On 19 January 2021, the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, in partnership with the Global Academic Interdisciplinary Network (GAIN), hosted the Southern Africa Regional Sessions of the Virtual Conference on the 70th Anniversary of the founding of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Session 1: Strategies on Refugee Protection in Southern Africa
Tuesday 19 January 2021
10:30-12:00 CET / 11:30-13:00 SAST
The session reflected on the political dimensions of responsibility sharing and refugee protection in the Southern African region. Discussions zoomed in on the challenges and opportunities for the protection of refugees and asylum seekers in Botswana and South Africa.
- Moderator: Prof Frans Viljoen
Director, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria - Dr Cristiano d’Orsi
Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer, University of Johannesburg
Protecting Refugees in Southern Africa: reflection on the complementarity of the UN Refugee Convention and the OAU Convention in practice - Prof Christopher Changwe Nshimbi
Director, Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation, University of Pretoria
Migration Governance and the Protection of Refugees and Migrant Workers in Southern Africa - Ms Angèle Marie Dikongué-Atangana
Deputy Director for the Regional Bureau for Southern Africa, UNHCR
Topic: The UNHCR in Southern Africa: priorities, partnerships and potentials
Session 2: Local Integration of Refugees: the Southern African experience
Tuesday 19 January 2021
12:00-13:30 CET/ 13:00-14:30 SAST
The session focued on local integration of and durable solutions for refugees in the Southern African region. Panel discussions reflected on regional priorities, promising partnerships, challenges and opportunities for local integration; as well as on the complementarity of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1969 Organisation of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa.
- Moderator: Dr Romola Adeola
Coordinator, Global Engagement Network on Internal Displacement in Africa (GENIDA) - Dr Elizabeth Macharia-Mokobi
Senior Lecturer and Head of Department, Department of Law, University of Botswana
Refugee/Asylum Seeker Protection in Botswana - Dr Pedro Figueiredo Neto
University of Lisbon
Integration of refugees from Angola in Zambia - Ms Jessica Kaye Lawrence
Attorney, Lawyers for Human Rights / University of Johannesburg
The shrinking spaces for Asylum and Barriers to Refugee Protection in South Africa
Biographies
Prof Frans Viljoen
Director, Centre for Human Rights
Professor Frans Viljoen holds the degrees MA, LLB and LLD from the University of Pretoria, and an LLM from Cambridge University. He is a professor of law and Director of the Centre for Human Rights in the Faculty of Law at the University of Pretoria. His research area is international human rights law, with a focus on the African regional human rights system.
Ms Angèle Marie Dikongué-Atangana
Deputy Director for the Regional Bureau for Southern Africa, UNHCR
Ms Angèle Marie Dikongué-Atangana, a Cameroonian national, is the UNHCR Deputy Director for the Regional Bureau for Southern Africa, based in Pretoria. In this capacity, she assists the Regional Bureau Director for Southern Africa in the oversight of UNHCR’s operations in sixteen countries and to promote sustained partnerships and collaboration between UNHCR and relevant regional economic communities such as SADC, inter alia.
Dr Cristiano d’Orsi
Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer, University of Johannesburg
Dr Cristiano d’Orsi was previously a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria. His research interests include the legal protection of asylum-seekers, refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons in Africa, African human rights law, and, more broadly, the development of international law in Africa. Cristiano currently lectures in these areas of Public International Law.
Dr Romola Adeola
Coordinator, Global Engagement Network on Internal Displacement in Africa (GENIDA)
Prof Christopher Changwe Nshimbi
Director, Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation, University of Pretoria
Dr Christopher Changwe Nshimbi is Director of the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation (GovInn) and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria. He researches migration, borders, regional integration, the informal economy and water governance.
Dr Elizabeth Macharia-Mokobi
Senior Lecturer and Head of Department, Department of Law, University of Botswana
Dr Elizabeth Macharia-Mokobi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law (University of Botswana) and a Master’s degree in International Law (University of Cambridge). After several years as a litigation attorney in private practice Dr Macharia Mokobi joined the Administration of Justice as a Magistrate. Dr Macharia-Mokobi joined academia in 2008. Her teaching areas and research areas are international law and criminal procedure. She has written widely on refugee issues in Botswana.
Dr Pedro Figueiredo Neto
University of Lisbon
Pedro Figueiredo Neto is an anthropologist, architect and filmmaker, currently a research fellow at the Social Sciences Institute, University of Lisbon (ICS-ULisboa) and guest professor at NOVA University (FCSH-UNL). His interests focus on borders, migration, mobility, forced displacement, violence, extractivism, humanitarian regimes and refugee camps, mainly in the African context. More at pedrofneto.com.
Ms Jessica Kaye Lawrence
Attorney, Lawyers for Human Rights / University of Johannesburg
Jessica is an admitted attorney who is passionate about human rights and social justice. She joined Lawyers for Human Rights in 2014 and is currently the head of LHR’s Johannesburg Law Clinic, which provides free legal advice and assistance to asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants. During her time at LHR, she has worked with vulnerable and marginalised communities on various issues, including access to water and environmental justice and the right to fair labour practices for labour broker workers. In the recent past Jessica has worked on a diverse number of issues, including strategic impact litigation which seeks to address systemic issues within the asylum application system in South Africa.