The East African Centre for Forced Migration and Displacement
The East African Centre for Forced Migration & Displacement (“the centre”) is East Africa’s 1st truly ‘local’ multi-disciplinary centre dedicated to the promotion of the scholarship and practice of international refugee law. It was founded in August 2019 by a team of highly qualified and experienced refugee law practitioners from East Africa. The centre seeks to create a unique platform where researchers, scholars, practitioners, CSOs and Refugee Led Organizations from the ’global south’ interact and share with their counterparts from the north.
Conceptualized after years of working with large INGOs in various displacement operations in the continent, the founders were keen on addressing the disconnect between decades of welcoming displaced persons and the absence of (a) institutions that taught forced migration studies, (b) little or no practice of international refugee law in the region as well as continued retrogression of legislative and policy around displaced persons. Refugee law is very rarely practiced by advocates in the region, despite the immense potential both at the individual case level and at the national/regional policy level.
The centre focuses on localization of knowledge production and responses to forced displacement in the region - with a view of contributing to legislative and policy developments.
