Sahrawi Refugee Camps - Work and Economy

Work and Economy

While there are several international organizations (ECHO, WFP, Oxfam, UNHCR etc.) working in the camps, the Polisario has insisted on using mainly local staff for construction, teaching etc. It argues that this will help activate the refugee population, to avoid a sense of stagnation and hopelessness after 30 years in exile. However, jobs remain scarce and those Sahrawis educated at universities abroad can rarely if ever find opportunities to use their skills. Some Sahrawis work in nearby Tindouf city.

A simple monetary economy began developing in the camps during the 1990s, after Spain decided to pay pensions to Sahrawis who had been forcibly drafted as soldiers in the Tropas Nomadas during the colonial time. Money also came from Sahrawis working in Algeria or abroad, and from refugees who pursue a traditional bedouin and tuareg lifestyle, herding cattle in Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario-held areas of Western Sahara. The private economy however remains very limited, and the camps continue to survive mainly on foreign and Algerian aid.

Read more about this topic:  Sahrawi Refugee Camps

Famous quotes containing the words work and, work and/or economy:

    I pray every single second of my life; not on my knees, but with my work. My prayer is to lift woman to equality with man. Work and worship are one with me. I can not imagine a God of the universe made happy by my getting down on my knees and calling him “great.”
    Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)

    Many divorces are not really the result of irreparable injury but involve, instead, a desire on the part of the man or woman to shatter the setup, start out from scratch alone, and make life work for them all over again. They want the risk of disaster, want to touch bottom, see where bottom is, and, coming up, to breathe the air with relief and relish again.
    Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)

    I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.
    Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)