South Sudan: The dilemma between responding to human needs and strengthening local capacity

The work we do at Refugees International brings us to witness protracted humanitarian situations where the forcibly displaced struggle to survive or to restart their lives when they can finally return home. We visit and interview many individuals trying to alleviate suffering, often working in difficult environments and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the needs they are supposed to respond to. The context in which they operate is very complex and it is not always easy to make the right policy decision.

During our mission to south Sudan, which took place in February 2008, we saw how the longer-term focus on building up the capacity of a new government can clash with the urgent immediate need to help displaced individuals.

In October 2007, when conflict broke out at the disputed border between north and south Sudan, nearly 900 households were forced from their homes. An aid agency in the region witnessed these newly-displaced people living without access to food or water. These people needed food distributed to them.

In south Sudan, where peace has been generally restored since early 2005 following the signature of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, everyone agrees that it is time for the recently-born Government of Southern Sudan to take greater responsibility and cater for the basic needs of its people.

Food was available for the people displaced by the October 2007 border conflict, but it did not get distributed for four months as local government authorities failed to provide the transportation and fuel they had promised. While waiting for the authorities to fulfill their promises, malnutrition rates in the area were becoming worrying.

Situations like these involve hard decisions for humanitarian agencies. It is important to build the capacity of the Government of Southern Sudan to provide for the basic needs of its people. But, while these policy decisions are being discussed, thousands of people can remain without food, water and other essential items. In this particular situation, Refugees International believed that the needs of the displaced population should take priority, and after attending an information-sharing meeting among humanitarian actors and government representatives, we expressed our concern about the issue.

A few days later we received confirmation that food distribution was taking place to the roughly 13,600 people in need. It was being led by international actors instead of the local government authorities. Such decisions are not easy, but we think that the international agencies took the right decision in this case.

--Melanie Teff and Andrea Lari

President’s Corner: Food For Oil is Hurting the Poor

Today’s Financial Times reports that the UN’s World Food Program is “poised to ration food aid as prices soar.”

There are many implications to this development, but one that strikes me is that the world’s 35 million refugees and other displaced people, many of whom don’t have cars or even access to electricity, are beginning to pay the price of oil in the $100 a barrel range.

Food prices are rising across the world, in part because the U.S. is using increasing amounts of corn and other crops to make bio-fuels, such as ethanol, to supplement high-priced gasoline supplies. For years the U.S. has grown more food than it consumed, generating huge surpluses of corn, soybeans and wheat. Some of this food was used to help feed refugees and disaster victims around the world. But the decision to use corn to fuel SUV’s in the U.S. threatens to hurt the stomachs of displaced people in Darfur and elsewhere.

Rising food prices are becoming a problem around the world, not just in refugee camps. In Mexico, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, and India, for example, poor and middle class food buyers are all struggling with higher prices. Egypt and Pakistan have recently expanded or re-installed food rationing systems. In many developing countries poor people are moving to two from three meals a day. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that poor countries will pay 35% more for cereal imports in the year ending next June 30, 2008, than the previous year, even though food purchases will fall by 2%.

“We are seeing a new face of hunger in which people are being priced out of the food market,” Josette Sheeran, the head of the WFP told the FT. “Our ability to reach people is going down just as the needs go up,” she said.

Of course, the WFP hopes that its threat to ration food distributions will prompt more monetary support from its donors. However, higher food prices are driving up the WFP’s budget by several million dollars a week, meaning that it is constantly playing catch up.

No country is immune from higher food prices. Food inflation is rising in the U.S. as well. Last year U.S. food prices rose by 4%, the fastest rate since 1990, and prices are expected to rise by as much this year. In the U.S., as elsewhere, the poor will feel the higher food prices first.

The food for oil exchange is bound to continue. The U.S. Air Force has flown a B-52 bomber on biofuel, and on Sunday, Virgin Atlantic flew a Boeing 747 from London to Amsterdam powered in part by mixture of coconut and babassu oil.

Starving poor people to keep jumbo jets in the air and cars on the road is not progress. Our appetite for transportation should not cut rations in refugee camps or lead to new bread rationing in Egypt. There are many reasons to look for ways to contain fuel price increases through conservation. Now there is a new one: to help maintain progress against starvation in the developing world.

--Ken Bacon

Iraqi Refugees: Two Years After Samarra

At 6:56 am local time, two years ago today, the golden dome of the Al Askari Mosque in Samarra was destroyed. In the days that followed, hundreds of people were killed in retaliatory violence and political leaders held emergency meetings to help contain the crisis. The American ambassador in Iraq at the time, Zalmay Khalilzad, said “everything that needs to be done must be done to avoid a civil war.” In the weeks and months that followed, millions of people were forced from their homes, victims of the sectarian violence that was now ravaging the country in full force. At one point, 60,000 Iraqis were crossing into Syria each month. Today, the UN reports that there are over 2 million Iraqi refugees in neighboring host countries and over 2 million Iraqis displaced within Iraq.

In the aftermath of the Samarra bombing, millions of people fled their homes because they feared for their lives and the lives of their families. In August 2006, Ali was kidnapped and detained near Fallujah by a militant group because he was a Shi’ite. After two months in captivity, the Iraqi National Guard raided the compound and freed Ali to return to his family. But his story is only one of many.

Today, as Refugees International has regularly documented, these people have either found shelter elsewhere in Iraq or in one of its neighboring countries, but they face enormous challenges in finding housing, obtaining food, accessing health care or sending their children to school. Some are returning home, not because they feel that it is now safer in Iraq, but simply because they can no longer afford to live in cities like Damascus and Amman where the cost of living is skyrocketing.

The situation for these refugees and the countries who host them is far from easy. Jordan estimates that the cost of sheltering between 500,000 and 750,000 Iraqi refugees for the past three years is more than $2 billion. Most of the refugees live in urban environments, using the social services that are either free or heavily subsidized by host governments. Ron Redmond from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) recently lamented that, “the Syrian and Jordanian] governments are really struggling to cope with the huge number of people in these cities.” The U.S. recently gave about $125 million to help support relief efforts by UNHCR, but an ongoing commitment is necessary. And the US must work with the Government of Iraq to increase its capacity to respond to the needs of its people.

Although the crisis is far from over, there are signs of progress. Last week, (UNHCR announced the appointment of a representative in Baghdad who would help prepare for the return of refugees. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, recently told Reuters that, "We want to support the Iraqi government to find solutions to these problems to allow for their return… when security allows… to be successful and sustainable." Let’s hope the international community agrees.

AFRICOM: What President Bush Omitted to Say in Ghana

After his meeting with President John Kufuor of Ghana on February 19th, President Bush reiterated to a press gathering that his administration’s strategy is "to support African leaders to deal with Africa’s problems." Responding to speculation about sending more U.S. troops to Africa to secure U.S. interests, he added that the role of the new U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is to provide military assistance – like peacekeeping training – to African nations, so that they will be more capable of dealing with African conflicts.

Before leaving for Africa, on February 14th, President Bush told the BBC’s Matt Frei that he had a "firm, heartfelt commitment to the continent of Africa." However, he tempered his warm, fuzzy feelings for the continent and its people with a pointed reference to his Global War on Terrorism. After reminding Frei that in Africa "[w]e have people who are suffering from disease and hunger and hopelessness," the President added that "the only way a radical can recruit is to find somebody who's hopeless."

President Bush omitted this perspective in Accra – and to explain that AFRICOM reflects the centrality of the Global War on Terror to twenty-first century U.S. foreign policy – particularly the belief that failed states are breeding grounds for terrorist organizations and radical regimes.

While emphasis on the Global War On Terror has been a big part of ‘marketing’ AFRICOM to domestic constituencies, neither President Bush nor any official in his administration will share such perspectives with African counterparts. Africans, it seems, are presumed not to read Western media or to log onto U.S. Government websites where they will find ample evidence that the U.S. has chronically under-invested in non-military instruments for state-building. They will also see that the Department of Defense is pushing hard for a "unity of effort" that uses all U.S. government agencies and their grantees – military and civilian – as "force multipliers" in the war on terror.

The U.S. strategy for global engagement has focused increasingly on the military as its main foreign policy action arm, with significant consequences for the U.S. and the world. From 2002 to 2005, the Department of Defense’s share of U.S. official development assistance increased from 5.6 percent to 21.7 percent, while the staffing, programs, and operational capacities of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of State have steadily eroded over the past 25 years.

However, Africans most need development assistance that puts responsible governments and poor people first on the agenda, irrespective of their perceived strategic importance by the U.S. military. Importantly – also from a counter-terrorism perspective – Africans question the motives behind U.S. policy and U.S. aid. They can distinguish short-term public relations-oriented aid from long-term development approaches. Instead of "winning hearts and minds," AFRICOM may well end up fueling cynicism and anti-American sentiments on the continent.

AFRICOM is the latest example of the stark imbalance in a U.S. foreign policy toolkit that remains ill-equipped to tackle the enormous poverty and justice challenges on the continent. Millions of Africans will die of poverty and conflict related hunger and disease over the next decade. If President Bush really wants to help African leaders solve their own problems, he should be openly discussing how the U.S. can develop a more cohesive and long-term approach to African development that is built on a foundation of security and good governance. In return, African leaders should be asking the President how he thinks a new U.S. combatant command that looks at Africa through a counter-terrorism lens will really help to reduce poverty and injustice.

--Mark Malan, Peacebuilding Program Officer

Iraqi Refugees: Jordan Imposes Harsher Visa Restrictions

Earlier today, the State Department announced a contribution of more than $125 million to “help provide displaced Iraqis protection and assistance.” This new money will go towards funding the UN agencies that are currently providing food, medical care and schooling for the millions of displaced Iraqis. This is welcome news in light of the inattention and underfunding these programs have dealt with since taking on the plight of Iraqis in Syria, Jordan and those displaced within Iraq.

However, the U.S. must continue to increase its engagement on the issue of Iraqi refugees with Iraq’s neighbors as regional governments struggle to respond to the large influx of refugees.
Yesterday, the government of Jordan imposed further visa restrictions on Iraqi’s seeking to enter their country. While this decision was troubling in terms of its impact on the safety of Iraqis trying to flee violence in their country, it was not surprising. Jordan has been hosting a significant number of Iraqi refugees since 2006, placing a major burden on their economy and infrastructure.

What is disappointing however is the complete absence of leverage the United States government has with its ally Jordan regarding this decision. In the past, the US has been able to utilize diplomatic pressure and financial incentives to entice countries to undertake policies that they may otherwise be reluctant to enact. However, the continued absence of high level diplomatic and financial support for Jordan and Syria -- countries hosting the vast majority of Iraqi refugees -- leaves the administration with little ability to urge these countries to remain open to Iraqis.

Even more disheartening is the impression that the White House does not want these countries to receive Iraqis, as it undermines the rosy picture they are trying to create about the security situation inside Iraq. President Bush has made stability and security in Iraq the cornerstone of his legacy. Yet his continued reluctance to address the large scale displacement crisis threatens that very legacy. By publically acknowledging the refugee crisis and by marshalling US diplomatic engagement with Syria and Jordan to alleviate the burden on those countries, President Bush can begin to right a historic wrong. While the influx of new money from the State Department is welcome, it is also not enough. Leadership from President Bush is crucial and the funding of these UN appeals should just be the tip of the iceberg. Otherwise, the Iraqi refugee crisis will be another humanitarian catastrophe that took place ‘on his watch’.

--Jake Kurtzer

President’s Corner: Bush’s Africa Trip Calls for Action on Darfur

Last week Refugees International sent a letter to President Bush suggesting actions he could take in Liberia and Rwanda, two of the five countries he is visiting in Africa, to promote regional stability. But the biggest security challenges in Africa today are occurring in a country that Mr. Bush is not visiting—Sudan.

The news from Sudan is unremittingly bad. In Darfur, where President Bush has accused the Sudanese government of committing genocide, the killing and displacement continue. In a report this week, the Darfur Relief and Documentation Centre in Geneva said: “In a new wave of violence and destruction in Darfur, the government of Sudan and its allied Janjaweed militia, supported by heavy military equipment including Antonov bombers and helicopter gunships, attacked and destroyed a vast area in West Dafur State.”

A new joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force, called UNAMID, is deploying to Darfur, but Sudan’s government in Khartoum has repeatedly slowed and obstructed the new force. Worse, government forces attacked a UNAMID convoy last month.

In a briefing to the White House press corps on the President’s trip yesterday (Feb. 13), National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said that “this force is deploying but very slowly. And we think the sooner the force is deployed, the sooner we can create better security, a better environment for humanitarian assistance and a better context for people … politically.”

The U.S. has provided large and generous amounts of humanitarian aid to help support the more than two million people displaced during five years of fighting in Darfur. Sadly, however, despite President Bush’s concern about genocide in Darfur, the U.S. has done too little to support peacekeeping in Darfur.

Consider these facts:

• The U.S., which owns the world’s largest fleet of military helicopters, has turned a deaf ear to the UN’s calls for helicopters to support UNAMID.
• The current fiscal year 2008 budget falls $334 million short of meeting the U.S. share for funding the expanded peacekeeping force in Darfur.
• The fiscal 2009 budget that President Bush sent to Congress earlier this month asks for only $414 million of the projected U.S. commitment of $550 million for UNAMID, a shortfall of $136 million.
• The U.S. and its allies remain passive while the government of Sudan interferes with the deployment of UNAMID and continues its genocidal attacks against civilians. The U.S. and European powers, for example, have refused to enact rigid travel and financial sanctions against top Sudanese officials. As a result, Sudan’s President al Bashir, continues to travel to international meetings in Europe.

When it comes to Darfur, U.S. actions don’t match its rhetoric. The U.S. needs to take a tougher stance against genocide, and President Bush should announce his intentions while in Africa. It would be fitting for him to outline a tougher policy when he visits the memorial to the victims of the Rwanda’s 1994 genocide in Kigali on Feb. 19.

--Ken Bacon

Kenya: What Would Hempstone Think?

As the violence slowly subsides in Kenya, I’ve been wondering: What would Smith Hempstone think?

Smith Hempstone, who died in 2006, was the self-described “rogue” US Ambassador to Kenya in the early 1990s. Hempstone played an audacious public role advocating for multi-party democracy and an end to persecution of dissidents by the regime of then-President Moi. State-supported newspapers printed headlines of “Shut Up, Mr. Ambassador,” while the Kenyan opposition praised him as “the second hero of the liberation.” When he wasn’t verbalizing his disgust with rampant corruption and dictatorial rule, Hempstone could still make a point by falling asleep during a state function.

At that time, I was in high school as the daughter of another US diplomat working in Nairobi. It was a time fraught with political uncertainty, economic volatility, and great personal risk for speaking out. But overall it was an exciting and optimistic time for Kenya and democracy in Africa. It was before America’s discouraging pullout from Somalia, the horrors of Rwanda and before al-Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. Kenyans and the international community could admit to ethnic tensions within society, but they never would have conceived of the election failure and ensuing violence that recently gripped the country.

Negotiations continue between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga that may well end the violence. But I remember when both men sought to bring democratic change to Kenya. In 1992, Kenya held its first, genuine multi-party election. The incumbent president’s party narrowly won and stayed in power for two more five-year terms while the opposition organized and gained strength. I remember one night before a performance of our school play in 1994, when the audience held a moment of silence to honor the passing of Oginga Odinga, Raila Odinga’s father. Oginga Odinga had been a prominent figure in Kenya’s struggle for independence and became a key leader in the opposition movement in the 1990s. I recall President Kibaki, also an opposition leader at that time, attending a US Embassy reception, where I admired his scholarly and mild-mannered demeanor. Hempstone lived to see Kibaki elected into his first term in office in 2002, an exemplary peaceful change in government.

Kenya’s upheavals today suggest that it was too soon to conclude that a democratic culture had become ingrained. If the vote-rigging allegations are true, then Kibaki’s party has degraded the very processes that peacefully brought him to power in 2002. Odinga’s vehement intransigence has called into question his willingness to accept unfavorable results of any truly legitimate process. And the inability of both sides to calm violent inclinations within certain regions of the country suggests an indifference towards humanity unbecoming of a democracy.

While we await the results of the negotiations between the two sides, I would like to think it’s not too late for Kenya. The nation’s stability is too important for the African continent and the world at large. Moreover, the legacies of the country’s founders and activists, including those of Odinga, Kibaki, Hempstone and anyone else who believes in democracy in Africa, remain on Kenya’s side.

--Katherine Southwick is a Bernstein Fellow for Refugees International. She lived in Kenya from 1990-1996.

Southern Sudan: “They call us the ‘after peace’ people”

Yesterday we met with a group of young Sudanese people who had spent most of their lives as refugees in Uganda because of the war in their country. They recently returned home to southern Sudan after the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was reached between North and South Sudan. They had all grown up in refugee settlements in Uganda, and they talked about their appreciation of the schooling they had been able to receive because of international humanitarian assistance to the refugees in Uganda. But they emphasized the fact that life had not been easy for them as refugees. At times it was a struggle for them to get sufficient food, and – even when things seemed to be improving for them - their lives were disrupted by violence in Uganda caused by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

They had all made the decision to return to southern Sudan after the war ended because -- as one young woman said to us – “it is our motherland.” They were also hoping for training and job opportunities in Juba, the capital of southern Sudan. Studying was important to them, but they did not have the money to advance their education further in Uganda. They hoped that they would have more possibilities and a new start in their home country.

Returning home after so many years in exile proved to be more challenging than they had expected. It has been hard for them to adapt to life in a different culture, and hard for them to gain acceptance by their fellow Sudanese. As one young woman told us: “The lifestyle here is not like in Uganda. They say we are not really Sudanese and that we are cowards for running away.” One young man told us how the returning refugees are referred to negatively as the “after peace people.”

This group of young people spoke of the good fortune they all had in having been accepted into a catering skills training course run by a US-based aid agency. This was giving them opportunities to seek employment in Juba. They all hoped that they could eventually make enough money to afford to pay for further education. Despite their happiness about being in the course, their descriptions to us of their lives showed the daily challenges that they had to face.

For example, in order to arrive at the course by 7am from the distant places where they can afford to live, they must walk for hours in the dark. There is no public transport available at that hour and they face beatings and robberies by criminals on the road. The young women spoke of the harassment and threats of sexual violence they frequently received from men during these daily journeys.

These young people were still optimistic about their future in southern Sudan because of the opportunity they had been given by this course. But such desperately-needed courses are few and far between. Funding is very limited. One aid worker we spoke with noted that he had worked on projects that helped refugees return home after the end of the conflict in Sierra Leone. Although that country is only half the size of one of the ten states of southern Sudan, his budget was nearly four times his current budget for southern Sudan.

If the international community is committed to bringing a lasting peace to southern Sudan, it must show that commitment by funding vital reintegration programs of this kind. As one of the young men we spoke with yesterday said to us: “This course is giving me a chance. We need more courses like this for other young people in Juba. That would help reduce crime and make Juba a better place to live for everybody.”

--Melanie Teff

Advocates Andrea Lari and Melanie Teff are currently in south Sudan assessing the progress of returnees to the region.

President’s Corner: Defending Iraqi Refugees in Egypt

I spent the afternoon with a whirlwind working to protect Iraqi refugees in Egypt.

Barbara Harrell-Bond, a tireless worker for refugee rights, founded the Refugee Study Centre at Oxford University and the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Program at the American University in Cairo.

Her apartment in Cairo’s Garden District, just a few blocks from the Nile River, is a combination residence, office, strategy center and way station for refugees of all nationalities. It is also a required stop for all refugee advocates visiting Cairo.

When I arrived I was greeted by Barbara, edgy on the 10th day of an effort to give up smoking, and about a dozen other people. These included:

• Two Iraqi refugees, both former translators for the U.S., who fled Baghdad to save their lives and are now trying to resettle in the U.S

• A young American film maker working with Barbara to chronicle the plight of Iraqi refugees in Cairo

• Three young women, two from the U.S. and one from Italy, developing a program to educate the press and the Egyptian public about the poor conditions most of Egypt’s estimated 130,000 Iraqi refugees endure

• A young lawyer focusing on ways to speed the resettlement of Iraqis to the U.S.

• The owner of a local art gallery who supports Barbara’s work

• Two AUC students working with Barbara to connect Egyptian civil society organizations to Iraqi refugees

• A young woman working to convince the Arab League to help Iraqi refugees

All have been inspired and educated by Barbara Harrell-Bond. All are passionate in their commitment.

But for two in the group, the passion is turning into fear and frustration. The two Iraqi refugees--both highly fluent in English, both former workers for the U.S. cause in Iraq—have begun the long process of trying to resettle in the U.S. They are running out of money; one already had to send his wife and child back to Baghdad.

They are struggling to work their way through the complexities and obstacles of the U.S. refugee resettlement program. In Washington, the resettlement program, which is lagging far behind its goals, looks like a bureaucratic failure and another empty promise to the Iraqi people. This past January, only 375 Iraqi refugees were resettled. To Iraqi refugees hoping to come to the U.S., the program looks like a matter of life and death, and they are getting too few assurances of protection.

--Ken Bacon

Chad: Political Chaos A Threat To Displaced People Region-Wide

The push of Sudan-backed rebels into the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, poses a serious threat, not only to the government of President Idriss Deby, but to the humanitarian relief efforts in the country. An estimated 440,000 displaced people have sought refuge in eastern and southern Chad: 230,000 refugees from Darfur, 170,000 internally displaced Chadians, and 44,000 refugees from the Central African Republic. These people depend on a fragile relief operation that has to deliver large quantities of food and other basic supplies across a country with poor infrastructure and security. The Chad operation has never been as robust or as well-funded as that in Darfur, and the political chaos, if prolonged, with jeopardize it further.

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution this afternoon condemning the rebels and authorizing member states to help the country resist the attackers. The Chadian government is hardly blameless, however. President Deby originally came to power in 1990 through an armed revolt, and his government has been providing assistance to rebel movements contesting the Sudanese government's control of Darfur.

The rebel offensive came on the eve of the deployment of a European Union peacekeeping force along the eastern border with Darfur. Orginally proposed by the French, this force is intended to help stabilize the border region and protect civilians and the humanitarian groups aiding them. Analysts are speculating that the rebels attacked precisely to prevent this force from deploying, since its presence would hamper their operations in the border region and would work against the interests of their Sudanese government patrons.

The fact is that the central government in N'Djamena has but a tenuous hold on governing the country. But wealth from the newfound oil, coupled with Chad's pivotal position in relation to the Darfur conflict and the political future of Sudan, means that the stakes of controlling the state apparatus are high. Even if the current crisis is averted, there will be other moves to seize power from the weak Deby government.

The potential impact of a pro-Khartoum government in Chad is unknown. The worst case scenario would be organized moves to dismantle the refugee camps and force Darfuri refugees back to Sudan. A government led by groups sympathetic to Sudan would also likely withdraw permission for European Union and UN peacekeepers to deploy on Chadian soil.

Caring for Kaela, the only Washington-based advocacy organization working on Chad, has called for an "inclusive national peace conference" to resolve Chad's on-going political instability. This seems unlikely in the current political environment, and it is unclear if even the former colonial power, France, has the political will or the means to defuse the conflict and foster a national dialogue. But without this step, more conflict is inevitable, as is more vulnerability for displaced people in Chad.

-Joel Charny

Kenya: Peace Process Needed Now to End Ongoing Violence

Graphic images and video footage from the ongoing violence in Kenya have given those of us not living close to the conflict a real glimpse into what the situation is like on the ground. This recent video clip shows the desperate situation that many displaced Kenyans now find themselves in. Having once lived in ethnically diverse communities in the western Rift Valley region, they now worry that they will never be able to return home, for fear of retaliation from their former neighbors.

The worsening security situation is having a major impact on access to the displaced populations inside Kenya. Many humanitarian organizations cannot reach those most in need because of the ongoing violence. The conflict in Kenya also has wider regional humanitarian implications. Nairobi has long been the headquarters for many aid agencies that operate in less stable countries in the region like Sudan and Somalia. If the situation in Kenya becomes too volatile for these agencies to carry out their work, then it will have a serious impact on the vulnerable populations in neighboring countries who depend on international humanitarian assistance. It also has the potential to impact the work of Refugees International, since Nairobi is often a jumping off point for many of our missions conducted in the region. We recently had two colleagues pass through Nairobi on their way to Juba, where they are currently assessing the situation for returnees in South Sudan.

A serious peace and reconciliation process is needed in Kenya now. The involvement of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the negotiation process is a positive step forward, but it will take much longer to create a climate where Kenyans who have been forced to flee will feel safe and secure enough to return home again.

--Camilla Olson