While humanitarian aid for Liberian refugees in Buduburam had sharply decreased, the formal and informal restrictions on making a livelihood remained and new restrictions emerged. Arguably, Ghana had been applauded by UNHCR as an exemplary model state regarding refugee protection. UNHCR wrote:
Ghana has exemplified a number of objectives outlined in the Global Consultations and the Agenda for Protection, having ratified all the relevant refugee conventions, enacted national refugee law, and established a body for the determination of asylum claims. The refugee protection regime has been substantially reinvigorated by new procedures for refugee status determination and other protection activities. (UNHCR 2004c: 160)
In contrast with this positive reputation, the Ghanaian administration had actually set up several bureaucratic impediments to refugees’ economic activities, similar to those in other refugee-hosting countries in the Global South. For instance, refugees were required to obtain work permits from the government for formal employment, but this cumbersome process took several months, discouraging local employers from hiring refugees (also see Hampshire et al. 2008; Tanle 2013). The Ghanaian government did not recognize professional qualifications obtained in Liberia, such as those for doctors, nurses and teachers (Dick 2002b: 18; Porter et al. 2008: 238). Therefore, these professionals had to take their training again in Ghana to receive an official certificate from the Ghanaian authorities, an option which was not affordable for the majority of refugees. Also, certain types of employment such as taxi-driving and hairdressing were not open to foreigners, including refugees. These restrictions virtually excluded refugees from formal employment and forced them to work in informal sectors.
Even in the informal sector, refugees faced ‘invisible’ barriers erected by local people. Initially, the host community’s generosity to displaced Liberians played an important role in helping refugees to survive during the emergency phase. In later years, however, many Ghanaians started seeing Liberians as their competitors as the refugee presence became protracted (Agblorti 2011: 7). In local markets around the camp, Liberian refugees were not allowed to trade without paying so-called entry fees to Ghanaian market leaders. Even if refugees managed to pay these entrance fees, the xenophobic attitude of locals often limited refugees’ income-generating activities in these markets. For example, Ghanaians did not buy goods from refugees if they found that they were Liberians, even though they were selling the same items as local traders (also see Hardgrove 2009: 486). There was a general perception among Ghanaians that Liberian refugees were better off than local people in neighbouring areas because of refugee businesses in the camp (Porter et al. 2008: 245). This perception had given rise to reluctance among locals to purchase from Liberian traders.
Given these formal and informal restrictions on their livelihoods, the economic activities undertaken by Liberian refugees were inevitably confined to inside and around Buduburam camp. This also meant that the customers of refugees’ businesses were camp residents and a small number of nearby villagers.
As the period of asylum extended to nearly two decades, the refugees in Buduburam were treated as ‘guests who stayed too long’ by the host government and UNHCR. Apparently, when the main fieldwork of this book started in 2008, the occupants of Buduburam camp were already entering the final phase of their formal refugee life; UNHCR was closing off support for them and the host government was requesting their return to Liberia. Several years after Dick’s insightful work in 2002, Porter et al. (2008: 236) questioned whether refugee self-reliance in Buduburam was still viable given the livelihood constraints and the lack of humanitarian assistance.
In the face of these unfavourable conditions, were all of the 18,000 refugees still able to achieve the self-reliant status claimed for them by UNHCR? Who failed and who managed, and at what cost? Drawing upon the empirical evidence, the following chapters will provide the answers to these compelling questions.
Notes
1. Interview, Buduburam, May 2009.
2. These vocational training programmes were provided by UNHCR and its implementing partners as free services. However, because the programmes did not cover the cost of materials, refugees who were not able to purchase them had to sit and watch other people’s training. During my research I frequently observed such cases.
3. Interview, Accra, September 2008.
4. Interview, Accra, July 2009.
5. According to the sub-regional refugee coordinator of the US Embassy in Ghana, at the point of this study the only resettlement criterion to be applied to Liberian refugees wanting to move to the United States was family reunification, but new applications had already been suspended since 2006 due to recurrent fraud. Another possibility for migrating to the United States was to apply for an immigration visa, but this option was only available for refugees who had either parents, children or a spouse already living there.
6. See Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (2011) for the role of faith-based organizations in assisting refugees.
7. According to my interviews, a significant number of refugees first sought asylum in Ivory Coast, but they were forced out of the country because of intensified insecurity due to its internal conflict and because of acute animosity towards Liberians due to Charles Taylor’s involvement in the conflict.
8. Interview, Accra, June 2009.
9. Interview, Buduburam, January 2009.
10. See Holzer (2012) for details of the refugee demonstrations.
11. Interview, Accra, August 2008.
12. Interview, Accra, July 2009.
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