1969 Refugee Convention Africa’s “widely accepted regional treaty”: experts

ADDIS ABABA: June 21 (Ethiopian Informer) — African countries have been urged to embrace the 1969 Refugee Convention as the African Union (AU) and other pan African institutions emohasize full ratification of the continental refugee pact.

As the world commemorated the World Refugee Day on Thursday, African countries, hosting a collective number of 7.3 million refugees, have been urged to further intensify the implementation of the 1969 refugee convention, which is regarded as one of the most widely accepted regional treaties in Africa.

The latest call was made by the AU Commission Chairperson, Moussa Faki Mahamat, as he underscored the vital imperative of fully implementing the pact during a two-day continental meeting, which was concluded on Thursday, focusing on the implementation and supervision of the 1969 refugee convention.

Chairperson of the 55-member continental bloc, who noted that some 9 African countries are yet to ratify the convention, urged the countries to speed up their respective political will “not only to ratify the convention but to also fully implement the instrument.”

Faki further urged the member states to work hard to handle the factors responsible for creating refugees. Terrorism and political instability are among the most serious challenges, he noted.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, by the end of 2018, there were roughly 7.4 million refugees and asylum seekers across the African continent, which is said to be 10 times higher than in 1969, when the then Organization of African Unity (OAU) – AU’s predecessor – adopted the convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in Africa.

The Institute for Security Studies (ISS), an African think-thank on security, also on Thursday stressed that 50-year pact, which has been ratified by 46 AU member countries, “is one of the most widely accepted regional treaties in Africa.”

The ISS, in its publication issued on Thursday under the theme “After 50 years, Africa’s Refugee Policy Still Leads,” said that the convention “has substantially shaped African refugee policymaking and practice in four key areas.”

According to the institute, the convention’s “broadened definition of a refugee” has created a platform for open-door policies of African countries, and “provides a template for burden and responsibility sharing.”

Figures from UNHCR also indicated that Sub-Saharan Africa currently hosts more than 26 percent of the world’s refugee population, while the number has soared in recent years, partly due to ongoing crises in the Central African Republic (CAR), Nigeria, South Sudan, as well as new conflicts that have erupted in Burundi and Yemen.

Noting refugees from South Sudan and Somalia have been in particular special beneficiaries of the OAU convention’s expanded definition, the ISS stressed that the convention’s “broadened regional refugee definition is considered significant.”

“The definition includes factors beyond those in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention that may force people to flee, such as external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order,” the ISS said.

The provision has informed national refugee laws of several African countries including Angola, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda, according to the institute.

The ISS also credited Africa’s refugee convention for “laying the foundation for African states’ generosity in hosting large numbers of refugees,” which saw some African countries, mainly Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan, were among the world’s top 10 refugee hosts in 2017.

Africa’s open-door policy towards refugees had also won acclaim from the United Nations, as reflected by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s remark during the 32nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the AU in February this year.

“The world has drawn constant inspiration from Africa’s leadership and vision towards finding lasting solutions to forced displacement,” Guterres told African leaders during the summit. “In the search for durable solutions to forced displacement, the world and, indeed, I personally have drawn constant inspiration from African leadership, African vision and African compassion,” Guterres had said.