Forced displacement places increased pressure on host communities. Refugees are often hosted in resource-scarce areas with high unemployment and poverty. Local, national and international collaboration is therefore crucial to mitigate social conflict and prevent instability from traveling with those fleeing war.
Photo from fieldwork in the TRUST project at PRIO.
Uganda, with its progressive refugee policies, is often presented as a success story in the world of refugee management. Through the 2006 Refugee Act, refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda are given employment opportunities, freedom of movement and access to basic services.
In rural settlements, refugees are also given a plot of land. Such open-door policies receive international praise and recognition, and continue to be essential to the protection of both refugees and local communities, as service provision and aid programmes targeting refugees also benefit the host population.
The combined impact of World Food Programme (WFP) ration cuts and continuous refugee inflows means that we need urgent discussions on the challenges confronting affected communities. As a global model for refugee policies, it is critical to address the existing risks to host-refugee relations in Uganda and explore potential solutions.
Aid cuts and challenges to the ‘self-reliance’ model
During our recent fieldwork in the Central and West Nile regions of Uganda, we learned that budget cuts from the World Food Programme are hitting some parts of the country particularly hard. The WFP rationalises cuts in food assistance partly on the grounds that the refugees living in settlements (approximately 94 percent of the total refugee population) receive a small plot of land to cultivate agriculture and feed their households, which is intended to foster refugee self-reliance. However, a core problem is that in the northwest, where most of the settlements are located, the land is barren. As a result, refugees remain dependent on food aid, and the WFP aid cuts have led to high levels of food insecurity, malnutrition, illness, and associated developmental delays in children.
During meetings with community-based organisations in West Nile, representatives voiced concern that food ration cuts and resource competition are increasing tension between refugees and hosts. Out of growing desperation, refugees are turning to begging and theft for survival. Refugees we spoke with confirmed that relations have become hostile. One refugee told us, “We are starving. If we go to the garden, we can get killed, by stepping on hosts’ land.” Another disclosed to the research group that many are beaten and some have been killed for picking firewood from hosts’ land. The severity of the situation has caused some to risk their lives to go back to South Sudan, either to tend to their lands or search for livelihood opportunities. As one member of the refugee community put it, “I’d rather go back home and die of a bullet, than starve to death here.”
Uganda’s “self-reliance ideal” approach for refugees faces issues due to the varied and often informal land ownership structures across the country. Following large influxes of refugees in 2016 , the size of land allocations has also decreased in many settlements. More refugees thus seek to rent farmland from the host community. However, informal arrangements and resource scarcity bring issues of their own, at risk of destabilising host-refugee relations.
Gaps in the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework
Uganda’s Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) focuses on development initiatives and investments that benefit both refugees and hosts. In host communities, schools and health services are shared and all development aid initiatives that target refugees follow the “30-70 Principle”: At least 30 percent also benefit Ugandan nationals. We heard stories of improved development in rural refugee-hosting areas precisely because of these regulations.
Our interviews revealed that host communities struggle to access services and that NGOs are reluctant to hire local host populations, favouring workers from their home districts. Although refugees in Uganda have the right to work under the same conditions as Ugandan nationals, most employers still require a work permit, which for a refugee is a burdensome and costly process. Additionally, when employed, refugees typically earn less than hosts hired for the same positions, which breeds resentment among refugees. Instead of viewing refugees as burdens, one of our informants stressed that refugees are important resources that can contribute to the Ugandan economy: “I can still do something even if I have nothing.” There appears to be a widespread awareness of this circular situation and yet seemingly no clear efforts to address this particular challenge.
Grassroots initiatives
With refugee numbers rising in parallel with budget cuts from international donors, it is becoming more apparent that available resources for refugee assistance are increasingly depleted in Uganda. An alternative crisis response comes from the refugees themselves through grassroots initiatives. Refugee-led organisations (RLOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs) provide “community-driven solutions that recognise the agency and capacity of refugees to contribute positively to their own welfare and that of their communities.” CBOs and RLOs are important actors for maintaining peace and stability and are the best placed to do so. One example is peacebuilding programmes such as community dialogues, where refugee and host community members educate each other through exchanging experiences. Additionally, livelihood programmes focused on food security involve both refugees and hosts in joint agricultural efforts. Other RLOs advocate for long-term structural changes and capacity building, stressing the resourcefulness of refugees and their unexploited potential.
However, while acknowledged by some as crucial providers of protection, CBOs and RLOs experience severe pushback to provide their services. They are required to follow the structure of INGOs and other humanitarian organisations, and are expected to have reporting mechanisms and accounting practices in place to be officially registered. These requirements increase their likelihood of being excluded from funding opportunities, as few corporations trust small actors with limited reach.
Moving forward
Refugees and hosts live side by side and share services, land and resources. Yet, the social relations that are built up from grassroots initiatives are fragile. While Uganda is often seen as successful in refugee management, prolonged constraints on livelihood opportunities can quickly lead to instability. Substantial cuts to development aid risk harming both refugees and the local communities that coexist with them. Our impression is that tensions have been building for some time and may be accelerated further.
The international community must recognise and address the growing food shortages following these cuts. Mitigating tensions and reducing conflict risk are increasingly important for both short-term peace and long-term solutions. CBOs and RLOs are the primary actors equipped for this, providing information and cross-community based dialogue and programmes which can substantially foster peaceful coexistence and mutual understanding. Despite their success, local initiatives are threatened without trust, support, and funding from the donor community. This is concerning as the increasing number of refugees coupled with cuts in food aid are damaging host-refugee relations and can incite violence.
Author biographies
Eirin Haugseth is a Doctoral Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and a PhD Candidate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and a former visiting academic at COMPAS. Her research examines the consequences of forced displacement in low- and middle-income countries, with a focus on host community experiences.
Kerstin Fisk is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. From 2021-2023 she served as an External Research Associate at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Her research focuses on the conditions under which refugee hosting is associated with political violence.
Patrick N. Schjølberg is a Research Assistant at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). His research examines how arable land quality and refugee population sizes impact perceptions of trust and safety in the host community.
About the TRUST project
The TRUST project examines how refugee arrivals affect host perceptions of trust and well-being and how contextual factors shape this relationship. The project combines spatial survey data of close to 300,000 respondents across 37 African countries, coupled with new, detailed refugee settlement data in a quasi-experimental analytical framework. The project provides the first systematic, comparative investigation of how refugee arrivals affect host-populations in Africa.
- This text was first published by the COMPAS blog, University of Oxford