Work Update

A handful of folks have dropped a few hints about my tendency to mention things in passing and not realize that I’m really only making sense to myself. So, hopefully this post will successfully bring everyone who’s interested up to speed on what’s been happening work-wise here in Kibondo.

First things first, the acronyms. One of the first things I discovered back in July was that acronyms are really big here. So much so that it’s pretty rare to have a conversation at the office that isn’t peppered with acronyms and/or abbreviations … and now that I’m mostly fluent in acronym-ese, I (like everyone else I work with) rarely take the time to spell things out in full. So to keep things from getting too confusing:

TCRS: Tanganyika Christian Refugee Service (my employers; more details here)

KRP: Kibondo Refugee Project (the branch of TCRS I work for)

CEP: Community Empowerment Program (TCRS’s development projects – there are 7 scattered around TZ, including 1 in Kibondo)

KFP: Kibondo Field Project (the new name of the branch I work for; now includes both refugee activities and the CEP)

UNHCR: the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (in a way, also who I work for since they contract out all the different refugee related activities in the camps to their IPs)

IP: implementing partner

IRC: International Rescue Committee (one of UNHCR’s IPs; responsible for health services, SGBV, NFP, etc. while the camps were open)

SGBV: sexual and gender based violence

NFP: nutritional feeding program (for malnourished children)

IOM: International Organization of Migration (coordinates the resettlement process for those refugees who have received approval to move to 3rd countries (USA, Netherlands, Australia, etc.))

WFP: World Food Program

UNICEF: United Nations Children’s Fund

WatSan: water and sanitation (as in, the provision of; one of our responsibilities in the camps)

VTC: vocational training centre (TCRS has founded 3: Kibogora VTC, Kanembwa VTC (temporarily closed due to a dispute with the soldiers/govt. who have controlled Kanembwa Camp since its closure), and Kibondo Folk Development College (FDC))

IGA: income generating activity (e.g. basket weaving, pottery, crafting rattan furniture, animal husbandry, farming, etc.)

VolRep: voluntary repatriation

GoT: Government of Tanzania

MHA: Ministry of Home Affairs (branch of the GoT that deals with refugee/refugee camp matters)

DC: District Commissioner (head of the local government)

Other Terms/Info

Kibondo Camps: Karago, Mkugwa, Mtendeli, Nduta, & Kanembwa (the first 3 were completely closed before I arrived; Nduta closed on Dec. 31, 2008; Kanembwa has officially been closed for as long as I’ve been here, but there’s still a small caseload of refugees living there who are waiting resettlement)

Kasulu: the district south/southeast of Kibondo

Kasulu Camps: Lugufu, Nyaragusu, & Mtabila (all still open; the first 2 house mainly Congolese refugees, while Mtabila is mostly Burundian)

So, when I started work back in July, there were still some 14,000 refugees living in Nduta (in spite of the fact that it had been scheduled to close in June). Of those 14,000, the vast majority were Burundians who had been living in various camps in Kibondo District for more than a decade. About 12% or so were Congolese, and there were also small populations of Somali, Kenya, Sudanese, Rwandan, and mixed nationality refugees. TCRS and IRC were the UNHCR’s primary IPs in Nduta, with IRC doing health and TCRS doing just about everything else: camp management, food distribution, infrastructure/roads, transportation, WatSan, education (primary, secondary, & VTCs), IGA, community services, HIV/AIDS awareness, and VolRep. Starting in April 2008, the MHA & DC began enforcing a new policy (with the intention of promoting VolRep) that prohibited all secondary or non life sustaining activities in the camp, so IGA, secondary education, and refugee enrollment at the VTCs were removed from that list. At the same time, some 1,200 or so resettlement cases were living in Kanembwa, where IRC was still doing health and we were doing camp management, food distribution, WatSan, infrastructure/roads, transportation, and environment.

Close to 30,000 refugees had returned to Burundi by the end of the year, finally making the closure of Nduta a realistic possibility. The Congolese refugees were moved to Kanembwa in October (the reason they were in Nduta in the first place (rather than Lugufu or Nyaragusu) was because they were security cases, so they were placed in Kanembwa until a decision could be reached on where they should go next). Shortly thereafter, we began to coordinate the transport of the remaining 10,000 Burundian refugees to Mtabila. And so, on December 31st, the now-empty camp was officially closed by the UNHCR and handed over to the GoT.

In other words, in the space of a few months, the refugee population in Kibondo District had gone from about 15,000 to 2,000 (down from more than 40,000 in January and more than 100,000 just a couple of years ago). As the refugee presence decreased, so did everyone’s budgets – UNHCR’s TCRS’s, IRC’s, etc. With less funding available and fewer beneficiaries to work with, the scope of everyone’s operations changed. For UNHCR, one logical step was to fund fewer IPs in 2009, so TCRS took over basic health services in Kanembwa in January and IRC closed their Kibondo office. For TCRS, one logical step was to combine the KRP and CEP into one entity: the KFP. And at all the agencies, cuts were made in staffing.

One of the often complicated aspects of working in the humanitarian aid/development sectors is that the goal is, essentially, to put yourself/your organization out of business – to render yourself unnecessary or irrelevant. It’s been interesting – and at times difficult – working for the KRP/KFP during this winding down phase. On the one hand, it is encouraging to see peace and stability taking root throughout much of the Great Lakes region. It’s also admirable – I think – to see how gracefully the staff members of the various IPs have accepted and adjusted to the changing circumstances. On the other hand, I find myself questioning how durable a solution really is when it entails advocating for the return of tens of thousands of refugees to a country that is already overpopulated and lacking the infrastructure and/or basic resources to house and feed its population. And on a more individual level, it has not been easy saying goodbye to the co-workers whose contracts were not renewed this year – and even more difficult where staff like our drivers are concerned. Many of the more senior staff are not from Kibondo in the first place and have college degrees and strong resumes that I hope will improve their chances of finding new employment elsewhere. With all the agencies gearing down though (and many of them closing), I find myself wondering about the local staff – will they find new jobs? have to learn new trades? move away? And finally, it has been more than a little frustrating to know that the scope of our operations is narrowing not because there are no longer any beneficiaries to serve (the refugees might be gone, but Kibondo remains one of the poorest areas in TZ – take, for example, the NFP run by IRC: something like 98% of the malnourished children it assisted were Tanzanian, not refugees), but because the funding is dwindling. In the current economic climate, even agencies that focus mainly on humanitarian aid and disaster relief are struggling to solicit funding, so it is not entirely surprising that donors would be even less interested in development work – not surprising, but still frustrating.

So there you have it – hopefully I’ve managed to fill in some of the blanks about how things in Kibondo have been changing. As for my job, well, some things change and some things basically stay the same! I’m still spending my days cheerfully writing proposals, revising reports, editing documents, and the like – the two big projects keeping me busy right now are our Annual Report for 2008 and redesigning the TCRS website.