Barriers and backslides: How economic instability impedes refugee self-reliance in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya

Abstract Studies reveal that refugees develop a wide range of economic activity in displacement. In recent years, priorities of refugee self-reliance have had a resurgence among humanitarian organizations and policymakers. Within these programs, models of self-reliance have focused on employment and income for individual refugee households. Based on ethnographic observations, interviews, and longitudinal questionnaires in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, I demonstrate the need to broaden our models of self-reliance to incorporate the role economic shocks, or exogenous and unpredictable events that affect household resources. Rather than rare events, economic shocks were common across sectors and compounded by cuts to humanitarian support. Nor were shocks isolated events. Households faced multiple intersecting shocks, which rippled across communities as households were affected by shocks to others in their social networks. Across employment type and income, shocks destabilized the economic trajectories of refugee households and impeded progress toward self-reliance.