World Refugee Day

At the end of 2008, more than 42 million people around the world had been forced to flee their homes, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on 20 June to mark World Refugee Day.

Those that were uprooted to other areas within their own countries are known as internally displaced people (IDPs). They are classified as refugees only once they cross an international border.

According to UNHCR’s annual Global Trends report, released on 16 June, there were around 16 million refugees and 26 million IDPs in the world at the end of 2008.

UNHCR says that the number of IDPs is growing faster than the number of refugees because of the changing nature of conflict; the majority of conflicts today are within individual countries and less between nations.

While the UN agency’s mandate is to “lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide”, in recent years it has been increasingly tasked under the UN’s humanitarian reform process with assisting IDPs. Since 2005, the number of IDPs UNHCR provides services for has doubled.

"Being forced from your home by conflict or persecution is a tragedy whether you've crossed an international border or not," UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said. "Today, we are seeing a relentless series of internal conflicts that are generating millions of uprooted people.”

Guterres said this year's crises in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Somalia are pushing the number of people forced to flee their homes towards the 45 million mark - the highest number in at least a decade.

Countries with more than 1 million IDPs

Colombia: 3 million
Iraq: 2.6 million
Pakistan: 2.5 million
Sudan: 2 million
DRC: 1.5 million
Congo: 1.3 million
Uganda: 1.2 million

Major refugee-hosting countries in 2008

Pakistan: 1.8 million
Syria: 1.1 million
Iran: 980,000
Germany: 582,700
Jordan: 500,400
Chad: 330,500
Tanzania: 321,900
Kenya: 320,600

Source: UNHCR, with links to IRIN reports
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=84929

... And Moving Forward

As fond as I’ve become of Kibondo and as much as I’m sure I’ll miss Tanzania, I have to admit that I’ve been getting pretty excited about what comes next …

First, a close friend from Princeton’s coming to visit me! He’ll be arriving in Kibondo in exactly 12 days and then a day or two after that, we’ll start heading back to the States. Start is the operative word there since I decided to opt for the scenic route when planning my exit strategy awhile back, so we’ll go from Kibondo to Kigoma (with a quick day trip to Gombe to see Jane Goodhall’s chimps) to Dar … and then by plane, train, and/or automobile down through Zambia, past Victoria Falls, and into South Africa. There will be tons of pictures, I promise!

Second, I’m coming home!!! My flight arrives in New York on July 17, and I’ll be spending the following month spending as much time as I can catching up with everybody and reveling in the joys of paved roads, 24/7 electricity, and fast internet connections :-D

Third, I’ll be starting another Princeton in Africa fellowship in late August – this time in Southern Sudan. I’ll be based out of Juba and am absolutely thrilled that I’ve been given this opportunity. After spending a year working with a project that is gradually closing down, I’m really looking forward to being on the opposite end of things and discovering all the challenges and issues that come into play when a program is expanding. Plus, this means that I’ll get to visit parts of Africa that I haven’t been to yet – in other words, lots more fodder for the blog :-)

Looking Back ...

I was walking home from work the other day, when a passing car left me futilely waving away a cloud of reddish grit and thinking to myself “I can’t believe I’ve been here long enough for it to get dusty again!” It’s more than a little hard for me to believe, but in another week or so I’ll have been here for a year. Looking back, perhaps it shouldn’t be all that surprising – after all, not only have I been here long enough for it to get dusty, rainy (really rainy!), and dusty again, but I’ve also been here long enough to become fluent in NGO-acronym-ese, master the art of cooking pancakes ... outside ... over a charcoal “stove,” and travel around Burundi, Egypt, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania/Zanzibar, and Uganda.

More than anything, I have been here long enough to be able to begin to appreciate how eye-opening this past year has been for me – how my experiences here have shaped the ways I think about myself, about my future, and about my place in the world. On a very personal level, this year has given me a taste of what it’s like to live with only yourself and a shelf or two of books for company. Adjusting to life without friends, family, or a campus full of students with backgrounds similar to mine turned out to be a significantly harder adjustment to make than transitioning from the 1st world to the 3rd. All in all though, I would say that it was a worthwhile adjustment to go through – not only because I learned how live alone and with relatively few distractions, but also because it has given me a renewed appreciation for good company and conversation. My time here has also sparked what I believe will be a lifelong interest in sustainable development and humanitarian relief efforts, although I suppose only time will tell whether or not that will be the case.

On a more general level, the most jarring element of my year here has been the constant stream of reminders that I have been living in the midst of poverty. For most Americans, growing up in the States usually means growing up believing that with hard work, anything is possible. For all that part of me knew that this wasn’t universally true, it took moving to Tanzania for me to realize just how privileged an attitude it was. Living here, it is impossible to deny or ignore the fact that while the “hard work pays off” mantra might hold true for the majority of the developed world, it is the exception – not the norm – throughout the majority of the developing world. In countries like Tanzania – and especially in underdeveloped areas like Kibondo – crippling poverty (compounded by lack of or limited access to clean water, affordable health care, basic infrastructure, and adequate educational facilities) is the norm. And while the country is slowly strengthening the economy, extending social service infrastructure, and developing a middle class – and while organizations like TCRS are doing what they can wherever they can – it is a slow process ... and in the meantime I walk to and from work everyday shadowed by small children whose kwashiorkor bellies and tattered clothing is all the proof one needs of the vicious cycle of poverty that they and their families are trapped inside of.