The Uganda refugee policy, embodied in the 2006 Refugees Act and 2010 Refugees Regulations has been lauded as one of the most generous in the world. Uganda’s longstanding ‘open-door’ policy has benefited it both politically and financially, with hundreds of millions of donor funds provided each year for humanitarian and development projects.
Following the adoption of the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants, Uganda agreed to implement the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), which aims to enhance the self-reliance of refugees. The Government agreed to use the ongoing implementation of Uganda’s Third National Development Plan covering the period 2020/21 – 2024/25, to integrate refugee response into longer-term national planning, based on the CRRF roadmap. Uganda has received high praise for its progressive refugee model, which grants refugees the right to work, access to land, education, and health services, and a significant degree of freedom of movement.
The IOM Migration Governance Framework uses a comprehensive analytical framework to identify a set of progressive policies Uganda has, particularly around the integration of refugees and asylum seekers from the region. With an estimated 1.5 million refugees, Uganda is home to more refugees than any other country in Africa. And despite its low per capita income and economic challenges including huge numbers of unemployed youth, Uganda is a case study of a generous refugee-hosting policy that has become legendary in migration discourse.
It represents what has been identified by the UN Commissioner for Refugees as the ‘Uganda model,’ because it involves permitting refugees to work, use the land for cultivation, move freely across the country, and have access to government-provided health care and education. These rights represent a form of national treatment that is rarely accorded by countries of the first asylum, where the numbers are typically high and so tend to represent competition for scarce resources and jobs with nationals. The policy framework is built on a strong solidarity norm towards Uganda’s neighbors that has the effect of empowering refugee populations to seek employment, engage in agricultural production, undertake enterprise activities and freely integrate into the local populations.
However, Uganda’s self-reliance refugee model is not without challenges, its sustainability is questionable because Uganda is a third-world country that depends on the goodwill of donors to fund its refugee governance framework. According to Paul Mwirichia of World Vision -Uganda
“…Burden sharing is not balanced and this has left the government overstretched where the international community doesn’t meet its side of the bargain. This funding gap explains why Uganda is not meeting the bare minimum in every sector which leads to the prioritization of sectors”.
The freedom of movement ensured by the policy framework requires careful facilitation to enable easier movement in and out of settlement areas, including requisite oversight so that refugees are better able to coordinate and collaborate with host communities on economic activities. In addition, special attention is needed for urban refugees—especially youth—to enable them to benefit from social and economic opportunities without being exploited or resorting to risky behaviors.
The Uganda refugee policy framework has historically been promoted as an exemplary case that demonstrates generosity, solidarity, and hospitality, advancing a development-based approach to refugee assistance within and beyond Africa. However, it is important to understand the limitations to the sustainability of such a model of “success”. The unexamined idealization of Uganda’s refugee policy can obscure the challenges the country faces, in particular at the community level host and refugee populations.
In addition, refugee-impacted areas are at risk due to underlying poverty, vulnerability, and limited resilience to shock further exacerbated by the presence of refugees. While many Ugandans have welcomed refugees, there are increasing accounts of overburdened districts and strains on resources, like firewood, in some parts of the country. So, while the government still has a long way to go in providing for its citizens in refugee-hosting communities, limited support from the international community implies limited resources which results in limited management. As of June 2022, the 2021-2022 Uganda Refugee Response Plan was only 25% funded, leaving a shortfall of US$596 million to cover all sectors ranging from protection to food security to sanitation.
The success and sustainability of Uganda’s refugee policy framework rely on robust and well-functioning arrangements for burden and responsibility-sharing, and the ability of the international community to live up to their commitments in the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its Protocol through innovative means and provision of concrete contributions to bring these arrangements to life as articulated in the Global Compact on Refugees. Otherwise, while the country has been recognized for fostering the self-reliance of refugees, without proper funding of its refugee model of self-reliance and building resilience will not be sustained and will remain on paper but far from reality.
It also goes without saying that the government needs to pay attention to and make an assessment of the security risks that refugee influxes pose especially refugees from countries like the DRC with rebel activities. For example, the most recent attacks in a secondary school by DRC-based ADF rebels where 37 students were confirmed dead.
By Patricia Namakula
