Lawrence Today magazine, Summer 2005
Claudena Skran, associate professor of government, has been awarded a $60,000
grant by the Fulbright Scholar Program to conduct a study on the role of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) in refugee resettlement in post-civil-war Sierra Leone.
Arguably the poorest country in the world, Sierra Leone is dealing with the
aftermath of a brutal ten-year-long civil war that left 50,000 citizens dead,
destroyed 300,000 homes and 80 percent of the country’s schools, and
forced nearly three-quarters of a million people to flee their homes. Since
the war’s end in 2001 and national elections in 2002, an estimated
245,000 refugees have returned to the war-torn country, while more than 200,000
others
who were displaced have made their way back to their homes.
Among the nearly one-half-million returnees are thousands of people with special
needs, including amputees, orphans, former child soldiers, and women who were
victims of rape and sexual abuse.
“Under any circumstances, the task of assisting so many returning people
would be difficult, but for Sierra Leone, which had the lowest ranking among
177
countries on the 2004 Human Development Index, it is proving to be especially
daunting,” Skran says. “These people are now trying to rebuild
their lives in a country that has been shattered.”
According to Skran, the new Sierra Leone government is attempting to reconstruct
an economic, political, and social infrastructure in a country with a grim
profile. The annual per capita income is $150, the literacy rate is just
36 percent, and life expectancy is less than 35 years of age. Only two percent
of the country’s population is 60 years of age or older and, with 250
out of 1,000 children dying before the age of five, it has the world’s
worst infant-mortality rate. Because of the sheer enormity of the situation,
says Skran, NGOs will play a vital role in the process of refugee resettlement
and reintegration in Sierra Leone.
“Local NGOs and the local affiliates of international NGOs are working
hard to create important links to the major international agencies that are involved
in Sierra Leone, including the office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees,” she says.
Using the capital city of Freetown as her base and working closely with the
Sierra Leone Opportunities Industrialization Centre (SLOIC), the Lawrence professor
will turn her research project on the role of NGOs in world politics in Sierra
Leone into a case study, focusing on four major questions: organization, governance,
goals, and impact.
“I plan to investigate how NGOs in Sierra Leone are organized, how they
are funded, how they are governed, and how they interact with each other and
with
the local and national governments,” Skran says. “I am also interested
in seeing what impact they are having on the resettlement and reintegration
of refugees and how they are specifically addressing those victims with special
needs, especially the former child soldiers and the female victims of sexual
abuse.”
Skran has conducted extensive research on refugee interests in Europe and
is the author of the book Refugees in Interwar Europe: The Emergence
of a Regime in which she analyzed the major players in the international refugee arena,
including private volunteer agencies, the forerunners to today’s NGOs
.
She also has conducted field research in Central America, studying displaced
people in El Salvador and refugee issues in Mexico and Belize. Most recently,
while teaching at Lawrence’s London
Centre, she met with asylum-seekers
and natives of Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, and other former British colonies
in Africa.
“Most of my earlier research has focused on the role of NGOs at the international
level, but with this Fulbright grant, I’ll be able to shift my perspective
a bit and consider how NGOs help or hinder refugee resettlement and development
at the local and national levels,” Skran explains.
“The people at the SLOIC and other organizations that I have discussed
this project with are all excited about it, especially since a lack of funding
prevents
them from conducting any kind of independent research themselves.”
Skran joined the Lawrence faculty in 1990. She earned a bachelor’s degree
in social science from Michigan State University, where she was named a Rhodes
Scholar in 1983. She earned her master’s degree and doctorate in international
relations at Oxford University.