Critique of the UNHCR

This chapter provides a critical deconstruction of the expanding mandate of the UNHCR and its doctrine of protection in order to reveal the colonial context in which the refugee agency intervened in Africa. I argue that although the UNHCR is peripheral and detached from colonialism, it intervened in Africa through the back door and at a time when its founders owned vast colonial empires in Africa. Understanding this colonial origin is significant in examining the way in which the refugee agency intervened and has remained in Africa ever since. This chapter also sheds light on how the colonial legacy of the camp has left a ‘mental state’ that informs how both the state in Africa and the UNHCR continue to engage with the refugees as ‘colonial others’. I argue that instead of relying on six-decade-old colonial legal framework, Africa adopts a borderless policy as an indigenous solution which is relevant to the culture, history, and hospitality of the African people which predates the refugee regime.