Updated October 2026: this post was first published in June 2018 to share the brief. We have expanded it with a summary drawn from the brief itself.
A year after our first brief on the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), we took stock of how it was being implemented. According to the brief, at the end of May 2018 almost 12 million people were displaced in the East and Horn of Africa, most of them from or inside South Sudan and Somalia, and at least half of them children. The CRRF had been rolled out in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Uganda and, most recently, Kenya, while the IGAD Plan of Action for Somali refugees put it into practice for Somalia. Tanzania withdrew in late 2017; the brief hoped it would reconsider, given its long tradition of hosting refugees. Return, local integration and resettlement, the brief stresses, are processes rather than solutions in themselves: the goal is sustainable (re)integration.
Where progress was visible
In Ethiopia, a government-led national CRRF structure brought humanitarian and development actors together, and the government released a ten-year national refugee response strategy, although regional engagement still needed investment. Uganda had a functioning government-led steering group with displacement-affected communities represented, an Education Response Plan led by the Ministry of Education, district officials chairing settlement coordination in Arua, Kiryandongo, Kyegegwa and Yumbe, and national NGOs working as equal partners in EU-funded consortia. Djibouti had set up its steering committee and a National Action Plan, though host communities, civil society and line ministries needed better representation. In Somalia, four-year consortia funded by the EU, DFID and Danida had agreed common outcomes and principles, area-based district plans were under way in Kismayo, Baidoa and Mogadishu, and the World Bank was working with local authorities on urban planning in Baidoa. At regional level, IGAD had opened space for member states to discuss displacement, solutions and local integration.
What was holding the CRRF back
The brief lists a set of persistent problems. Policies were changing faster than implementation, and rollouts had been heavy on process and focused on capitals, leaving districts and counties behind. Refugee agencies led most processes, so line ministries and national development plans were not fully involved. Refugees and host communities were largely absent from planning beyond a few elected representatives. The right to work and freedom of movement were not yet at the core of self-reliance programming. Agencies, particularly in Uganda, were stuck in emergency mode with little space for longer-term planning. Tensions between displaced and host communities were rising, with limited evidence on how to address them, and urban displaced people risked exclusion from essential services. Throughout, protection needed to stay at the core of the work, including in development programming.
What we recommended
For all actors, the brief recommends country-level common frameworks with collective outcomes, participatory processes for return and reintegration, a deeper understanding of displaced people’s own perspectives and networks, the inclusion of local NGOs, faith-based organisations and cultural leaders, and investment in the education and participation of children and young people. Governments should adopt whole-of-government approaches that bring in line ministries and local authorities, and strengthen the technical knowledge of municipal and district officials. Development actors such as the World Bank should build the capacity of local governments to deliver integrated, development-oriented responses.
Humanitarian, development, peacebuilding and diaspora actors should build on their comparative advantages within a common country framework, and involve development actors from the start of an emergency. Development and business actors should create jobs that benefit refugees and hosts alike while keeping protection in view, including in Ethiopia’s new industrial zones. In cities, the brief asks for displaced people to be treated as an asset, through work permits, recognition of skills and access to jobs, and for social cohesion to be promoted more deliberately. It ends by calling for emerging practice to be documented so that it can be shared and replicated.
Read the full brief, and our June 2017 brief on the CRRF process for the commitments it builds on.
References
ReDSS (2018). Implementation of the CRRF in East Africa: supporting a whole of society approach. Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat, June 2018. https://www.regionaldss.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/ReDSS-Brief-CRRF-process-June-2018.pdf
