Kenya

Advocacy for Kenya

What’s Happening?

Kenya hosts more than 850,000 refugees and asylum seekers, most of whom have long lived in the country’s massive Dadaab and Kakuma camps. In late 2021, Kenya enacted a new refugee law that could drastically improve refugees’ access to their rights, including freedom of movement, the right to own property, and access to the labor market. Now, with aid budgets shrinking, long-term encampment and parallel service models may finally give way to policies that favor integration and self-reliance. But Kenya will need additional support to make these changes work and to protect the rights of both refugees and host communities.

What Must Be Done?

To implement its refugee law, the Kenyan government can take practical steps such as improving coordination among agencies and giving refugees a single, unified ID to ease freedom of movement. Donors should also provide flexible funding to support Kenya’s implementation of the law, especially in areas around the refugee camps where more investment is needed after years of marginalization.