The International Community and Refugees in Tanzania and Kenya

Abstract

Besides the host governments and local communities examined in the last two chapters, the international humanitarian community plays a major role in determining the lives and fate of refugees. This is the subject of this chapter. The focus will be on the UNHCR, WFP, and other intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), and NGOs that worked in conjunction with the UNHCR in Kenya and Tanzania. The UNHCR has the international mandate to assist and protect refugees throughout the world and it carries out these functions by contracting work to various INGOs and NGOs. The WFP is the primary international agency responsible for delivering food to refugees, which is essential to their survival. The mandate to protect and assist refugees appears to be simple on the surface— the international community has a moral responsibility to save refugees’ lives (Loescher 2001). Refugees who flee their homelands under very stressful conditions arrive in the country of asylum often sick, malnourished, and wounded from war and conflict. They are in need of immediate assistance that includes shelter, food, clean water, medicine, and clothes and they are often in need of protection from various segments of the refugee-hosting populations and from other refugees. Once the host government invites these agencies to work with refugees, they are free to carry out their duties and because these are humanitarian entities, personnel who are employed in these organizations are expected not to violate refugees’ human rights.