Question

Refugees in developing countries have a detrimental impact on the environment and social welfare such as essential social services and the level of crime of the host communities. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Answer 1

The highest refugee concentrations are in some of the poorest countries in the world. A large number of such movements are into Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The presence of refugees compounds the already prevailing economic, environmental, social and, at times, political difficulties in these countries. Often such countries are confronted by a combination of all four of these factors. Nearly always their impact is substantial. Moreover, in many refugee situations, problems are aggravated when refugees are a substantial proportion of the local, if not national population. For example, in Nepal, in the district of Jhapa, 90,000 refugees represent over 13 per cent of the local population; in Ngara, in the United Republic of Tanzania, the recent refugee influxes meant that the local population was outnumbered by a ratio of approximately 4: 1; i.e. there were some 700,000 refugees among a local population of 186,000. In Malawi, a refugee influx which began in 1986, had led, by 1993, to one million Mozambican refugees in the country, some 10 per cent of the national population. The presence of refugees, and demands on the already severely strained economy, services and infrastructure add to the extreme hardship affecting the local populations. In many instances, refugees become an added impediment to, or risk jeopardizing, the development efforts of the host country. Their negative aspects may be felt long after a refugee problem is solved; for example, the damage to environment is a process and does not end with the repatriation of refugees. While the international emergency aid in response to such an emergency does have some positive effects on the host society, this hardly compensates for the negative consequences of such large concentrations of refugees.

. Impact on Local Ecology and Infrastructure

Modifications of eco-systems can be controlled or uncontrolled. If a modification of one or more factors is carried out to serve a special goal, such as land clearance for crop cultivation or land levelling for irrigation, and if this modification is based on sound planning, taking into account the impact on environmental conditions, the newly established eco-system is not necessarily inferior to the old one. The development of the new system can, in this instance, be called a controlled development. But, if a sudden and unplanned change takes place, it may lead to a serious, uncontrolled imbalance with an impact on the whole eco-system, both in the directly affected area and beyond. The mass movement of refugees is an example of a situation where the impact on the ecology is not fully under control, because the emergency character of the movement normally does not allow for early and proper planning of the new habitat.

The addition of a sizable group of refugees to an existing population creates a sudden and massive demand for scarce natural resources such as land, fuel, water, food and shelter materials, with long-term implications on their sustainable re-generation. Other longer term problems relate to erosion, decreased soil fertility and landslides. Problems related to rural wood consumption are invariably serious. Estimates of rural wood consumption in Somalia indicate that the wood requirement for a family of five, for hut construction, is 2.4 m per head per year for cooking. Assuming that the wood consumption of refugees would be modest, say half the normal consumption, a camp of four thousand refugees would consume approximately 10,000m of wood a year for cooking. The standard volume of wood in the savanna-type woodlands of Somalia was estimated to be about 50 m per hectare, which means that the average refugee camp would deplete 600 hectares land in the first year of its establishment and 400 hectares for every year thereafter. In and around refugee camps, entire settlements have been completely cleared of all trees and shrubs. Inhabitants of 3-4 years old camps had to walk for several hours to find trees and shrubs to cut.

Supplementary food gathering through hunting, foraging and collecting local food stocks adds to the pressure on the environment. Additionally, human waste disposal can contaminate local ground water and cause the spread of disease. Roads in host areas undergo heavy deterioration from increased use to deliver food supplies and other commodities, while public services, such as health, education and water facilities, are also heavily impacted.

Examples of the devastating impact of large refugee populations on the eco-systems and on the infra-structure of a host countries can be found in the experiences of the Islamic Republics of Iran and Pakistan in hosting Afghan refugees. For instance, in Pakistan, over two million refugees contributed to accelerated wear and tear of roads and canals, and a significant increase in the consumption of fuel and fodder resources. Wood resources were further depleted as tented camps were converted into villages and the need for roofing timber put even more pressure on woodland resources. Many families brought livestock which grazed near camps, adding to the perennial problems of over-grazing and the consequential acceleration in soil erosion. Fuel and fodder removal also posed a serious threat to the capacity of the environment to renew its groundwater resources.

The Social Impact

If refugees are from the same cultural and linguistic group as the local population, there is often identification with and sympathy for their situation. There are many examples of refugees being given shelter in local people’s houses. Over 400,000 refugees have been housed with family or friends in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Different ethnicity, however, can be a basis for problems. Traditional animosities may exist between groups. Even if it is not the case, failures in communication and understanding caused by language and/or culture can form serious barriers. In some cases, the presence of one (ethnic) group of refugees may affect ethnic balances within the local population and exacerbate conflicts.There are commonly complaints that refugees have added to security problems in general and crime rates, theft, murder etc., in particular. Concomitantly, other social problems such as prostitution and alcoholism are also claimed to rise in the refugee areas. On the one hand, enforced idleness and poverty within a refugee camp may cause an escalation of such tendencies, particularly if there are groups of young men who are not meaningfully occupied. On the other hand, refugees, as an “out” group, can be blamed for all untoward activities. Incidence of crime may rise no more than would be expected in a population group of the new size, but in a remote and previously quiet area, this would not go unnoticed. If the area has become a hub of economic activity, as the presence of large scale aid would indicate, it may have attracted a group of people who will profit from the current situation and may not be constrained by the social and legal safeguards of the region. In a border area, this could include cross border problems.

A common source of discontent for a local population, especially one that is poor, is to see refugees receiving services or entitlements which are not available to them. Refugees may have access to services such as education and health while local people do not, although UNHCR, as a matter of principle, strives to promote an integrated approach to human services which respect the local policies. For example, a review of the impact of refugee health services in eastern Kivu, Zaire, identified several problems, not the least of which was a failure of agencies to consult and coordinate with local health authorities. The provision of free health services for refugees undermined the local cost recovery approach. Higher salaries offered by NGOs encouraged staff to leave local clinics. Ironically, some of these staff were former refugees who had contributed to the development of those very services.

On the other hand, refugees can bring assets to the hosting area. Refugees indeed bring skills and knowledge with them that can be utilized to the benefit of local people. These skills vary, but do often include those of the more educated group, such as health professionals and teachers, who, even in limited numbers, can make a significant contribution in remote areas. An additional range of skills that can be brought by refugees may include an enterprise culture which can stimulate the local economy or offer innovative agricultural techniques previously unknown to the host areas. For example, refugees have introduced swamp land rice in Guinea, making use of previously vacant land and introducing new agricultural techniques. Refugees in Nepal have introduced new techniques of cultivating cardamom, an important cash crop in the south-east of the country.