Forced displacement and community resilience: the case South Sudanese refugees in the Benishangul Gumuz region of Ethiopia

Abstract

Forced displacement has continued to be a security and development concern, and different interventions are undertaken to address the needs of the displaced people. Yet, there is debate on the impact of these interventions and on factors that could affect the resilience of displaced populations in a refugee context. Thus, this study intended to examine the resilience of South Sudanese refugees and the factors that impact their recovery in the Benishangul Gumuz region of Ethiopia. The study applied a qualitative research design with data from both primary and secondary sources. The overall research finding is that due to policy restrictions, funding constraints, limited livelihood opportunities, and limited options to use refugee human capital, the resilience capacity of the South Sudanese refugees hosted in the Benishangul Gumuz region is not fully developed. Other factors such as access to social support, peaceful co-existence interventions also found to be influencing the resilience and recovery of the refugees. The results also show that the refugees are using mechanisms such as selling food rations, illegal gold mining and farming which involve child labour, low-paid incentive work with humanitarian organizations, small-scale farming inside the camp, remittances from abroad, farm activities with the host community, and running small shops in the camps to cope with the displacement related challenges. Therefore, it is recommended that UN organizations, donors, regional organizations, NGOs, the host government, and the refugees take practical actions of advocacy, allocation of adequate funding, utilisation of the refugee human capital, and easing policy-related barriers and restrictions. It is also recommended that a context-specific framework – the Refugee Resilience(2R) Framework and Matrix, which this study created, to be applied for studying and building resilience in refugee displacement caused by armed conflict.