) nutritional security measured through
biological indicators such as sum of skinfolds and body mass
index. The results also suggest that the Turkana host
community at Kakuma has developed a complex
counter‐narrative of refugees as good and beneficial in
opposition and mitigation to the meta‐narrative of refugee
as violent economic burdens. |
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