Empowering Communities
AHEEN supports Eastern and Southern African efforts to advance Refugee Integration.
🇰🇪 Kenya
Turning Camps into Thriving Towns
Kenya is currently rolling out the Shirika Plan, a groundbreaking initiative to phase out massive, isolated refugee camps like Kakuma and Dadaab.
The Goal
Transform these long-standing camps into official, legal municipalities.
The Strategy
Shift the management of schools, hospitals, and water systems away from international charities and hand them over to local county governments.
The Benefit
By integrating refugees into local town planning, Kenya is opening doors for formal businesses, tax generation, and joint economic development for both refugees and Kenyan citizens.
AHEEN’s contribution
Secondary school learners are supported through sports and science programs to transition to AHEEN national tertiary education institutions. It builds in-demand knowledge and skills that allows them to transition to decent work in the national or the global platform economy.
🇸🇴 Somalia
Rebuilding from the Ground Up
As hundreds of thousands of displaced people return home alongside regional refugees, Somalia is focused on safe, permanent community resettlement.
The Goal
Smoothly absorb arriving populations without sparking local resource conflicts.
The Strategy
Strengthen the links between the federal government and regional states to map out clear land rights and property lines.
The Benefit
Directing international funding straight into municipal water pipes, electricity grids, and roads helps entire towns rise together.
AHEEN’s contribution
AHEEN’s member university, City University of Mogadishu, meets the demand for skills that help Somalia absorb arriving populations and for higher-level competencies in economically vital areas such as agriculture and fisheries.
🇸🇸 South Sudan
Creating Stability Amid Climate Crises
Facing a massive influx of people fleeing neighboring conflicts alongside severe, ongoing climate shocks, South Sudan’s local infrastructure is under immense strain.
The Goal
Move away from fragile emergency tents toward permanent, resilient settlements.
The Strategy
Empower the national Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to take the logistical lead, ensuring resource distributions are steady and locally managed.
The Benefit
Building state-led infrastructure ensures that communities remain stable and supported, even when international aid fluctuates.
AHEEN’s contribution
Our Rapid Response Mechanism implemented by the University of Juba breaks through bureaucratic barriers by placing arriving refugees with higher education backgrounds at the right level of their academic degree to ensure uninterrupted academic journeys and combines this with AHEEN’s Integrative SEL (Social Emotional Learning) program to create a welcoming and supportive environment that translates into academic retention and completion.
🇧🇮 Burundi
Welcoming People Home Safely
Burundi handles a unique dual challenge: safely welcoming home waves of its own returning citizens while simultaneously protecting refugees from neighboring countries.
The Goal
Ensure everyone has the space and resources to build a life.
The Strategy
Empower local tribunals to quickly and fairly resolve land disputes, while using the National Commission for Reintegration to connect people with farming resources.
The Benefit
Giving families secure access to land and state-backed bank loans prevents poverty and builds deep-rooted social harmony.
AHEEN’s contribution
Our AHEEN member, Hope Africa University, prioritises returnees’ skill-building in agriculture and entrepreneurship both on their Bujumbura campus as well as in collaboration with refugee-led organisations in Kinama camp.
🇿🇦 South Africa
Modernising the Legal System
Unlike many nations, South Africa does not use refugee camps. Refugees live and work directly within local urban communities, but the legal system managing them faces a massive paperwork backlog.
The Goal
Clear an inherited backlog of over 160,000 asylum appeal cases.
The Strategy
Completely digitise the Department of Home Affairs, swapping slow paper processes for transparent, high-speed digital tracking.
The Benefit
Faster, more accurate legal decisions protect human rights, prevent fraud, and allow legal refugees to quickly enter the formal workforce.
AHEEN’s contribution
Our AHEEN member, the African Digital University Network at Stellenbosch University, is entirely focused on strengthening the AHEEN network members’ digital teaching and learning capacity so that AHEEN graduates arrive with the right digital skills to quickly enter the labour market.
When international donors invest directly in African-led networks that work in sync with local government systems rather than short-term charity projects, everyone wins.
True Self-Reliance:
Refugees obtain nationally recognised tertiary credentials, gain the legal right to work, open bank accounts, and own businesses, ending the cycle of aid dependency.
Stronger Public Services
When a local school is upgraded or a national university goes digital to support refugees, the local host community benefits from that exact same infrastructure.
Lasting Peace
Shared classrooms, university courses pitched to needs of low-resource contexts, shared workplaces, and clear laws break down stereotypes and foster strong cultural bonds.