At the moment, Kenya is the 13th largest refugee hosting country in the world and the 5th largest in Africa, home to about 954,851 refugees and asylum seekers as of 2025. Dadaab in Garissa County and Kakuma in Turkana County, two of the largest refugee camps in the world, together host over 800,00 people with most refugees living up to 30 years. Furthermore, there's an additional 100,000 and 200,000 unregistered refugees living in Nairobi and Mombasa. For the past three decades, the Kenya's refugee plan has been on a back and forth between hospitality and hostility, leading to the launching of the Shirika Plan by the government and UNHCR in March 2025 representing the ambitious attempt with the aim of resolving the tension. This brief examines the policy evolution, political economy of hosting, the humanitarian-security tension, and whether the Shirika Plan could deliver what decades of encampment could not.
How Kenya Got Here
Dadaab was established in 1991 to host Somalis fleeing civil war and eventually grew into the world's largest refugee complex peaking to over 500,000 during the 2011 Horn of Africa famine. Kakuma, on the other hand, was established in 1992 initially to cater for South Sudanese "Lost Boys", now hosts refugees from South Sudan, DRC, Somalia, Burundi, Ethiopia and others. Kenya's encampment policy restricted refugees' freedom of movement and employment, that resulted to aid dependency rather than self-reliance. As an early pilot of integration, Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement was established in 2016 to promote self-reliance and co-existence between the refugees and Turkana host communities. For 15 years, the 2006 Refugee Act governed policy got widely criticised for fortifying encampment and systematically limiting refugee rights.
The Refugee Act of 2021 marking a departure from the 2006 Act, granted refugees right to work, freedom of movement in designated areas and right to own property. In 2023, Dadaab and Kakuma were gazetted as municipalities, providing a legal platform for area-based development, integrating refugee hosting areas into Kenya's administrative framework. To further operationalise the Act's provisions, Refugee General Regulations were gazetted in February 2024. Despite the legislative progress, implementation gaps have frustrated the Act's intent as not all service providers accept refugee ID cards and securing work permits remains a hassle. The Act represents genuine political will, however, the gap between legislation and reality remains the central challenge.
The Shirika Plan
In March 2025, President Ruto launched The Shirika Plan, Shirika translating as "cooperation" or "coming together" in Swahili. It is a five-year transition plan with an eleven-year implementation horizon spanning 2025 to 2036, structured across three phases: Transition, Stabilisation and Resilience, with an estimated budget of USD 943 million overseen by a National Steering Committee chaired by the Principal Secretary for Immigration. Core provisions include business permits, banking services, refugees access to government ID cards, tax numbers, education registration under KEMIS, and mobile money services. Moreover, Dadaab and Kakuma are to be developed into municipalities administered by Garissa and Turkana counties respectively, eventually transitioning from UN agencies and NGOs to county governments. In February 2026, Germany, Kenya and UNHCR launched a three-year joint implementation project to operationalise the plan's institutional, energy and skills development components. Early friction has already emerged as that host communities Turkana and Garissa have raised concerns over resource competition and land allocation, not all telecom branches accept refugee ID for mobile money despite government ruling and civil society organizations noted that refugees were insufficiently consulted in the plan’s design.
Kenya hosting nearly a million refugees in Turkana and Garissa, two of the most marginalised counties in the country, places significant pressure on public services, infrastructure, land and water. President Ruto framed the Shirika Plan as a response to donor fatigue and diminishing global humanitarian support and the unreliability of the traditional financing model. The Kakuma market economy alone generates an estimated USD 56 million annually hence the economic argument for integration is substantive as refugees represent a meaningful labour force, consumer base, and entrepreneurial community. The economic argument against encampment on the other hand is that, camps lead to permanent aid dependency, distorting local markets and generating resentment among host communities over irregular distribution of services in some instances.
Policy Recommendations
1. Accelerate Shirika Plan Implementation with Refugee Participation
If the implementation of the Shirika Plan starts with integrity and urgency then the eleven-year timeline is credible. Refugees should be included as the plan determines their future. The inclusion must be repositioned from passive beneficiaries to active co-designers at every phase. There should be community representation in the National Steering Committee and county-level implementation structures should be formalised, not optional. Without refugee participation, the plan would end up stalling just like the previous ones.
2. Address Host Community Grievances Through Equitable Investment
Turkana and Garissa communities have had concerns over resource competition and land allocation, that are legitimate. If left unaddressed it might lead to a rise in a local opposition that slows down the implementation. County governments must receive funding set aside for development that would improve services for host communities alongside refugees, not as an afterthought.
3. Close the Gap Between Legal Rights and Operational Reality
The Refugee Act 2021 granted rights that are yet to translate to reality. Work permit processing must be streamlined; telecom companies must be compelled to accept refugee ID cards; and financial inclusion provisions must be monitored with enforcement mechanisms. Rights that exist only on paper do not translate to integration.
Outlook
While the Shirika Plan is the most credible refugee policy attempt in three decades, it still faces the implementation gap that has frustrated every previous platform. With the upcoming 2027 elections presents a direct political risk and the camp closure rhetoric based on security could resurface. The outcome of the Shirika Plan determines the lives of about a million lives and Kenya's standing as a model for African refugee policy.