Informing humanitarians worldwide 24/7 — a service provided by UN OCHA

Uganda + 5 more

Road map for the implementation of the comprehensive refugee response framework in Uganda 2018-2020

Attachments

Uganda CRRF Road Map 2018-2020

1. BACKGROUND

Uganda, a country with a population of approximately 42 million, has a long history of hosting refugees and asylum seekers. On average, Uganda has hosted over 160,000 refugees per year since 1959, a number which fluctuates proportionally to security conditions in neighbouring countries.

Most recently, throughout 2016 and 2017, Uganda faced three parallel emergencies from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Burundi. By December 2016, the total number of refugees amounted to 982,716 persons, with a ratio of 24 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants. By the end of May 2017, in Uganda there were 30 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants. As of 1st October 2017, Uganda hosts more than 1,380,000 million refugees1. With 1,034,106 refugees from South Sudan, 236,572 from DRC, 39,041 from Burundi, 35,373 from Somalia and others from elsewhere, Uganda is Africa’s largest refugee hosting country and one of the five largest refugee hosting countries in the world. Indeed, Uganda is ranked among the seven least developed countries after Cameroon, Chad, the DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan, who collectively host 4.9 million refugees, or 28 per cent of the global total.

Despite daily arrivals of refugees from South Sudan for more than a year, Uganda has kept its borders open and maintained its settlement approach, with host communities and District Local Governments at the frontline of the country’s refugee response. With continued refugee influxes, Uganda is likely to host 1.8 million refugees by the end of 2018, mainly from South Sudan (1.38 million), the DRC (296,000), Burundi (55,000), and other nationalities. Among them are 375,000 new refugees estimated to flee from South Sudan (300,000), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (60,000) and Burundi (15,000) in 2018. These trends have created a perpetual cycle of emergency response to urgent needs as well as a growing protracted refugee population, particularly in North West and South West Uganda. Durable solutions including voluntary repatriation will remain out of reach for the vast majority of refugees living in Uganda, leaving refugee-hosting districts with significantly increased populations for the foreseeable future.

Notwithstanding Uganda’s progressive refugee policy and the contribution of refugees to the local economy, refugee-impacted areas remain at risk. The underlying poverty and vulnerability of refugees, their limited resilience to shocks, and insufficient viable economic opportunities contribute to higher overall poverty levels in refugee-hosting areas, which are often remote and less developed.

Refugee-hosting districts are now recognized under the vulnerability criteria of Uganda’s National Development Plan 2015/16-2019/20 (NDP II), making them a priority for development interventions and providing an opportunity to engage various actors to comprehensively respond to the humanitarian and development needs of refugee-hosting districts and the entirety of their population - both refugees and host communities. Particular focus must remain on the dual dimension on the peacebuilding: conflict prevention, resolution and mitigation of social conflict arising between hosts and newcomers over scarce resources and those related with conflicts at the origin of displacement.