Refugee Impacts on Turkana Hosts

Turkana County, until 2013 known formerly as Turkana District of the Rift Valley Province of Kenya, is the largest county in Kenya (77,000 square kilometers). It is also one of the most impoverished and marginalized areas of the country and indeed in all of Sub-Saharan Africa. Kakuma Refugee Camp is the largest settlement in Turkana County.This report outlines the complex dynamic interface between narratives, interactions, and external factors in determining the impacts of refugees on the social economies and psychosocial well-being of host communities by focusing on the refugees of Kakuma Refugee Camp and the Turkana host community located in Turkana County, Kenya. Various factors are explored in the attitudes, behaviors, and actions of refugee-host interactions that foster a sense of indignity (matharau in KiSwahili and ng’imeny in Turkana). The feeling of servitude and inequity many experience as a result of these interactions can be described by the Turkana word etic (pronounced e-tich), which means working for or under. The overall goal of the social impact analysis is to provide a set of evidence-based insights and policy recommendations to the Kenyan government, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and associated bodies, and development actors to support Turkana’s development and to benefit Kakuma so that members of refugee and host communities alike can study, find jobs and opportunities, run businesses, work, raise children, celebrate achievements, and mourn their dead according to their own traditions and customs, and that they have equal access to health care and other public services. In short, the larger goal is to empower the refugees of Kakuma as well as their Turkana hosts to live lives of dignity.