Social and environmental transformation of refugee and hosting community landscapes in Central and Eastern Africa

This paper synthesises the challenges in environmental sustainability facing refugee-hosting landscapes, on-going initiatives


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1 Landscape approach for resilient socioecological systems 2 Interaction of refugee and host communities in multifunctional landscapes 3 Map of Africa showing current focus countries Tables 1 Tools, networks and key resources regarding displaced people and the environment: landscape level integration Sub-Saharan Africa hosts more than 26% of the world's refugee population, with 6.3 million refugees -which represents a 186% increase in the last decade, from 2.2 million.There has been an increase in internally displaced persons (IDPs) following conflicts and violence in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), and the Lake Chad basin.The population of refugee settlements disproportionately comprises women and children, and is characterized by highly diverse cultural backgrounds, with some settlements having people from approximately 10 nationalities.In many areas, refugees and IDPs add pressure to already vulnerable ecosystems and existing social tensions, leading to land use and resource conflicts among displaced people and host communities.Overharvesting of natural resources, competition over resources, and entering host communities' common or private lands without consent are the main drivers of conflict between host communities and refugees.These conflict situations are aggravated by the impact of climate change, deforestation, and environmental degradation, which are recognized by humanitarian organizations and are placed at the centre of their agendas.
This document synthesises the challenges in environmental sustainability facing refugee-hosting landscapes, on-going initiatives, and gaps.It also presents transformative science plans by CIFOR-ICRAF to address exiting gaps towards resilient landscapes and livelihoods.CIFOR-ICRAF is a research institution in forestry and landscape management, which has evolved out of an effective merger between CIFOR and ICRAF.
Resilience, sustainability, and environmental health in host landscapes are multi-faceted and complex, with cultural, ecological, economic, social, and political dimensions.Therefore, despite various organisations working in refugee-hosting landscapes, there are still challenges in achieving holistic, long-term and sustainable solutions.For instance, the priority goal of most United Nations (UN) agencies and major international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) is to save lives in emergency situations.There is, however, growing awareness of the importance of natural resources to the well-being of refugees and host communities, and efforts are underway to address environmental issues to reverse deforestation and land degradation, which need to be supported with data.Secondly, ongoing interventions to support refugees and the environment tend to be based on the assumption that refugee stays are short-lived and local group needs are simply linked to food, water, sanitation, shelter and security, which can be provided by UNHCR and partners.Yet this often becomes a great challenge as most refugee stays last for several decades.Thirdly, governance and host community institutions that are central to the ownership, success and sustainability of initiatives addressing environmental degradation have not always been actively involved to date.
To bridge these gaps, CIFOR-ICRAF applies a landscape approach that delivers evidence-based, actionable and context-based gender-responsive solutions.This approach promotes collaboration and synergies between actors; contributes to international dialogue; and informs planning, programming and policy development.The elements include: i) providing science and evidence-based landscape approaches and guidelines that balance the needs of the people and ecosystems; ii) structuring engagement and empowerment of host and displaced communities in dialogue and consultation to minimize natural resource and environmental-based conflicts; iii) undertaking research to fill gaps in understanding, and integrating knowledge from multiple disciplines and resources, using refugee and host communities as a basis for evidence-based decision-making and interventions; iv) providing

Executive summary
vii evidence-based advice to local and national governments, organizations, environmental sustainability platforms and networks; v) ensuring communication methods and scientific advocacy at national and global levels to provide long-term investments in food and nutrition, water and energy security for host communities and displaced people (IDPs and refugees), and to improve policies that support sustainable forestry and agroforestry systems; and v) gender integration in all activities to ensure that the needs, aspirations and opportunities for men and women, including youth, the elderly, children and people with special needs, are addressed.
These initiatives are carried out under CIFOR-ICRAF's Refugee-hosting Engagement Landscapes where over a dozen projects on concentrated transformative work with diverse and committed partners have been implemented in several countries in eastern and central Africa.This approach adapts the centre's experiences and lessons from a diverse range of innovations implemented in over 30 countries in the Global South to address major global challenges related to deforestation and diversity loss, the climate crisis, food system transformation, unsustainable supply and value chains and extreme inequality as they manifest in refugee-hosting landscapes.
• Sub-Saharan Africa hosts more than 26% of the world's refugee population, with 6.3 million refugees -which represents a 186% increase in the last decade, from 2.2 million.There has been an increase in IDPs following conflicts and violence in South Sudan, the DRC, the CAR, and the Lake Chad basin.The population of refugee settlements disproportionately comprises women and children, and is characterized by highly diverse cultural backgrounds, with some settlements having people from approximately 10 nationalities.
• Increasingly, the impact of climate change, deforestation, and environmental degradation are recognized by humanitarian organisations and placed at the centre of their agendas.
• In many areas, refugees and IDPs add pressure to already vulnerable ecosystems and existing social tensions, leading to land use and resource conflicts among displaced people and host communities.Overharvesting of natural resources, competition over resources, and entering host communities' common or private lands without consent are the main drivers of conflict between host communities and refugees.
• Challenges to resilience, sustainability, and environmental health in host landscapes are multi-faceted and complex, with cultural, ecological, economic, social, and political dimensions.
• Interventions to support refugees and the environment tend to be based on assumptions about what local groups need, rather than science evidence, and as a result, rates of adoption of proposed innovations have often been low.The social status of many refugees and host community members, i.e., women, non-English or French speakers and less formally educated individuals, create substantial barriers between local groups and would-be innovators from outside the communities.
• Governance, and host community institutions, are central to the success of initiatives addressing environmental degradation, but they have not always been actively involved to date.(Murphy, 2001;Kakonge, 2000;UNHCR, 2018).An estimated 26,183 hectares of forest are burned worldwide each year by forcibly displaced families living in camps (Lahn and Grafham, 2015).The refugee-hosting landscape of Garoua-Boulaï and Gado-Badzéré in Cameroon's forest-savanna transition zone is an area particularly sensitive to disturbances and landscape fragmentation from human activities, as the area is shared by different user groups who compete to use it for various purposes, including agricultural and pastoral activities.However, restoring the degraded landscapes using fast growing trees with economic, social, medicinal, cultural and environmental value and using labour from displaced people should be a win-win model that needs to be implemented.
In many areas, refugees and IDPs add pressure to already vulnerable ecosystems and existing social tensions, leading to land use and resource conflicts among displaced and host communities.
Overharvesting natural resources, competition over resources, entering host communities' common or private lands without consent and envy due to support that targets refugees are the main drivers of conflict between host communities and refugees (Menye, 2012;Gianvenuti et al., 2017).
There are multiple drivers of deforestation in landscapes hosting displaced people, including shifting cultivation, clearing land for livestock, and wood harvesting for firewood and construction.These drivers may exist prior to the influx of new populations, and in some cases are exacerbated by host communities responding to the demand created by displaced people, with host communities expanding agricultural fields, increasing firewood harvests and charcoal production, and thereby putting pressure on surrounding ecosystems (Cross et al., 2019;Daietti et al., 2018;Gitau et al., 2019;Johnstone et al., 2019;Kalipeni and Feder, 1999;Menye, 2012;Miller and Ulfstjerne, 2020;Troconis, 2017;UNEP, 2008).At the same time, traditional resource management practices, and local and regional trade of non-timber and agricultural products are long-standing in host communities and may provide opportunities for migrants and displaced people to improve and create more resilient multi-dimensional livelihoods.
The relationship between displaced and host communities, livelihoods, and the environment is often complex, and interwoven.
A recurring challenge when it comes to creating sustainable livelihoods in these landscapes is that humanitarian aid must respond to immediate needs for food, water, sanitation, shelter and security.The long-term needs for sustainable energy supply and long-term environmental impacts are often not sufficiently considered, which leads to problems later on (Van Dorp, 2009;Kakonge, 2000;Lahn et al., 2015).Lack of consideration for environmental sustainability from the onset of a humanitarian response is due not only to the need to address an immediate crisis, but also to limited understanding of the interrelationship between development and environmental issues, and insufficient evidence on the human and social costs of environmental degradation.

A landscape approach to resilient social ecological systems
With refugees and IDPs often staying for long periods, many over 20 years (FAO and UNHCR, 2018), it is critical that environmental issues receive attention alongside livelihoods in humanitarian approaches.Landscape approaches can accommodate the complex interrelationships between cultural, social, governance, ecological, and economic factors (Figure 1; Walters et al., 2021).
Several humanitarian initiatives already support environment approaches and networks, such as the Joint United Nations Environment Program/Office Walking longer distances is an extra domestic burden -it restricts their ability to pursue other activities, such as agriculture, income generating activities, social and leisure activities and education, and it increases their risk of harassment and assault as they travel further away from home.Competition over scarce natural resources can also increase tensions.
A 2014 survey conducted in Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda found that 30% of refugees had come into conflict with a host community while collecting firewood.In the Imvepi refugee settlement and Rhino camp in Uganda, about 84% of refugee and host community survey participants agreed that environmental degradation is taking place, mainly due to the cutting of trees for firewood and baking bricks, and the extraction of timber and poles for construction (Duguma et al., 2019).In addition, about 60% of tree cover had been depleted in and around settlements over the last 2-4 years, as estimated using stump density as the degradation proxy.Participants in this study proposed planting and growing trees, conserving existing trees and promoting natural regeneration of trees with sprouting stumps to address deforestation.
• Non-timber forest products (NTFPs): A wide range of NTFPs are harvested for subsistence and sale at local and regional (and sometimes international) trade in hosting landscapes, and many of these are multi-purpose species.For example, in Cameroon's eastern region, many of the favoured firewood and charcoal species are also valuable for NTFPs -for example, Moabi trees (Baillonella toxisperma) are known for their vegetal butter.These products are also mostly harvested and consumed by women and the most vulnerable people from displaced communities.This example demonstrates the need to develop non-monetary metrics that fully account for the value of non-wood products that are consumed locally, in addition to other uses that produce profits.
• Agriculture: The interface of refugee/IDP agricultural practices and host communities can create conflict.In many areas with displaced people in central and eastern Africa, agriculture is mostly carried out by smallholder farmers, and builds upon long-standing traditions that have evolved in local environments and reflect the biological and cultural diversity of these areas.Practices developed by host communities over generations, often to reduce risk and maintain well-being and health, rather than maximise gain, may be valuable to extend to displaced people in host landscapes.Other proven and sustainable practices such as home gardening with vegetables and fruit trees are being adapted to local contexts in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda (Njenga et al., 2020;Duguma et al., 2019;Watson 2018).
• Pastoralism/livestock: These livelihoods and production systems are also linked to culture, identity, and socio-political institutions, and could form part of refugee/IDP livelihoods.However, they involve very different relationships to land than agriculture, and access to pasture and water are the source of significant conflict between mobile pastoralists and sedentary farmers in Africa, particularly in areas with social and political unrest (Jobbins and McDonnell, 2021).
• Challenges to resilience, sustainability, and environmental health in host landscapes is multi-faceted and complex, with cultural, ecological, economic, social and political dimensions.Displaced people can place additional pressure on natural resources, leading to persistent land use conflicts, soaring demand for natural resources, and limited livelihood opportunities (although they can also bring new practices, offer opportunities for growth, and environmental impacts are not always negative).These challenges are interwoven and complex, and are layered on top of complex cultural, ecological, economic, and political relations within host communities, and require multidimensional approaches (Figure 2).
• Displaced people, including refugees and IDPs, are often indefinitely settled in host landscapes and communities.Most displaced people are not registered, 1 and there is limited understanding of their natural resource practices, energy and food needs, and where interventions might be most effective in promoting sustainability and equity.IDPs do not usually have rights to land, and so there is little incentive to manage for the long term.
Assumptions about who they are, and their resource use practices, are often not based on evidence and mirror gender, educational, linguistic and other kinds of prejudices.While immediate humanitarian needs must take priority, groups with complementary expertise in long-term development, and sustainable natural resource management, can also become engaged soon after the arrival of displaced peoples.
1 Most refugees are registered due to their need for international protection, but IDPs in many cases are not because they are protected by their own government.
• Governance, and host community institutions, are central to the success of initiatives addressing environmental degradation, but they have not always been actively involved to date.
• Sustainability is often linked to place and culture and is not only a technical issue -building sustainable practices require incentives, cultural norms, and ecological understanding; it develops over time, in connection with the environment.Speeding up a process of knowledge exchange between host communities that have lived in a region for generations, and refugees, is a challenge.However, in some areas -such as the eastern region of Cameroon -refugees are from the same ethnic group, with a history of using similar resources, with similar customary laws and institutions, and this supports the potential adoption of sustainable practices.
• Providing technological fixes, such as more efficient stoves, may only work in the short term and while project incentives exist.Ensuring adoption of new technologies over time is challenging.Research can also reveal host community technologies (e.g., processing NTFPs and agricultural practices) that might be valuable to share with displaced people.
• Historically, the rate of adoption of initiatives to address energy, food security, and sustainability in refugee communities has been low.There is a need to evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches, and base decision-making on evidence and independent scientific evaluation, rather than assumptions.
It is also important to recognize that refugee communities are diverse.Strategies must be adapted to the specific groups that are being served rather than assuming that all refugees can have their needs met with one international strategy.
3 Summary of challenges to improve natural resource management by displaced people (refugees and IDPs) • Researchers and practitioners working with refugees and IDPs in different regions and areas of focus -e.g., humanitarian, development, the environment -often work in parallel, and do not integrate or collaborate.However, the challenges and problems require multi-disciplinary and long-term approaches, and coordination at the grassroots level to ensure complementary and collaborative approaches between agencies and actors.In some cases, these processes have begun, and they offer important insights and lessons (see Table 1) There are also differences between central and eastern Africa in this regard.Sufficient time must be allocated to engage in research that can inform curated best practices in the form of interventions.The fundamental differences between research and non-research outcomes must be more clearly articulated.
• The literature on traditional natural resource management systems and refugees is limited, and the potential for knowledge exchange between refugees, IDPs and host communities poorly understood.The RRR innovations include the recovery of household grey wastewater and plant nutrients from organic residues for home gardening that include tree growing, and the production and use of biochar for soil amendment and fuel briquettes.The interventions target 3,600 people who will be reached directly, and lessons will be disseminated to about 200,000 people through media outreach.Research will be carried out to understand how community trainings and adaptation of the RRR innovations work in these contexts and to determine their impacts, which will be communicated to inform decision-making and implementation of similar development work.• FAO and UNHCR currently work together to support refugee households to facilitate their establishment and to increase their livelihoods.
Incomes are mainly derived from agriculture and the charcoal trade.Support is also provided to host families in Ituri and Haut-Uele provinces.The objective of these various forms of support is to advance agricultural practices with improved seeds and agroforestry, so as to reduce pressure on forests.
• In South Kivu province, FAO works to support at least 30,000 refugee households from Rwanda and Burundi.The objective of the support is to guarantee food security and provide fuel wood.Seventy percent of the support goes to the refugees and IDPs, while 30% is allocated to the host communities.

Gender and inclusion in refugee contexts by CIFOR-ICRAF and partners
Refugees, and sometimes host community members, tend to be both young and female.
The reasons for this are diverse but include the involvement of men in conflict, male migration for the purpose of income generation, and large family size, which means that childcare and household maintenance absorb significant percentages of time among women of childbearing age.Gender inclusion in this context requires dedicated outreach to adult women to understand their social and cultural needs, preferences, and requirements of all community members.A major gap in the literature is the cultural change experienced by refugee and host community members caused by the death of family members, physical displacement, and integration into camps and settlements organised and managed by national governments, various NGOs and UNHCR.CIFOR-ICRAF's approach to gender integration focuses on understanding local conditions and customising both landscapelevel planning and individual interventions to allow for the greatest possible inclusion of participants.In circumstances where communities may have experienced severe neglect and require international humanitarian intervention, the CIFOR-ICRAF approach prioritises understanding the lived experience of marginalised individuals and adjusting technical and policy support, rather than attempting to alter the behaviours and beliefs of displaced persons.This initiative addresses the persistent challenges in environmental degradation and food, water and energy insecurity and sustainable provisioning of other natural resource and ecosystem services in refugee settings.The engagement landscape is also developed with recognition that the priority goal of most UN agencies and major international INGOs is to save lives.In addition, the growing awareness of the importance of natural resources to the well-being of refugees means that urgent efforts are underway to address environmental issues by reversing deforestation and land degradation trends.Such efforts include networks such as the Environment and Human Action Network and the Global Plan of Action for Sustainable Energy Solutions in Situations of Displacement, to which CIFOR-ICRAF scientists contribute.

Engagement landscape
While the humanitarian sector is highly skilled at delivering life-sustaining relief items as well as education, water and sanitation, shelter and other critical services to displaced people, additional contributions from other sectors are needed as the number of refugees grows in sub-Saharan Africa due to climate and conflict-related crises as indicated in the displacement global trends report by UNHCR (2019).
To avoid spreading efforts too thinly across the region, the proposed programme will start by focusing on eight landscapes from six countries, including Cameroon (two in Gado Badzere and Minawao), Chad, and the DRC (South Kivu and potentially Ituri province) for central Africa; and Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia for eastern Africa (Figure 3).Interventions in these countries will allow for collaboration and comparison across the central and eastern African regions and for research to be undertaken to produce evidence on the relative strengths and roles of local governance, forest restoration, sustainable agriculture, soil and water management, NTFPs, and livestock.

Programme on social and environmental transformation of refugee and host community landscapes 2021−2030
The Refugee-hosting Engagement Landscapes initiative is evolving into a programme that seeks to create evidence-based strategies and inform 5 New and future developments

Key terms
Migrants -Movement of people related to poverty and economic causes.
Forced displacement -The forced movement of people due to insecurity, violence, and conflict, who are seeking protection, security, and survival.This includes refugees (<25%) and IDPs (>75%).
Internally displaced people -People displaced within a country's borders.
Refugees -People displaced across national borders.
Host communities -Communities living in a region prior to the arrival of refugees and IDPs.
Woodfuel -All types of biofuels derived directly and indirectly from woody biomass.In sub-Saharan Africa, this is typically in the shape of fuelwood and charcoal, but other forms, such as briquettes, pellets and sawdust can be included.
Food security -"Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.cifor.org

forestsnews.cifor.org
This paper synthesises the challenges in environmental sustainability facing refugee-hosting landscapes, on-going initiatives, and gaps.It also presents transformative science plans by CIFOR-ICRAF to address exiting gaps towards resilient landscapes and livelihoods.CIFOR-ICRAF is a research institution in forestry and landscape management, which has evolved out of an effective merger between CIFOR and ICRAF.
The assessment shows that resilience, sustainability, and environmental health in host landscapes are multi-faceted and complex, with cultural, ecological, economic, social, and political dimensions.Therefore, despite various organisations working in refugee hosting landscapes, there are still challenges in achieving holistic, long-term and sustainable solutions.
On the other hand, governance and host community institutions that are central to the ownership, success and sustainability of initiatives addressing environmental degradation have not always been actively involved to date.
To bridge these gaps, CIFOR-ICRAF applies a landscape approach that delivers evidencebased, actionable and context-based gender-responsive solutions.This approach promotes collaboration and synergies between actors; contributes to international dialogue; and informs planning, programming and policy development.
These initiatives are carried out under CIFOR-ICRAF's Refugee-hosting Engagement Landscapes where over a dozen projects on concentrated transformative work with diverse and committed partners have been implemented in several countries in eastern and central Africa.This approach adapts the centre's experiences and lessons from a diverse range of innovations implemented in over 30 countries in the Global South to address major global challenges related to deforestation and diversity loss, the climate crisis, food system transformation, unsustainable supply and value chains and extreme inequality as they manifest in refugee-hosting landscapes.
CIFOR Occasional Papers contain research results that are significant to tropical forest issues.This content has been peer reviewed internally and externally.

Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
CIFOR advances human well-being, equity and environmental integrity by conducting innovative research, developing partners' capacity, and actively engaging in dialogue with all stakeholders to inform policies and practices that affect forests and people.CIFOR is a CGIAR Research Center, and leads the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).
Our headquarters are in Bogor, Indonesia, with offices in Nairobi, Kenya; Yaounde, Cameroon; Lima, Peru and Bonn, Germany.

Figure
Figure 2. Interaction of refugee and host communities in multifunctional landscapes

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Map of Africa showing current focus countries ISBN 978-602-387-173-5 DOI: 10.17528/cifor/008420The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) is the world's largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change.CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with ICRAF, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR and TBI.FTA's work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund: cgiar.org/funders/

1 Introduction 2.1 Demographics and challenges in the context of displacement
• Researchers and practitioners working with refugees and IDPs in different regions and on different areas of focus often work in parallel, and most humanitarian interventions are coordinated by clusters, calling for integrated multi-disciplinary and long-term approaches and better global coordination to ensure complementarity between agencies and actors.

Table 1 . Tools, networks and key resources regarding displaced people and the environment: landscape level integration Source Focus Dimension of landscape approach
Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance Environment Unit, the Joint Unit Environmental Emergency Centre and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) (Table1).UNHCR and other partners have developed relevant tools for considering the environment at different phases of displacement and relocation.However, as the environment is considered a 'cross-cutting' Figure 1.Landscape approach for resilient socioecological systems Source: Ingram, 2021 for the

ICRAF experiences in refugee displacement settings in central and eastern Africa
• Ethiopia: ICRAF, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Norwegian Church Aid successfully accomplished a one-year inception period 4 CIFOR- " (2009 Declaration of the World Food Summit) Multi-functional landscapes -"Multifunctional landscapes are typically characterized by diversified land use and complex landscape structure, thereby potentially covering many, often competing interests of different stakeholder groups."(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780124095489120986)Conflict-An actual or perceived opposition of needs, values, and interests between two or more individuals.Governance -Structures and processes that are designed to ensure accountability, transparency, responsiveness, rule of law, stability, equity and inclusiveness, empowerment, and broad-based participation.(http://www.ibe.unesco.org/en/geqaf/technical-notes/concept-governance)Forestlandscape restoration (FLR) -"A process that aims to regain ecological functionality and enhance human well-being in deforested or degraded landscapes."(Global Partnership on FLR -a group of over 30 partners engaged in FLR)