Refugees, Environmental Resource Use and Local Integration in Ghana

The world has seen a dramatic upsurge in the number of displaced persons since World War II. As the international community and host governments struggle to cope with the ever increasing number of new refugee inflows, a more staggering number of refugees live in protracted situations in refugee camps located in insecure environments and under precarious socio-economic conditions in the global South. While this situation is perpetrated by the unending conflicts in most origin countries of refugees and the limitations of resettling refugees in third country destinations, stakeholders have consistently advocated for a regional approach, which favours the integration of refugees in host countries. Although this approach potentially offers refugees the opportunity to formalise their stay in host countries and therefore engage in productive activities to improve their living conditions, conflicts over access and use of environmental resources between refugees and host community members pose significant threat to the success of local integration. Drawing on Political Ecology, Social Exchange Theory and Irritation Index as analytical tools, this research employed mixed methods to investigate the implications of environmental resource use conflicts between refugees and their hosts for local integration of refugees in Ghana. The findings show that contrary to the popular claim that refugees are often not interested in local integration as a durable solution, a significant proportion of the refugees considered local integration as a viable solution once it comes with an acceptable package. Disagreements over environmental resource use accounted for more than half of all conflicts between 2003 and 2013, yet both hosts and refugees considered local integration as a feasible option. Nevertheless, host government’s unilateral decisions regarding how land was acquired for camp construction posed significant threat to local integration. While the willingness of both refugees and hosts to accept local integration serves as a boost, stakeholders need to do more in terms of resources in order to push ahead the agenda of locally integrating refugees in protracted situations.