Blog Series on the Shirika Plan:  Part II Does the Shirika Plan mark a break in refugee management models?

The Shirika Plan is not Kenya’s first experiment in reimagining refugee governance. In Part II of our series, we examine Kenya’s past attempts, especially the Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement Plan, and assess whether Shirika marks a meaningful departure or a repackaging of previous efforts.

Does the Shirika Plan mark a break in refugee management models? 

The Shirika Plan is not the first time Kenya has attempted a pivot in refugee management. In 2018, it rolled out the Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement Plan (KISP), a “hybrid” model in Turkana County meant to advance both refugee self-reliance and host community development. Heavily externally funded, it was billed as a solution to long-term displacement, aiming to bridge, in similar fashion to the Shirika Plan, humanitarian and development responses. 

But five years on, the results have been uneven. KISP never reached full implementation; there was no harmonised monitoring framework or collective donor accountability mechanism. Coordination between Turkana County and humanitarian actors was inconsistent. Longstanding structural barriers, like the prohibition on refugees owning land and weak infrastructure linkages, persisted. There were improvements: enhanced local service delivery, modest increases in household incomes, better access to agricultural inputs. But these were piecemeal.

The Shirika Plan gestures towards lessons learnt. It proposes a stronger role for the Refugee Affairs Secretariat and County governments in implementation and oversight. It speaks to the need for a long-term sustainability framework to mitigate the consequences of donor attrition, and it highlights gaps in coordination and data. But the Plan itself remains high-level and aspirational, with few granular details. 

A delivery framework and budget are expected later this month (June 2025) but Kenyan civil society and refugee-led organisations are broadly sceptical that it will go far enough to ensure that public participation is ongoing and that refugees and host communities are represented in governance structures higher than ‘technical’ level. 

“We must adopt a development-oriented model anchored in sustainability, inclusion, and resilience to continue to uphold the safety and dignity of displaced persons, and to make them feel at home” said President Ruto at the Shirika Plan’s launch. The Plan, according to him, embodies this rhetoric, with a three-pronged approach: (1) refugee self-reliance, (2) transitioning from a humanitarian to a development-focused response, and (3) a shift from camp-based to settlement-based hosting.

Ruto’s words mark a conceptual and strategic shift from previous models built on encampment, humanitarian relief, and national security priorities. In practice, roughly 88% of Kenya’s refugees remain confined to Dadaab and Kakuma – two remote camps in the country’s northeast and northwest, dependent on external assistance. 

His language, however, reframes refugees as long-term residents with the capacity to contribute meaningfully to the national economy, echoing the ethos of the Global Compact on Refugees. This global shift favours integration and development over indefinite dependence on humanitarian aid. 

The Shirika Plan embraces this, proposing inclusion of refugees in systems like education, healthcare, and finance, and explicitly tying refugee affairs to county and regional development plans, seeking to “give inclusion a new expression” by generating shared opportunity.

“As I speak to you, more than 70,000 refugees are enrolled for universal health coverage under the Social Health Insurance Fund, while IDs for refugees are recognised by the Integrated Population Registration System. Partnerships such as the International Finance Corporation, Kenya Commercial Bank and Swedish International Development Agency’s guarantee funds are catalysing their financial inclusion and engagement in entrepreneurship and job creation.”

Implementation is already underway in Dadaab. The government has reportedly granted land in the newly created township of Alinjugur for the construction of public infrastructure. A new refugee settlement is also expected to be built in the outskirts of Garissa town, with the support of UNHCR and the vetting process for those eligible to relocate under the new plan is underway.

While the Plan promises a strategic shift, implementation will reveal all. Part III explores the practical barriers that could hold it back and what’s at stake if it fails.