WORLD BRIDGE BLOG

Last month the Government of Tanzania announced it would grant citizenship to 162,000 refugees, completing a naturalization process that began two years ago. Up to 500,000 Burundian refugees sought asylum in Tanzania following the 1972 civil war. The local integration of some of these refugees helped to address one of the world's most protracted refugee situations.

This example underscores the potential and the critical need for the U.S. and other countries to deploy their refugee resettlement tool carefully and strategically to ensure that resettlement can help garner even more benefits and long-lasting solutions for the larger population.
Today two thirds of all refugees live in protracted situations, mostly in poor and unstable regions. Their rights are often restricted; their lives are placed on hold, wasted, and squandered. The average duration in exile is now 17 years. The proportion of refugees in situations of prolonged exile has increased. UNHCR recognizes that most refugees spend more time in exile now than in the past.

An increasing number of host states’ responses to protracted refugee situations has been to isolate refugees in remote areas and keep them encamped, denying them basic rights. The longer the refugees remain, the more fatigued international donors and humanitarian organizations grow in responding to their basic needs--let alone advocating for their basic rights.

That is why the move by the Government of Tanzania to find a solution for some of these refugees is so praiseworthy. This solution came in part as a result of the application of the strategic use of resettlement. In this case, the United States agreed to resettle approximately 10,000 so-called "1972 Burundians" from Tanzania in the hopes that others would be locally integrated. By working to share the international protection responsibility, the U.S., alongside other resettlement countries, was able to un-block a protracted situation and help to ensure that other durable solutions were found for those who would not be resettled.

Resettlement, benefitting less than one percent of the world’s refugees, should always be strategically linked, as it was in Tanzania, to providing greater protection to refugees who will never be relocated and naturalized in third countries. This is becoming even more critical as refugee situations become ever more protracted.

This is especially the case when refugees cannot return home voluntarily and live in safety and dignity. While some Burundian refugees were able to return to their original homes, many feared returning to a place that they had not been in 35 years, especially given ongoing land disputes, ethnic tensions, and hostile feelings toward “outsiders.” Most would not have been able to reclaim their land that was seized and distributed decades ago.