Aid cuts in Kenya will jeopardize years of progress for refugees.
This Story was originally published on Daily Nation on May 12, 2025
For three decades, Kenya maintained a refugee policy centered on encampment, keeping hundreds of thousands in crowded camps with few opportunities to support themselves, pursue solutions to their displacement, or contribute to local communities.
In 2021, Kenya passed the Refugee Act, solidifying a pivot from long-term encampment to a focus on self-reliance through the socio-economic integration of refugees. This shift was monumental—not just for Kenya, one of the world’s largest refugee-hosting countries, but for the entire global refugee regime. If fully implemented, it could reduce long-term reliance on humanitarian assistance and provide a pathway to self-reliance.
However, President Donald Trump’s January 20, 2025, “stop-work” order threatens to knee-cap the progress of Kenya’s Refugee Act 2021. The direct impacts of the cuts are already shown aid groups are reducing staff or closing their doors altogether, and assistance is being reduced.
The United States supports over 70% of the refugee food aid in Kenya. Shortly after the aid cut, refugees in Kakuma protested the reduction in their food ration. The police intervened to disperse the protesting refugees, and violence ensued.
Because of the cuts, thousands of refugee children will stop learning in Kakuma and Dadaab, two of the world’s largest refugee camps. The support in the camps was for paying things like teacher salaries, learning materials, and meals for students. In addition to the human impact, a loss of support could delay or even derail Kenya’s meaningful policy progress.
If refugees feel increasingly desperate and Kenya returns to viewing them as a threat, it could default back to restrictive encampment policies—an abrupt turn away from freedom of movement and economic inclusion. Unless the United States reverses course on aid cuts in Kenya or other donors step up to fill the gap, years of progress for refugee rights could be lost.
Risks to progress
Kenya has hosted some 800,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and Somalia for decades. While some reside in urban centers like Nairobi, many are in massive, remote refugee camps, such as Kakuma and Dadaab in Turkana and Garissa counties. Some refugees in these camps have lived there for decades.
It has taken years for Kenya’s refugee policy to evolve and embrace a long-term self-reliance model. Before experimenting with a settlement policy and the 2021 policy shift, Kenya viewed refugees principally through the security lens. It routinely threatened to close the camps and force refugees out, claiming the camps were a hotbed of Al Shabaab activity, a Somalia-based militant group.
However, even before the Trump aid cuts, keeping refugees in the camps for years on end proved unsustainable for Kenya and the international community trying to support these massive centers. Moreover, the regions where Kenya’s large camps are located have a history of economic marginalization. According to the National Statistics Office, 88 percent of Turkana’s population lives below the poverty level, compared with 45 percent nationally. In Garissa, 68 percent of the population is classified as poor, and only 32 percent has access to safe water. Thus, both refugees and hosts needed more ways to support themselves.
The passage of the Refugee Act 2021, which is part of the durable solution package, grants refugees freedom of movement and the right to work and own property. While it is far from perfect, allowing refugees to join the labor market or start a business will make them less dependent on food aid, better able to contribute to their host communities, and potential income generators through taxes and businesses.
A 2016 World Bank study on Kakuma, among other findings, found that the camp’s presence boosts Turkana’s “Gross Regional Product (GRP) by over 3 percent, income per “local” person increases by 0.5 percent, and total employment increases by about 3 percent.” Additionally, in a 2018 study, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) found that Kakuma has a market size of $56.2 million. The full implementation of the refugee law could thus unlock this and other untapped regions’ potential, benefiting the refugees and the host communities.
While the law was passed in 2021, Kenya launched the Shirika Plan on March 28, 2025, to operationalize the law. At the time, President Ruto said, “The Shirika Plan is our bold, homegrown solution, which amplifies the African Union’s call for African solutions to not only Africa’s problems but also global challenges.” The plan is estimated to cost $943 million – an amount that the Kenyan government does not have, particularly amidst severe macroeconomic challenges accentuated by the cuts in U.S. foreign assistance.
The U.S. and other donors must step in to support its implementation. It is consistent with the desire to help refugees access decent work to support themselves. It aligns with the Global Compact on Refugees, where states like the U.S. pledge to share the responsibility of hosting refugees.
At a time when many countries are hardening their borders and externalizing refugee response, Kenya is showing leadership and improving access to rights for the hundreds of thousands of refugees it hosts and continues to receive every day. Pulling aid at this moment risks years of progress and a massive potential shift away from long-term encampment to self-reliance and greater access to rights. The U.S. and other donors should not abandon and undermine this progress but rather step up in support.