Political Economy Analysis

Kenya is the 13th largest refugee hosting country in the world, home to nearly a million refugees, most of them confined to Dadaab and Kakuma, two of the largest camps on earth, for up to three decades. For thirty years, Kenya's refugee policy has oscillated between hospitality and hostility, deploying security rhetoric to justify closure threats while remaining one of Africa's most generous hosts by volume. The Shirika Plan, launched in March 2025, promises to end that contradiction, transforming camps into municipalities, integrating refugees into the national economy, and shifting from aid dependency to self-reliance. Whether it delivers what every previous reform could not is the question this brief examines.