Uganda is considered to have one of the most progressive refugee regimes and refugee policy globally. Under the Refugees Act of 2006 and the 2010 regulations, Uganda’ s asylum policies uphold key rights, including access to asylum, freedom of movement and expression and the right to work. The legislation conforms to international refugee law.
The country provides a home to 1.74 million refugees and asylum-seekers (September 2024). Most refugees come from South Sudan (55%), the Democratic Republic of Congo (31%), Somalia (3%), Burundi (2%), Sudan (3%) and other nationalities (6%).
Refugees primarily live in settlements within 12 districts, alongside host communities, resulting in economic and environmental challenges. An additional eight per cent reside in Kampala according to UNHCR multi-year strategy 2023 – 2025
However, direct assistance to Uganda’s refugee population has been declining annually, leading to disparities compared to refugees in other Countries.
Last week, while appearing before the Parliament’s Presidential Affairs Community, Minister for General Duties in the Office of the Prime Minister , Kasule Lumumba revealed that foreign donors funding Uganda’s refugee feeding program have notified the government of their intention to end support within three months (by June).
As a result, the government will be required to take full responsibility for feeding the 1.7 million refugees residing in the country. This shifts the burden onto Ugandan taxpayers. Are Ugandans ready to pay taxes to take care of the huge number of refugees? Never, because the country has a lot of pressing issues to fund
Additionally, refugees in Uganda are often settled in environmentally-fragile areas such as central forest reserves. Fuel needs such as firewood for cooking has led to refugees contributing to the decline of forest cover from 24 per cent (4.9 million hectares) of Uganda’ s land area in 1990 to 9 per cent (1.83 million hectares) in 2019.
Increased environmental degradation will further exacerbate tensions, protection risks, and socio-economic vulnerability of citizens for example to climate change like droughts
The liberal refugee policy also makes it possible for Refugees to merge with local ethnicities which have led to alteration of several ethnic identities living a long refugee camp and around the country. This puts host communities on a verge of having mixed identities or extinction for example; many Banyarwanda and Congolese have bought land around host communities and around the country which is unconstitutional for foreigners
There have been many cases of refugees escaping from refugee camps ending up mixing with local citizens. Also, these exact economic or social competition to the local citizens for example business completion, completion for employment opportunities among others
At some point, there have been security concerns about refugees in Uganda with many involved in crimes including high profile crimes like murder and terrorism, clashes with local communities among others.
In September 2020, the government deployed troops in Madi-Okollo district in the north-west region where tension arose following deadly attacks on refugees by local people. More than 10 South Sudanese refugees were killed, and 19 others were seriously wounded in clashes at a water point in Rhino refugee camp
Fifteen homes were burnt to the ground and another 26 were confirmed to have been looted and vandalised. The violence erupted in response to an alleged attack on an 18-year-old Ugandan cattle herder, which local men blamed on the refugees
However, many government officials under OPM have been continuous beneficiaries from corruption scandals involving refugee cash, and hence will always de-campaign any attempts to revise the country’s refugee policy.
For example, in 2018, as Uganda was catering for hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese escaping conflict across the border, a major corruption and mismanagement scandal hit the country’s widely praised refugee program. The scandal implicated both government officials and the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR), and little meaningful accountability occurred on the side of the Ugandan government.
Each time corruption allegations emerge government officials appear avoid full accountability by leveraging claims of Uganda position as Africa’s largest refugee-hosting country, one with a progressive, open-door policy that has garnered credit from around the world, which generates important political capital towards the international community, which affects the leverage of international actors to demand accountability from the Ugandan government.
There is an urgent need for parliament and other policy makers to revise the ease in obtaining refugee status in Uganda. Globally, Uganda is considered to have one of the most flexible refuge policies. In the neighboring countries of Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, or even Europe and American continents, it takes a reasonable amount of time and due legal hearing processes before granting refugee status.
