“Civil Servants of the Humanitarian Regime”: Incentive Workers Voice their Concerns in New Film and Case Study

Open Society University Network recently published “Incentive Labor,” a powerful case study by Laura Kunreuther and Mulki Mohamed about a special category of work for refugees in Kenya that provides one of the few forms of paid labor available. Incentive labor, sometimes known as “volunteer work” was developed by the UN High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR), to help enable refugees to work, given the legal restrictions on employment imposed by the Kenyan state. 

The case study is accompanied by a short documentary film also called “Incentive Labor,” directed by Kamoso Bertrand. Both examine the problematic nature of this work and the potential solutions suggested by incentive workers themselves and other experts. Research by UNHCR and ILO is used to support the study’s thesis, demonstrating that despite widespread recognition of the inequities of incentive labor over the last twenty years, very little has been done to address the issue.
Read the case study here. Watch the video above.

A Critical Part of Life in Kakuma Refugee Camp

In Kakuma Refugee Camp, refugees are forced to find work to supplement the meager allowances provided by humanitarian organizations and the camp’s governing body, UNHCR. But work is not only about supplementing allowances; it also fosters agency and dignity, according to the study. The camp, home to approximately 300,000 refugees from more than twenty countries across Africa and Asia, was established in the early 1990s, following the war in Sudan as well as conflicts in Somalia, Ethiopia, and other countries in the Great Lakes region. The study explains that most of the refugees in Kakuma “have fled war, conflict, persecution, political instability, and ethnic violence, seeking a place where they can live in peace.” 

In Kenya, refugees are not generally allowed to work in salaried positions without a coveted work permit that is difficult to obtain, so they turn to incentive work. Incentive workers often comprise the majority of laborers in many humanitarian organizations within camps and have become a critical part of Kakuma as it has transformed from an initial, short term emergency project into something much more permanent.

The study provides a sobering example of the degree to which refugees support NGOs with the research of Blair Sackett, who writes that the largest NGO in the camp employed “zero international staff, 336 Kenyan national staff, and 2,234 refugee incentive workers.” “Providing a steady, if minimal, source of income for those employed as incentive workers, refugees effectively have become the civil servants of the humanitarian regime in many contexts,” write Kunreuther and Mohamed. 
 
Differences in Treatment and Pay

“The main complaint refugees have about incentive work is the radical difference in treatment and in pay between incentive and national Kenyan workers,” says the study.  “These differences exist even if the qualifications and the workload of the national and incentive workers are identical.”  

The study makes it clear that while incentive labor programs are usually viewed as humanitarian interventions that might promote self-reliance, many refugee workers experience frustration and a deep sense of dissatisfaction. Incentive positions include teachers, interpreters, nurses, social workers, and even doctors receiving small stipend in return for the work performed—an “incentive.” In theory, incentive work allows refugees to earn a small income, contribute to their community, and develop self-reliance but as research and the documentary demonstrate, the very idea of “self-reliance” carries problematic assumptions about the complex precarity of life in the camp. 

Camp rations are just enough to keep people alive, making it necessary for refugees to consume additional “non-relief food” in attempts to thrive. The very low-paying incentive work they find with NGOs inside the camp provides one of the few ways for refugees to get enough cash for a very modest increase in food consumption. Frustrated incentive workers question why this remains the status quo.

“I sometimes wonder why we are given 9,000 Kenyan Shillings and below while the nationals are given 50,000 Kenyan Shillings and above,” says one refugee, describing how equally credentialed refugees who work as teachers are paid much less than Kenyans. “There is clearly a need to reform the wage structures to ensure that refugees are compensated more equitably, fostering both economic stability and, perhaps more importantly, a sense of dignity,” write the case study authors.

Revising Scripts Written by the Humanitarian World

In the documentary, Caroline Njuki of the International Labor Organization (ILO), says that “From a legal angle there is really no excuse.”  She says that incentive labor “goes against every possible Kenyan law.  It goes against minimum wage. It goes against the employment act.  It goes against the Refugee Act.”  While Njuki notes that the ILO is pursuing a conversation with UNHCR about finding a better solution for refugee workers, the study points out that this conversation has been ongoing since 2005. It also states that over the course of twenty years, reports by ILO, UNHCR, and Oxfam all indicate the need for sustained advocacy and political will to change legal frames around incentive work but as of yet no significant change has taken place.  There is one NGO that does employ national and refugee workers with equitable terms and a future cut of the film will include an interview with the CEO of this organization to show how they manage to do this.
 
The authors note that since 2022, there have been some efforts to include more refugees in policy conversations, in an effort to begin addressing refugees’ need to work and to at least gesture towards listening to their appeals. At the 2023 Global Refugee Forum held in Geneva, 320 refugee or stateless individuals participated—more than four times the number of refugee participants at the previous Forum in 2019. While this is notable, the scripts that many of the refugees use remain written by the humanitarian world, according to the study. Within this landscape, the “Incentive Labor” film and case study seek to provide a platform for advocacy about incentive work that is informed by refugees who have intimate knowledge of humanitarian organizations, yet ultimately compose their scripts outside of the humanitarian setting within which they must live.  

Post Date: 05-06-2025