Is the Global Compact on Refugees Fit for Africa’s Purposes?

This research paper evaluates the suitability of the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) for the African context. It examines the GCR's objectives, the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), and the challenges of implementing these non-binding frameworks in countries like South Africa and Tanzania, highlighting a critical gap between international policy and the fiscal and political realities of host states in the Global South.

• The Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) aims to address gaps in the 1951 Convention by providing a blueprint for equitable responsibility-sharing, focusing on easing pressure on host communities, building refugee self-reliance, expanding third-country solutions, and ensuring safe returns.
• The Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) seeks to shift the perception of displaced persons from being a burden to becoming productive contributors to society by integrating them into host communities and the labour force.
• A major flaw in the CRRF's funding mechanism is that it often requires host states to take on loans, effectively making developing countries pay to host displaced populations.
• Africa faces a unique 'security–migration–development nexus' where forced displacement is driven by a combination of violent conflict, structural poverty, and climatic pressures, such as the 2.5 million people displaced by climatic pressures in Chad alone in 2017.
• South Africa maintains a liberal, non-encampment refugee policy in law, but suffers from a significant implementation gap, including a Department of Home Affairs backlog of 150,000–184,200 asylum applications.
• South Africa is moving toward a more restrictive approach through the 2017 White Paper on International Migration and the Border Management Authority Bill, which propose an encampment policy and processing centres at borders.
• Tanzania withdrew from the CRRF in 2018 due to underfunding and social tensions, and it rejected World Bank loans because the government refused to indebt the country to host refugees.
• The non-binding nature of the GCR and CRRF is a critical limitation, as there are no penalties for member states that fail to uphold their commitments, which may lead to the framework becoming ineffective.
• Developing countries bear a disproportionate burden of the global refugee crisis, with 85% of the world's refugee population hosted in developing countries and 33% hosted by the 10 least developed countries.

APA

MLAUZI, K., & SMALL, D. M. (2019). Is the Global Compact on Refugees Fit for Africa’s Purposes? South African Institute of International Affairs. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Occasional-Paper-302-Small-Mlauzi.pdf

Chicago

MLAUZI, KATE, and DR MICHELLE SMALL. Is the Global Compact on Refugees Fit for Africa’s Purposes? South African Institute of International Affairs, 2019. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Occasional-Paper-302-Small-Mlauzi.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=MLAUZI |first1=KATE |last2=SMALL |first2=DR MICHELLE |title=Is the Global Compact on Refugees Fit for Africa’s Purposes? |publisher=South African Institute of International Affairs |date=October 2019 |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Occasional-Paper-302-Small-Mlauzi.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{mlauzi2019global, author = {MLAUZI, KATE and SMALL, DR MICHELLE}, title = {{Is the Global Compact on Refugees Fit for Africa’s Purposes?}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2019}, month = oct, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Occasional-Paper-302-Small-Mlauzi.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }