2-Year project launched to support Zini Camp settlers

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in partnership with UNHCR - the UN Refugee Agency, on July 2, 2025, launched a two-year project to strengthen the resilience and improve the lives of forcibly displaced persons and their host communities.

Known as the “Supporting the Resilience of Forcibly Displaced People and Host Communities in Northern Ghana” project, or UNITE, the project will enhance the inclusion and access to basic services for forcibly displaced populations and host communities, particularly women and children, while strengthening national systems for inclusive development.

It is being implemented by UNICEF, UNHCR, the Ghana Refugee Board and co-funded by the European Union (EU).

It will improve access to essential services such as access to electricity and health, foster social cohesion for forcibly displaced persons and other vulnerable groups, and promote long-term sustainable development.

Launch

At the launch of the project at Zini in the Sissala West District in the Upper West Region, the Ambassador of the European Delegation in Ghana, Irchad Razaaly, said the project estimated to cost about €2.7 million, would provide 500 housing units for the refugees who were currently being housed in tents, tackle the issue of malnutrition and health, water, sanitation and hygiene, education and social cohesion.

A dilapidated school block at Zini DA Basic School

He said the project would rehabilitate and construct WASH infrastructure in schools, health centres and communities, including solar-powered water systems, gender-segregated sanitation facilities, and undertake hygiene promotion activities.

Mr Razaaly said the project had been designed to support both the family seeking protection and the host community that welcomed them.

“We recognise that your generosity has brought real challenges; it has increased pressure on limited resources, services and infrastructure. And this project aims at supporting and addressing these challenges,” he stated.

He said the project would replace the tent with a safer and cooler shelter built by local hands, and install street lights to improve safety at night.

Under the health sector, he said the project would strengthen health services through training, supplies and better systems, to ensure medicine and nutritional support reach those in need.

In education, he said the Zini D/A basic school would be rehabilitated and children “who missed years of education would receive the support they need to catch up. Every child in Zini and every child coming from Burkina Faso has a right to go to school”.

“We would also promote birth registration, legal identity, so every child can be counted and protected,” he said.

Local voice

The European Ambassador to Ghana noted that for the project to succeed, there would be a need for local involvement as “you know what works and where support is needed. Our goal is to strengthen your system and build resilience so that the host and displaced communities thrive”.

An overcrowded classroom at Zini

He said the real strength of the project “lies in all of you. You, the families, leaders, workers, teachers, youth and elders of Zini, you are the heart of this effort”.

He commended the Zini Traditional Council for making land available to accommodate the refugees and for accepting them into their community “to have shelter and to farm”.

He said the project was not limited to Ghana alone, but extended to the northern parts of Benin, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire, which were facing similar challenges.

Sacrifice

The Paramount Chief of Zini, Kuoro Abu Diaka Sukabe Ninia V, said since the inception of the settlement camp two years ago, the community had sacrificed more than required to create a welcoming, conducive environment in establishing a stable settlement.

Some of the Burkinabe refugees at Zini

That, he said, had entrenched their belief as a traditional area that “people fleeing persecution must be given the needed support to redefine and build hope in search of a life with dignity”.

He said the traditional council had made available 200 acres of land to the settlers for farming activities.

“However, we will require the intervention of the EU and other bodies such as the UNHCR and the GRB for the customary rental and release conditions to be agreed upon,” he said.

Kuoro Ninia said the traditional council had also undertaken several initiatives to support the efforts towards building resilience in the community, which included fun games, festivals and “an ongoing process to form and build community teams responsible for conflict resolution”.

So far, he said the traditional council had involved the settlers in the decision-making process in the community, and they had been part of the traditional council meetings.

Change of name

He said the council had advanced plans to negotiate a change of name of the refugee camp to a more accommodating and inclusive name that enhances integration.

Samuel Dzikunu (in jacket), Head of Field Office of UNHCR, conducting the team from UNICEF and EU around the camp

He appealed for targeted projects aimed at building the capacity of the traditional council in methods of conflict resolution and other oversight responsibilities.

“This will be the last leg on the theory of change that will sustain the impact of all the interventions being implemented,” he said and explained that the chieftaincy institution played a key role in the impact of the project in the communities.

UNHCR

The Head of Field Office of UNHCR, Samuel Dzikunu, was grateful to the EU for honouring its part of the promise of providing the refugees with permanent and safer accommodation.

A section of the Zini Camp

He said the tents being used by the refugees were not conducive, as they became very hot during the dry season, and could also be dismantled or carried away during storms.

He was grateful that one of the main challenges facing the settlers, which is shelter, would soon become a thing of the past following the launch of the project through the support of the EU.

On education, he said more than 90 per cent of the Burkinabe children had never been to school, and to enable them to fit into the Ghanaian system, the UNHCR had introduced the Complementary Basic Education programme to bring them up to a level to enable them to transition into the Ghana Education Service system.

“Our position is that we would want to continue with that intervention, but again it calls for support and resources to do that, and we are just hoping that UNICEF will be in the position with support from the EU to help us maintain and continue to discharge that responsibility,” he said.

Zini settlement

Mr Dzikunu explained that the Zini settlement was just an area designated by the government for refugees who, for some reason, could not find themselves in the communities to stay on their own.

One of the tents housing the refugees

“In other words, it is for the most vulnerable and the needy.

The government’s position is that we should go into the community, register them, let them stay and strengthen the facilities, provide services to the communities so that both refugees and host community members would benefit, and that has been our approach,” he explained.

In the Upper West, some of the refugees are in Sissala East and Sissala West, Lambussie, Nandom, Wa East, Wa West and Jirapa.

The Zini settlement has a total of 1,196 refugees, with 420 of them being children.