Assessing the Impact of the Rwandan Refugee Crisis on Development Planning in Rural Tanzania, 1994-1996

It is generally recognized that refugee movements are related to development policy in the world's poorest countries. In particular, solutions to refugee crises are regarded as rooted in the reintegration of refugees voluntarily into their own societies or that of a host country. For these reasons, efforts at refugee resettlement and integration became closely tied to development assistance programs in the 1980s. However, this situation changed with the Rwandan refugee crisis of 1994-1996. Explicit relief policies emerged separating refugee relief from development assistance programs. The implications for a local population resulting from the separation of development and relief in Ngara, Tanzania, are examined in this paper. Ngara hosted over 400,000 Rwandan refugees in 1994-1996, and refugee relief programs costing hundreds of million dollars were mounted. Because of the "relief only" policy, much of this expenditure was on semipermanent infrastructure, institutions, and programs, without regard for local development planning.