On 20 February 2026, the World Bank, UNHCR, and the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), with support from the Department of Refugee Services (DRS), convened a research-policy dialogue to examine how new evidence can inform Kenya’s Shirika Plan. At the center of the discussion: findings from the first two waves of the Kenya Longitudinal Socioeconomic Study of Refugees and Host Communities (KLSRH).
The KLSRH is a panel survey under the Kenya Analytical Program on Forced Displacement (KAP FD). It tracked 5,892 refugee and 3,498 host households across camp and urban settings, with a 96 percent follow-up rate across Wave 1 (May 2022 to June 2023) and Wave 2 (March to November 2024). The data captures changes in economic conditions, psychosocial wellbeing, and household resilience over time.
The findings arrive at a critical moment: displacement is rising, and humanitarian and development funding is sharply contracting. The research sought to answer four questions: How have socioeconomic conditions changed over time? How are households meeting basic needs as aid declines? What shapes self-reliance in labour markets? And what enables or undermines resilience?
Key Findings
Multidimensional poverty remains high and entrenched. In camp settings, 85 percent of Kakuma refugees and 87 percent of Kalobeyei refugees are multidimensionally poor. Turkana host communities lag even further behind on education, housing, and water access. Employment loss is a primary driver: households where a member lost a job show markedly higher rates of multidimensional poverty.
Negative coping strategies are rising sharply. Households are increasingly cutting food consumption, buying food on credit, trimming non-essential spending, and depleting savings. Between waves, camp refugees reported a 30-percentage-point rise in the use of these strategies; hosts reported a 37-percentage-point rise. The main shocks driving this: food price inflation, severe weather, and job loss.
Aid is the primary safety net, and its decline is immediate and measurable. Welfare outcomes track closely with assistance levels. When host communities in Turkana and Dadaab received more aid, food security improved. When aid to refugees in Kakuma and Kalobeyei fell, food insecurity and monetary poverty rose correspondingly. Camp refugee employment, where it exists, relies heavily on the aid sector’s “incentive worker” pathway, which is short-term, offers no upward mobility, and is directly vulnerable to aid cuts. Camp refugees in wage or self-employment experienced a 53-percentage-point decline in employment between waves; urban refugees saw a 24-percentage-point decline. Host employment rates remained stable.
Mental health and structural barriers constrain self-reliance. Depression and anxiety undermine individuals’ capacity to earn income and absorb shocks. Structural barriers compound this: 64 percent of camp refugees and 41 percent of urban refugees cited a lack of available jobs as their primary reason for inactivity.
What the Findings Mean for the Shirika Plan
Realism must temper ambition. Kalobeyei was designed as a pioneering development-oriented refugee response under the Kalobeyei Integrated Socio-Economic Development Plan (KISEDP I). A decade on, multidimensional poverty remains pervasive and refugees remain reliant on assistance. That outcome reflects wider and complex socio-political processes, but it also raises a harder question: was the promise of KISEDP I oversold?
The Shirika Plan represents a genuine shift from “care and maintenance” to a more transformative model, and it deserves full implementation, especially on the legal and policy reforms that will enable refugee participation in livelihood activities. But the data cautions against repeating the mistake of overselling the transition. Cautious optimism is warranted. Hype is not.
Camps cannot become settlements in name only. The persistent poverty gap between camp and urban settings reveals what is ultimately a market access problem. Refugees in camps face limited economic opportunity not just because of legal restrictions, but because of the underlying socio-economic structures and physical infrastructure that define camp life. Transitioning away from the aid-driven, low-demand market in camps requires politically feasible pathways for expanding mobility within and beyond designated areas, to spur genuine economic connectivity.
Service transition must be evidence-led and criteria-based. Shifting to government-led service delivery risks adding another shock to already vulnerable households. Transition plans must be developed through wide consultation, maintain minimum service standards, and be sequenced against clear benchmarks tied to policy readiness, funding availability, and human resources. The goal must be quality and affordability, not merely enrolment.
