Hon. Charumbira pays tribute to Uganda, Ethiopia and Zambia for ensuring that refugee problems are addressed

The 4^th Vice President of the Pan African Parliament (PAP), Hon. Chief Fortune Charumbira has paid tribute to the efforts of the men and women who have sacrificed their lives, their time, their thoughts, to ensure that the refugees enjoy their rights as human beings and also those who have contributed politically, socially, economically, psychologically and in many other ways to ensure that the refugee problem and its resultant problems are addressed meaningfully and sustainably.

Hon. Charumbira stated this in his opening remarks at the World Refugee Day Commemorative event at the Pan-African Parliament recently.

He commended the efforts of “Uganda, which is currently hosting 1.2 million refugees, for integrating refugees within communities, providing them with economic assets, such as land, and strengthening their resilience and self-reliance. Uganda has also provided social protection to its returnees from the war in the North, a programme that has proven to help communities get back on their feet. 

“Ethiopia’s social protection programmes have helped pastoralist communities across borders to strengthen their resilience without curbing their mobility. In East Africa Cross Border programmes, long neglected, are established to strengthen health facilities for mobile communities living across the borders.”

“In my own region, our borders are amongst the liveliest communities in which people on both sides of the border belong together and trade. Especially in times of want, these border communities are places where creative solutions emerge to sort out daily problems. These experiences where positive results emerge, can guide us, as surely in Africa we already have home-grown and tested solutions.

“It shows that mobility as such is not the problem, on the contrary, mobility and migration have helped our communities to survive and to overcome hardship. With these many good examples, we have every reason to be hopeful that we can elaborate our policies in Africa, inspired by these positive results.

Hon. Charumbira who is also a Member of Parliament in Zimbabwe also noted that Zambia has not given up on hosting migrants despite being a victim of hostile military attacks from neighbouring countries during the liberation struggle in the region and then thanked Zambians for accommodating foreigners and living in harmony with its neighbours.

“Zambia has set good example of a country that practices ubuntu by providing equal employment and economic opportunities to migrants that have settled in the country from other countries.”