Regional Overview
Refugee and asylum seeker populations have faced notable hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic particularly in contexts of limited integration within hosting nations. Now, more than ever, there is a need for sustained investments in fostering self-reliance of refugee populations through progressive national policies, integration into social protection systems, predictable multi-year funding, and co -operation amongst nations for voluntary and safe repatriations and re-integrations. Critical also is sustained focus on preventing root causes of internal and crossborder displacements: conflict and violations of human rights.
WFP recognizes the contributions of supporting donors in this particularly challenging resourcing climate. However, resourcing remains insufficient to meet even the very basic needs of refugee households with WFP pushed to implement reductions in rations due to resourcing limitations in some contexts. WFP also calls for the global community to sustain focus on the self-reliance potential for refugees which is threatened by diversions in resourcing and slow progress in the integration of refugees into national systems consistent with the spirit of international refugee frameworks.
Southern Africa hosts 6.5 million IDPs and 1.1 million refugees and asylum-seekers originating mostly from Rwanda, Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi and South Sudan. WFP continues its dedicated support to refugees holistically addressing immediate food and nutrition needs, advancing resilience and livelihoods opportunities, supporting social cohesion through diverse support to host locations, and increasing focus on contributions to peace, stability and conflict sensitive programming across all locations to address root causes of displacement.
This update presents an overview of WFP’s refugee operations in Southern Africa. It highlights some of the measures taken by WFP and partners to not only serve refugees better, but also to draw attention to critical funding shortfalls that threaten the food and nutrition safety, and protection, of refugees, as well as the necessary progress towards self-reliance.
Source: World Food Programme